Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[DaisyBuff]

I am not the least bit artsy-fartsy burns can sing and tap-dance

The chickies and horses seem to appreciate my singing to them (at least I haven’t heard any complaints!)… yet!

You sound like me. I love to sing. (Although whenever I do outside, my chickens start screaming and clucking.) I can Irish Step dance a tiny bit, but I'm still learning how to do that. I love to draw, but none of my pictures turn out the way I was hoping.

 

[DaisyBuff]

Not a lot of drinking going on today as there has been a hawk and now an eagle circling above us all morning and afternoon. I got a few of Théo and one from two days ago.
First I was photo bombed...
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But then I managed to get this fun one
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Nougat was the only other chicken kind enough to drink
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And this is from Tuesday, Brune drinking and Cannelle behind.
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Who is the little bantam? He's adorable!

 

[ValarieF]

Wow - that is detailed finicky work. I used to embroider - my Grandma taught me and she was amazingly skilled - some time I will post some pictures of her work - she incorporated beads and pearls. Among other things she did to earn money was make hats and some of the hats had bead embroidery on them.

Yea I use beads also.

 

[BY Bob]

Before I hit "chick watch" tomorrow and fall in love with all the little fuzzballs and praying for pullets I will update on the current 4 fuzzballs. Chiquita's 2. Goose is for sure a pullet, the silkie Hoppy, is starting to give off boy vibes dang it. Momma hen's 2 Kit and Kat. Kit is a cockerel and Kat is also now showing signs of being a cockerel as well that are hard to ignore. So if I'm right, and sadly I think I am, that is 3 out of 4 cockerels. Excuse me while I go and hide somewhere and cry in frustration.

 

[BY Bob]

I love the name of the ranch it’s cool

Thank you. I was inspired on a long drive to Florida.

 

[featherhead007]

That is whatever sound was occurring at the time slowed way down. So if you were talking to Maggie, then that is your voice. I try to remain silent when taking slow motion videos for that reason.

 

[BY Bob]

I honestly feed a 2 to 1 of pellets to scratch grains while Lety prefers to feed mostly scratch grains and wet puppy chow then in the evening. Now because of heavy molting I am feeding almost straight feather fixer pellets. I'll top up the feeders every few days with the pellets and Lety will do her thing. Other than the molting they are healthy so who can I say is right or wrong. Really don't matter as long as the chickens are healthy.

Commercial feed is designed for commercial farming operations in general. It will provide a good basic nutrition. We have often discussed on this thread how chickens, when given options, will change what they eat based upon what they see their needs as being.

Molting being the biggest example. In most cases, chickens who are molting are looking for higher protein feed and may sun commercial layer feed for other foods sources.

The 90/10 rule really applies if you are their only source of feed. If your chickens can scratch for worms and bugs, eat grass, etc. then you are actually only providing a small amount of their nutrition via chicken feed. There is no realistic way to judge a 90/10 ratio as they may spend the whole day eating nothing but seeds.

I give my chickens a lot of credit for knowing what they need to eat. There is feed available at all times. They eat very little feed outside of the winter. They seem to know not to over graze any one food source in the yard. In fact, they will leave corn and meal worms for later if I do give them some.

In short, I have learned to provide options and trust them to eat what they need. I think it has worked for me on the most part. I do think Aurora is a little over weight but that is her choice. I can't really stop her from eating. And now that she is queen, she has dibs on everything.

 

[BY Bob]

I rarely read this thread, and am not sure if I have ever posted in it, but I happened to be reading it yesterday and wanted to give you my deepest condolences. I know your heart is hurting, but Chaco is no longer in pain.

I hope my own story will give you a little comfort. Colic can be such a difficult thing to deal with, and can range from a mild “stomach ache” that is easily dealt with, to a massive impaction that is frequently fatal. I dealt with the full range of that in my beautiful gelding, Strider. He was my pride and joy. I owned his mother, and had bred him, raised him, and trained him all myself. So the first time he colicked at around 5 years old I was determined to save him. The surgery cost several thousand dollars, he had a coastal impaction. So I never fed him coastal again, he got only alfalfa. The recovery took a few months or restricting his activity and monitoring his diet and incision. Finally he seemed to be all healed up.

About a year later, he colicked again and I rushed him to the vet. They tubes him and this time it turned out to be a simple fix. We had seeded part of the pasture to try to get it to grow some winter grass, and he had discovered the grass seed and licked it up from the ground. Along with a ton of dirt. And once in his stomach the grass seed swelled up. They flushed/drained his stomach through the tube, and took about 3-4 five-gallon buckets of fluid/seed/dirt out of it. Once again he seemed to recover just fine.

A year later it happened again. He colicked and I rushed him to the vet. They examined him and decided it was something more major, and would require probably require another surgery. They recommended that I take him to the Texas A&M vet college/hospital for further examination. So we made the hour long drive. After more testing and a lot of tears I decided to let him go, to not put him through another surgery and recovery, and held his head as they put him down. Because it is a teaching hospital I gave them permission to do a necropsy on him, which would also let them practice some surgical skills. The next day they called me and said I had definitely made the right decision. His intestines had dozens of adhesions that had developed from the first surgery, which were keeping things from moving freely. They said it wasn’t uncommon for it to happen after an abdominal surgery, and that at that time they hadn’t figured out any way to predict when it would happen, or what caused some people/animals to get them worst than other. They were surprised he had made it as long as he did without colicking again, and said he would have been prone to it happening frequently for the rest of his life.

I miss him still, and even though it has been over 10 years since I let him go it took me several hours to type this. I kept having to take a break because I couldn’t see through the tears. But I take comfort in the good memories, and in knowing that he never again has to go through that pain and discomfort.

Worst part is right now I can’t even find any old pics of him to post.

Thank you for sharing your story with us. It is never easy to remember these events in our lives but sharing them really can help others.

I do not remember you posting here before so let me give you the "welcome to the thread". We are glad to have you along for the ride. Please do not be shy about posting in the future.

 

[ValarieF]

 

[BY Bob]

That's reminded me to get some corn for my girls today

They will love you for it.