Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[knoturavggrl]

Ask Aurora

This week’s question comes from @RoyalChick Eli

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Dear Aurora,
I know your scribe is busy on other duties, but maybe you could give this your attention when you get a chance. My hooman explained that the scribe was unavailable because of a thing called ‘werk’. I wasn’t really listening, but she explained it was something to do with being able to keep you all supplied with meal worms, so it sounded important.

Anyway, the topic I want to raise with you is very important to me and I believe also to the chicken world in general.

Before I explain more, let me remind you about myself. I am a small chicken and definitely not the leader of the pack. I am fine with that and I spend most of my time on my two main passions which are cultivating my beard and whiskers, and EATING. I should say I also enjoy flying but that is not really a hobby, it is just who I am (and no, I don’t expect I will grow out of it as RC hopes).
It is about my second passion that I am writing and a dilemma I have concerning BROCCOLI.

My hooman says it is good for me ‘that’ll put hair on your chest feathers on your beard’. In general I trust her menu recommendations - I particularly like the dried up cat food (made from venison she says), and the sunflower seeds she hides under her jacket are simply the best things on earth - but in this case I am not so sure. Bernadette, who is the boss hen here, says not to touch it.

I mean I quite like how it looks and smells. I even think I remember it from childhood. But if Bernie says no, does that mean I can’t even try it?

This is really messing with my head. I mean food is my thing. What am I to do here?

Any advice would be really appreciated.

Yours, perpetually in search of a snack,
Eli



Dear Eli,

So you are one of Bernadette’s minions. Good for her. I see she took my advice and ascended to the lofty status she rightly deserved. If only the rest of the world would listen to me and honor “The Way of the Chicken” there would be fewer problems.

I also see you recognize that she is your better. That is good. Follow “The Way” and your life will be happy and fulfilled.

Broccoli. I have to say I can’t stand the stuff. No one here likes it. Give us some brussels sprouts or a cabbage any day. Hattie loves the lettuce. We really do like vegetables here.

But Broccoli………….Blech.

Put us all in the same category as that former president George Herbert Walker Bush. No thank you.

Hmmmmmm………..President Aurora………………

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The entire world would be a better place if I was in charge. I could solve that Ukraine situation quickly………………………


Sorry, drifted off there.

President Bush said, "I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid. And my mother made me eat it. Now I'm president of the United States. And I'm not gonna eat any more broccoli!" Remember when you are President or Queen of your tribe, you do not have to eat broccoli if you do not want.

Now I understand your dilemma. You want to follow “The Way” and be a good minion for Bernadette. Bernadette is your better and you should follow her lead. But then there is another potion of “The Way” which covers food.

Have you ever noticed that when treats are provided or something cool is located there are no rules as to who gets the food. It is a scrum, a free-for-all. I’m sure you have seen a hen at the bottom of the pecking order running off with something cool to eat and other hens chasing after her. We lead hens try our best to remind you of your place but there are times when even Phyllis or Betty steal food from me. Heck Lady Featherington stole the best part of a piece of sushi the other day. Did I beat her up over it? No, I did not. No grudges are held. Winner Takes All is “The Way of the Chicken.” If you can grab it and eat it before someone else can take it from you, you win.

So now we have a conundrum. It seems that two pieces of "The Way" are in contradiction. Actually, they are not. Finders’ Keepers supersedes obeying your betters. When there is food to be eaten, there are no rules other than Darwin’s, Survival of the Fittest

Your problem is that your lead hen is new to the business. Therefore, she wants to control everything you do. To her if she allows you any leeway her rule is threatened. This is common in new rulers who have not had the ability to learn from another Queen how to lead others prior to ascending the throne.

You have two choices.

1. You can wait for Bernadette to feel more comfortable in her rule and she lets up. The downside to this is that it could be years and you love food. This could be awfully hard.
2. You can invoke Winner Takes All and eat what you want. You may get a peck over this but it does have 2 benefits, you can eat broccoli if you want and it will speed up the process of Bernadette learning that you eating some disgusting broccoli is actually not a threat to her rule.

To me it is your duty to Bernadette and all other chickens who will be a part of your tribe to choose option 2. A good minion can help a leader by reminding her of “the Way” from time to time. It is your responsibility to help her to be a better leader. If that means you get pecked for your trouble that a price you must pay for the good of all.

Therefore, I am challenging you to fulfill your purpose within “The Way of the Chicken” and eat some gross disgusting broccoli. You be your best self and go eat whatever you want and don’t let Bernadette tell you any different.

As for will broccoli put feathers in your beard? I have covered that before. Human servants will say that anything their children won’t eat that is “good for them” will put hair on their chest, give you curly hair, etc. Your human servant is just treating you like a child. She thinks that broccoli is good for you. If you want more beard feathers eat spicy food. If you want to eat broccoli, eat broccoli. If you are like those of us here at FBA and don’t like broccoli, then don’t eat it.

Aurora

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P.S. I have been thinking some more on Broccoli.

You know the only thing that Broccoli was good for is James Bond.


Hmmmmm………….James Bond………………..


Aurora…………Queen Aurora

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Oh this was wonderful! Thank you Aurora for your sound advice and the laughs along the way! Wonderful scribing Bob, you are talented writer.

Now that is a difficult question. It is about the tribe of chickens at Fluffy Butt Acres and their antics. Over time that tribe of chickens has expanded and is now a bit of a virtual tribe of chickens so we all share stories and pictures of our chickens.
It is mainly about the chickens, but we are also cat lovers, horse lovers and are suckers for goats. So those critters have their days in the week when we share pictures.
I think what binds us is that we love our chickens and other animals and that we appreciate telling or reading a good story about them.
Sometimes we get diverted and just chit chat but there are rules about paying tax in chicken pictures that seek to limit non-chicken topics.
We are also united in our appreciation of Bob, the host of the thread, who creates a very welcoming and friendly environment for us all.
I am not sure if that is a good explanation and I imagine others will pile on to improve it.
Meanwhile, in the spirit of the thread, here is my tax payment for chatting: Babs on full alert about something

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She really is beautiful

Thank you, this is very helpful! Now I shall pay the chicken tax as well: my girl Raven View attachment 3432554

Awll what a cutie! Welcome to the thread it moves quick but there is a synopsis post every Saturday to help a bit.

Here goes. Sorry for long post - I am going to take a swing at the Marek's vaccine issue.
I am going to put it all in a spoiler - not because it is icky, but because it is long and nerdy and that will make it easier for folk to just skip over it if they don't want to engage in it.

Spoiler: Long nerdy post

The basic issue being debated is whether the vaccination of birds against Marek's has allowed the virus to become more virulent and therefore make the disease more serious when caught by unvaccinated birds.
This is the view that is held by Andrew Read who is the author of the paper that was cited in the pbs piece that has already been posted. That study is from 2015.
The other major study is from the Roslin Institute in 2020 and shows the opposite. I will link that study at the end.
The theory that leaky vaccines can allow the virus they protect against to become more virulent has been around for forever and has its proponents in the viral and vaccine community. I don't think any study in any species has yet found it to be the case apart from the Read paper everyone saw in the pbs article.
That doesn't mean it isn't true, and Marek's and chickens have some unique characteristics that may make it true here. But it does mean you shouldn't jump and immediately believe the pbs conclusions.

I will try and describe the theory and why it may not be super relevant to us as backyard flock keepers, but first a few basics that I think get overlooked in the general worry about Marek's.

None of the studies are about a vaccinated chicken giving Marek's to an unvaccinated chicken. I have not read that anybody involved in the science of this believes that to be an issue.
In both studies the vaccinated chickens have to be given Marek's disease for the experiment. They don't have it just because they are vaccinated, they are purposely infected with it by the researchers.
The vaccine is described as 'leaky', but that does not mean that a vaccinated chicken is infecting other chickens.
What leaky means in this situation is that the vaccinated individual can still catch the disease.

Typically, when a vaccinated chicken catches Marek's - for example by meeting an infected chicken or moving to a location with Marek's in the coop - they will not show any symptoms or only have mild symptoms.
However, when that vaccinated, and now also diseased, chicken encounters an unvaccinated chicken who is not already infected, it could give that unvaccinated chicken the disease.
That would not likely be a dynamic within an existing flock, because the vaccinated chicken had to catch the disease from somewhere, and their unvaccinated flock-mates would be exposed to the same source.

But it is why you need to be careful about introducing new adult birds who might have been exposed to Marek's (even if they are vaccinated) to a flock that are not all vaccinated.
An example of the kind of thing backyard folk could worry about would be:
- Vaccinated chicken goes to a show and is exposed to Marek's
- The vaccinated show-chicken comes home from the show and is put back in the flock which includes unvaccinated individuals
- The vaccinated chicken then infects their unvaccinated flock mates
Now to the issue of increasing virulence. The basic theory that Andrew Read is supporting goes like this:
- Unmanaged the most virulent virus would wipe out the entire flock very rapidly. The virus would then have to go dormant in the soil because it killed all the chickens so it can't keep replicating as it needs the chicken to replicate.
- However, a vaccinated chicken allows the virus to keep on living because they don't die so they allow the virus to stay alive and replicating.
- Every time the virus replicates the possibility that a mistake gets made in its replication occurs and some of those mistakes might cause the virus to become more virulent. This is exactly like all the variants of Covid that kept emerging - they were all new versions resulting from replication mistakes and some were more virulent.
- Over millions and billions of replications it becomes possible that the newer, possibly more virulent strain takes over from the prior strain.
- And so, according to the theory, that is why Marek's has become more virulent over time.

One issue with the theory is that there is no reason why the mistakes in replication should make it more rather than less virulent. The mistakes are random, and evolutionary theory would suggest it should become less virulent over time.
Who knows? We have two studies one suggests that it gets more virulent and one that suggests the opposite.

In the classic words of all research papers (and why I decided not to be a research scientist!) "More research is needed"!

Now why I think this is not a huge worry for backyard flocks. We are talking about evolution of the virus. Even in viruses evolution requires lots and lots of replications. The commercial chicken industry provides a perfect environment for that to happen - massive numbers of birds in close quarters allowing the virus to replicate over and over and move between hosts possibly swapping DNA with different strains etc. I don't have any paper to back this up, but I don't see this happening in a few generations of flocks with tens of birds (vs hundreds of thousands, even millions of birds).

Hopefully that addresses some of the issues, and here is a link to the Roslin Institute paper from 2020: https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2020/leaky-vaccines-part-in-marek-s-disease-management

Thank you so much for writing this. It explains the ping pong debates I read on BYC. It definitely addresses the questions I had lingering.

This is the answer!

Indechick my new party affiliation! I will be sorely tempted to write it in.

 

[Ponypoor]

My phone is at it again making videos for me

 

[Lilion]

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but what is this thread about? I can assume it started as a personal thread for sharing chick pics, but the amount of messages makes me think it’s now more of a community thread

Thank you, this is very helpful! Now I shall pay the chicken tax as well: my girl Raven View attachment 3432554

Welcome. Raven is beautiful! I have to say, I just popped in one day, butted into a conversation, and I was welcomed with open arms. It's a lovely place to visit.

Everytime I go out they swarm me like they never eat. I just took them some treat and collected about 60 eggs. Ive been to weak to collect lately. If I go inside they go inside if I go out they come out. lol like a train of chickens.

Gosh, mine too! I walk out in the yard and the silly things run back and forth along the run like I MUST have treats NOW!

Hmmm, Is the vaccination a good thing or not, and does it mean I HAVE to vaccinate all newbies to me (chicks ordered/bought) for them to survive...since the vaccinated shed the virus?

And if this is the case, since all of my birds have been vaccinated (except for hatched on site), why did my tests for Marek's come back negative (3 different swabs of 3 different coops)?

Now I am really confused!

@RoyalChick @BY Bob ?

Yes, Bob, I know you said you needed time to put something together - I'm not rushing you, just trying to piece this together in my mind.

Here goes. Sorry for long post - I am going to take a swing at the Marek's vaccine issue.
I am going to put it all in a spoiler - not because it is icky, but because it is long and nerdy and that will make it easier for folk to just skip over it if they don't want to engage in it.

Spoiler: Long nerdy post

The basic issue being debated is whether the vaccination of birds against Marek's has allowed the virus to become more virulent and therefore make the disease more serious when caught by unvaccinated birds.
This is the view that is held by Andrew Read who is the author of the paper that was cited in the pbs piece that has already been posted. That study is from 2015.
The other major study is from the Roslin Institute in 2020 and shows the opposite. I will link that study at the end.
The theory that leaky vaccines can allow the virus they protect against to become more virulent has been around for forever and has its proponents in the viral and vaccine community. I don't think any study in any species has yet found it to be the case apart from the Read paper everyone saw in the pbs article.
That doesn't mean it isn't true, and Marek's and chickens have some unique characteristics that may make it true here. But it does mean you shouldn't jump and immediately believe the pbs conclusions.

I will try and describe the theory and why it may not be super relevant to us as backyard flock keepers, but first a few basics that I think get overlooked in the general worry about Marek's.

None of the studies are about a vaccinated chicken giving Marek's to an unvaccinated chicken. I have not read that anybody involved in the science of this believes that to be an issue.
In both studies the vaccinated chickens have to be given Marek's disease for the experiment. They don't have it just because they are vaccinated, they are purposely infected with it by the researchers.
The vaccine is described as 'leaky', but that does not mean that a vaccinated chicken is infecting other chickens.
What leaky means in this situation is that the vaccinated individual can still catch the disease.

Typically, when a vaccinated chicken catches Marek's - for example by meeting an infected chicken or moving to a location with Marek's in the coop - they will not show any symptoms or only have mild symptoms.
However, when that vaccinated, and now also diseased, chicken encounters an unvaccinated chicken who is not already infected, it could give that unvaccinated chicken the disease.
That would not likely be a dynamic within an existing flock, because the vaccinated chicken had to catch the disease from somewhere, and their unvaccinated flock-mates would be exposed to the same source.

But it is why you need to be careful about introducing new adult birds who might have been exposed to Marek's (even if they are vaccinated) to a flock that are not all vaccinated.
An example of the kind of thing backyard folk could worry about would be:
- Vaccinated chicken goes to a show and is exposed to Marek's
- The vaccinated show-chicken comes home from the show and is put back in the flock which includes unvaccinated individuals
- The vaccinated chicken then infects their unvaccinated flock mates
Now to the issue of increasing virulence. The basic theory that Andrew Read is supporting goes like this:
- Unmanaged the most virulent virus would wipe out the entire flock very rapidly. The virus would then have to go dormant in the soil because it killed all the chickens so it can't keep replicating as it needs the chicken to replicate.
- However, a vaccinated chicken allows the virus to keep on living because they don't die so they allow the virus to stay alive and replicating.
- Every time the virus replicates the possibility that a mistake gets made in its replication occurs and some of those mistakes might cause the virus to become more virulent. This is exactly like all the variants of Covid that kept emerging - they were all new versions resulting from replication mistakes and some were more virulent.
- Over millions and billions of replications it becomes possible that the newer, possibly more virulent strain takes over from the prior strain.
- And so, according to the theory, that is why Marek's has become more virulent over time.

One issue with the theory is that there is no reason why the mistakes in replication should make it more rather than less virulent. The mistakes are random, and evolutionary theory would suggest it should become less virulent over time.
Who knows? We have two studies one suggests that it gets more virulent and one that suggests the opposite.

In the classic words of all research papers (and why I decided not to be a research scientist!) "More research is needed"!

Now why I think this is not a huge worry for backyard flocks. We are talking about evolution of the virus. Even in viruses evolution requires lots and lots of replications. The commercial chicken industry provides a perfect environment for that to happen - massive numbers of birds in close quarters allowing the virus to replicate over and over and move between hosts possibly swapping DNA with different strains etc. I don't have any paper to back this up, but I don't see this happening in a few generations of flocks with tens of birds (vs hundreds of thousands, even millions of birds).

Hopefully that addresses some of the issues, and here is a link to the Roslin Institute paper from 2020: https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2020/leaky-vaccines-part-in-marek-s-disease-management

Okay... so if I've got this right, if I get new chickens, other than quarantine for a period to make sure they aren't actually ill, I don't really have to worry about my unvaccinated flock that much.

 

[Ponypoor]

Welcome. Raven is beautiful! I have to say, I just popped in one day, butted into a conversation, and I was welcomed with open arms. It's a lovely place to visit.

Gosh, mine too! I walk out in the yard and the silly things run back and forth along the run like I MUST have treats NOW!



Okay... so if I've got this right, if I get new chickens, other than quarantine for a period to make sure they aren't actually ill, I don't really have to worry about my unvaccinated flock that much.

From my understanding any bird over 30 weeks unvaccinated has likely had its immune system challenged by the virus already in the natural environment. Thus it would be fine.

So glad you popped in and joined the conversation, and felt welcomed. This is a wonderful thread

 

[BY Bob]

Photos while I can get them posted….

Forgot how terrible my internet is, amazing what millions of dollars get you in the wilds of the Boreal Forest!

A mix of mugs and two fors, and three golden girls for good measure!
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Those are great photos!

 

[BY Bob]

Thanks I took something but takes times to take effect!

Did you see those Polkies ( of course you did I saw ) so adorable!

I can't wait to see your polkies.

 

[BY Bob]

Wonderful scribing Bob, you are talented writer.

It is very nice of you to say so. It does take good questions. Not every concept works out. I usually start working on a couple of questions and wind up discarding them until I find one that works.

 

[rural mouse]

Dear Aurora,

My name is Lark. I'm just under a year old and I'm trying to find a place where I can lay my eggs and hatch babies (I'm not ready to sit on them yet). If I use a nest box, my human takes the eggs. I've tried hiding my nest in other locations. The one I put in the open shed thing (carport) was great....until the magpies found some of the others' eggs, ate them and led my human to search for my nest. She found me on the nest and left me alone, but the idiot roosters followed her and found me. THEY TRIED TO MATE ME WHILE I WAS TRYING TO LAY AN EGG!!! I started looking for another place to lay. If I lay in the coop, my human takes the eggs. If I lay outside the coop, others join me, magpies steal some of the eggs, and the Idiots accost me. What do I do?

Frustrated future mother,

Lark

 

[bgmathteach]

Mareks vaccine tax.
BFTP: Maggie doing what she loved most - sunbathing. Rest in peace my lovely Maggie - I hope you are enjoying constant sunshine and an appreciative ear for all your opinions.
It fascinates me that my current chickens are nowhere near as keen on sunbathing as Maggie always was.

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I have to say - I just love this picture of Maggie. Talk about a chicken looking relaxed and content.

 

[RoyalChick]

Dear Aurora,

My name is Lark. I'm just under a year old and I'm trying to find a place where I can lay my eggs and hatch babies (I'm not ready to sit on them yet). If I use a nest box, my human takes the eggs. I've tried hiding my nest in other locations. The one I put in the open shed thing (carport) was great....until the magpies found some of the others' eggs, ate them and led my human to search for my nest. She found me on the nest and left me alone, but the idiot roosters followed her and found me. THEY TRIED TO MATE ME WHILE I WAS TRYING TO LAY AN EGG!!! I started looking for another place to lay. If I lay in the coop, my human takes the eggs. If I lay outside the coop, others join me, magpies steal some of the eggs, and the Idiots accost me. What do I do?

Frustrated future mother,

LarkView attachment 3433134

Awww - poor Lark!