Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[rural mouse]

I think this is too advanced for me. I will put them both in the ‘chickens’ category; ‘pretty chickens’ sub-category.

Boiled down: different parts of England, orpingtons have bigger, fluffier tails, sussex have wider backs, lay more eggs, but start laying later. Orpintons are also more shy and the roos a bit calmer.

 

[RoyalChick]

Boiled down: different parts of England, orpingtons have bigger, fluffier tails, sussex have wider backs, lay more eggs, but start laying later. Orpintons are also more shy and the roos a bit calmer.

Pretty Chickens!

 

[RoyalChick]

Happy Fluffy Butt Friday from Diana who is still molting but is sporting quite a fluffy butt.

 

[rural mouse]

Pretty Chickens!

Agreed (and Russian orloffs have the same coloring but have beards and muffs)

On my wish list

 

[BY Bob]

I have to confess to being a Gaston fan - I don't mind if he runs away and wimpers - better than causing war!
On your idea to lock Babs and Eli in the coop to get to know it, I think they really know it now. I haven't locked them in (apart from yesterday evening which I don't think I will repeat) but they have spent a lot of time exploring.
Bernie is spending a lot of time chasing them but not all the time. There are long stretches of peace when everyone is happy to occupy a different part of the Chicken Palace and several times those have had the two new ladies inside the coop.
It also rather adorably included a long sunbathing session where they picked spots of sunshine that were a good 10' apart so the two pairs could bathe in peace.
I find how they learn to live together completely fascinating.

I love integration time. You learn so much about chicken behavior in general and hens personalities in particular.

 

[RoyalChick]

Agreed (and Russian orloffs have the same coloring but have beards and muffs)

View attachment 3368352On my wish list

Magnificent!

 

[BY Bob]

Agreed (and Russian orloffs have the same coloring but have beards and muffs)

View attachment 3368352On my wish list

I love a beard and muff.

 

[ValarieF]

Fed all the chooks and just left the tweens cage door open. They need to go out and mingle and deal with the other chooks.

 

[RoyalChick]

I love a beard and muff.

View attachment 3368380

Splendid!

 

[ChicoryBlue]

So I tried confining them to the coop before roosting. I am kinda regretting interfering as I think there is less runway for them from these rafters unless they fly on to roosts.
I do hope they don’t break their necks coming down.
Ugh. Why did I do this?


View attachment 3367864

I thought they were surprisingly accurate flyers in those videos.

This reminds me of Lil' Queenie roosting high too, so I'd like to tell the story -- Her "quarantine" was in a room in the house, I had her in the Buckeye's big brooder with a pretty high roost available, one the pullets liked. Not good enough. Two walls were made up of nylon window screening taped to weeny 1/8"x2"x 4ft strapping sticks for framing (also taped together), going up almost to the ceiling, about five feet up from the floor of the brooder.

Well, I go in to check on her in the evening and she's nowhere to be seen, and just as I'm standing there confounded she makes a little "Huh? I was sleeping" bok. It's impossible, but there's a dark figure way up there. She had wedged herself between the ceiling and the top cross stick, perfectly balanced on the 1/8' edge. She thoughtfully roosted head-out, with her bum over the brooder. I was surprised she hadn't brought it all down with her weight. I got her down and put her on the top roost. She did that a few times, even roosting bum-out once (I still can't imagine how she maneuvered on the 1/8" edge to turn around). It all started to sag soon, I filled in that space up there, made her a higher well-supported roost and cleared more landing area. That ended it.

Lil' Queenie (RIP). She used that roost as the highest available from then on. When she first integrated she also tried to roost very high in the Big Run. Once I showed her I wanted her to roost with the Buckeyes in the secure coop she did that.