Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[notabitail]

Very cute.
But barefoot in the chicken yard? Eww!!

Chickens are usually in the area right outside my door while free ranging. So I don't even bother with shoes. Not worth my time unless it's freezing. In which case they stay in the coop.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

I use a hand cart to move the logs and then I sort of tip them into the Chicken Palace and wiggle them into location. It is a good workout!
I want to put the fence energizer on a log - it is currently on an upturned bucket but I worry it isn't stable enough.
I love those cinder block structures - very clever - but I worry about the tipping over issue, Everything in the Chicken Palace is on a hill - quite a steep hill - so to get a flat surface I would have to do some digging.
I wiped out on the hill yesterday just outside the Chicken Palace trying to hot wire that area against the foxes. The combination of ice, mud and the slope was too much and down I went. Bloody nose. I am glad the Princesses were locked inside their Palace or they might have tried eating my nose off my face!

Tax: Bernie says - Who, me?
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Oh no, you hit your nose when you slipped? Scary, that's not good! Hope you're recovering. Would your wood pellets / kitty litter work to get a good footing there? I noticed they take a while to expand and crumble but work pretty well in sopping up mud.

Bucket - if you have a snap-on top for it, fill the bucket with something not too heavy, maybe those wood pellets? Or even Palace dirt. Then turn it over. If it's not a snap-on top it would still work if you held the top on while you tipped it and then got it upside down. (But I'd also put a note right there under the energizer, I'd forget in an instant that the top isn't secure!)

 

[RoyalChick]

Oh no, you hit your nose when you slipped? Scary, that's not good! Hope you're recovering. Would your wood pellets / kitty litter work to get a good footing there? I noticed they take a while to expand and crumble but work pretty well in sopping up mud.

Bucket - if you have a snap-on top for it, fill the bucket with something not too heavy, maybe those wood pellets? Or even Palace dirt. Then turn it over. If it's not a snap-on top it would still work if you held the top on while you tipped it and then got it upside down. (But I'd also put a note right there under the energizer, I'd forget in an instant that the top isn't secure!)

I dunno what happened - I didn't feel anything except foolish, but when I looked at my hand after raising it to my nose it was covered in blood.
I have lots of rocks I could use to stabilize the bucket, somehow I have my heart set on a gorgeous big log that is just asking to be hauled there - but not in this weather!!

 

[featherhead007]

Maybe it was a broken egg? Mine scarf down a soft shell egg or a broken egg in seconds but so far have not attacked an intact egg.

That’s possible. I didn’t see any shell fragments when I cleaned up her mess.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

I dunno what happened - I didn't feel anything except foolish, but when I looked at my hand after raising it to my nose it was covered in blood.
I have lots of rocks I could use to stabilize the bucket, somehow I have my heart set on a gorgeous big log that is just asking to be hauled there - but not in this weather!!

A log is so much more beautiful!

 

[Sally PB]

The ramp to nowhere hahahaha I love it!

It was originally in the coop, going up to the roost. Nobody used it, so I put it in the run.

The key is they can fit between the item and the wall.

Yes! My "feed hut" is proof positive to me that the space between it and the wall is a GREAT spot for integrating chicks to run behind. They are out of sight, so it breaks up the "I see you, you little pest! I'ma run after you....! Oh! Where'd she go? Oh, look at this bit of tasty dirt on the ground..." Hen wanders off.

 

[featherhead007]

I took Dakota back to the coop. Everybody was still perched on the rafters. Dakota went straight for a laying box (only a golfball in it) maybe she just wanted to play through?

 

[Sally PB]

One morning, I found two of my pullets pecking at an egg that someone had dropped from the roost overnight. I think (hope) the hole in it was from the drop. I shooed them away and put the egg in the poop bucket.

Another time, one of those two was pecking at a membrane-only egg on the poop board. I tossed that one into the run, not thinking, and everyone converged on it! So I scooped it up, the broken mess that it was, and put it in the poop bucket.

I have seen new eggs in the nest with pecked holes, but I'm pretty sure those are "I need to move this egg around under me" pecks. I've seen them with these pullets, and with all my other layers every now and then.

I wanted to buy another pair of fake ceramic eggs from TSC. (They sell them packaged in pairs.) They had 2 packages that had one of the two broken. I took both packages up to a manager and said, "These won't sell. How about I buy both packages at half price?" Sure, no problem.

I glued the two broken ones back together, leaving a hole. If I have a more serious egg eating issue, I will try the "fill a fake egg with mustard" trick.

 

[bgmathteach]

They love flying and perching way up high. So there is no height that new gal Perry can reach that will shake them off her tail. She also happens to be of a more standard build, favoring middling 1.5 foot high perches over the four foot high ones where she might find some reprieve.

Maybe have either some short perches (i.e. 'perches for one') or put some sort of barrier on a longer perch to 'break it up' so to speak so she has a safe place to escape that way. (like zip-tie or use twine at various places along a long log/perch to tie branches so it creates physical barriers/interruptions along the log.)


Might help.

 

[notabitail]

I'm in the contest for text to speech but Valentine's Day edition. I don't know what DeepAI was thinking when I told them "chickens" and "Valentine's day" in the same sentence.
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This is how a chicken is supposed to celebrate Valentine's Day.
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I'm in the contest for text to speech but Valentine's Day edition. I don't know what DeepAI was thinking when I told them "chickens" and "Valentine's day" in the same sentence.
View attachment 3733254
This is how a chicken is supposed to celebrate Valentine's Day.
View attachment 3733255

AI poisoning is a thing.
The Bing image creator is the one that works the best. (Even though I have a strong dislike of Microsoft).