Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[rural mouse]

It was nighttime, dark, rainy and the birds were already in bed.

Did you catch any for them?

 

[featherhead007]

Did you catch any for them?

No I didn’t even want to. Hard enough keeping from stepping on them.

 

[Sally PB]

I'm really curious...

What does everyone feed (commercial feed), and how clean are your chickens' butts? Are they laying?

Once my pullets started laying, the clean floof went bye-bye.

I feed Kalmbach 20% Flock Maker. Some butts are cleaner than others.

 

[featherhead007]

Toads migrating, what you're seeing? They go to meet up each Spring, but I don't know if they go back to their hatching water or find new water.

I knew that waterfowl migrated, even coconuts migrate, but I didn’t know that toads would migrate too.

 

[featherhead007]

No I didn’t even want to. Hard enough keeping from stepping on them.

These were large toads bout the size of a baseball ️

 

[Pastel the Rooster]

Bolt is getting her bumblefoot taken care of this weekend. Last night I soaked her foot in warm epsom salt water for a while and then tried to get the scab off. I normally wouldn’t have tried to get the scab off on the first day, but her foot actually looked like it was ready. I managed to get the scab off and it was bleeding, which is a good sign. I wrapped her foot and this morning it looks pretty good.

it won’t let me post a picture of her foot… it says severity error…

 

[ChicoryBlue]

I knew that waterfowl migrated, even coconuts migrate, but I didn’t know that toads would migrate too.

Did you see any sparrows with them?

 

[Pastel the Rooster]

Now for some odd reason it’s working… here is her foot this morning. Before I gave her a bath.

 

[Pastel the Rooster]

BYC knows the future…

 

[ChicoryBlue]

I'm really curious...

What does everyone feed (commercial feed), and how clean are your chickens' butts? Are they laying?

Once my pullets started laying, the clean floof went bye-bye.

I feed Kalmbach 20% Flock Maker. Some butts are cleaner than others.

I've been feeding them Nutrena Feather Fixer which is 18% protein and a little lower than a layer in calcium. I like Nutrena well enough and would prefer their Hearty Hen 18% layer or Free Range Layer 21% if I could get it. I'm switching them to Purina Layer+ 16% for at least one bag because the Nutrena Layer 16% available at TSC was too old. My rural area is limited in choices for pickup buying, and shipping doubles the cost and you don't get to check the dates anyway.

When butts are poopy here it seems to be for various reasons.

1. Maybe the hen in question has always been liable to have a little poopy butt, or sort of poopy

2. They might have eaten something that makes more goopy poop which is very sticky. Higher fat things - mealworms for instance - can cause this. Earthworms too. I think high fat produces more cecal poops, that's where the digestive system deals with it? But I'm not sure about that and don't have time to research right now.

3. If the goopy poop has collected and hardened a bit, it might be too hard / painful to get off or clean by her, or especially in the case of older hens if she can't reach it well. It then becomes a surface where stuff doesn't roll off, just keeps layering on a bit even if a lot rolls off.

I crumble it off by hand as much as I can, then see in a day if they've been able to take care of it. Sometimes that's all the help they need and it looks fine. If it doesn't crumble easily and is a real matted mess I have children's safety scissors and will snip what's right below the vent, but in the case of a hard ball that is stuck very close to or on the skin I will dampen it, wait and then work it off by hand. Once in a great while I will bathe them but try not to get water on their vent for fear of introducing anything that might cause infection. It's more like a sponge bath, not a soak.

I have found that poop against their skin is irritating, not surprising. I do sometimes put some coconut oil back there to help soothe it and keep more poop from sticking, this is usually just below the vent. Sometimes I very lightly apply it to the feathers too.