Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[BY Bob]

Video set to private.

Corrected

 

[BY Bob]

I've Never Seen an Orpington do That!

Aster just flew the length of the pool, 38 feet, at a height of 4 feet without dropping.

From in front of the camera to the chairs in the distance.

My little flyer

 

[BY Bob]

@BY Bob may need some help with that....View attachment 3970187

So true.

 

[BY Bob]

For some reason the first page of this thread popped up and I was admiring Jabber, what a gorgeous rooster! So thought I’d say hi!

Here he is crowing. We were just admiring his crow this afternoon.

 

[BY Bob]

They are beginning to adjust to Popcorn being gone. Hazel was pretty out of sorts for a few days. She looked despondent and acted withdrawn. I tried to comfort her with little food offerings and calling her name a lot so she would come nearer. She's not a lap chicken, she's quite nervous, but she will eat greens and pellets from my hand.

She began asserting herself with everyone here just a few days ago. She started coming close to me, and sternly pecking others away when I offered pellets (so it's a two-handed affair, the Orps just have to keep switching hands) whereas when Popcorn was alive she used to wait on everyone and only was concerned about sharing with Popcorn. She is molting slowly and eats well.

Left to right - Diane Ida-Biter, Hazel, Tedi and Annie. They like that corner, and can hang there now, but I was late in turning the warmers off since it got warm again and it was too warm there I think. Had them on for Diane when it was pretty cold here, she's lost a ton of fluff under-feathers and snuggled close against the heaters. The other two Buff Orps also hung near, but Hazel the tough and hardy Buckeye sat some feet away.
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Preening party
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Two-Fer mugshots of Tedi (left) and Annie, Annie's neck indicates she is beginning a molt. Both Annie and Tedi think that chopped hemp is really interesting and come over and hop up to forage, explore it and eat a few bits every time there's good light on the next boxes so they can see. Same when the poop trays are out for the daily poop pickup they rush over to jump up on them and check it all out.
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Diane Ida-Biter below. She is into what looks to be a heavy molt. Her fluff feathers just exploded out of her the last two weeks. And she is almost tail-less. But no bare spots yet. She's still trying to bite me on the hands and also chases & bites ankles. She's all up in my business looking for an opening whenever I'm doing stuff, and I've made changes in the coop and run so I'm doing a lot of ground-level work, fixing a couple pavers at the coop-run connection and attaching welded wire, etc.

She got insanely peckish the last couple of weeks and I now think her molt is partly to blame. Hazel does a lot of correcting her, and so do the other two Buff Orps. I don't know that she has any close friends, which makes me sorry for her, but they all let her hang with them - foraging, preening, & resting, as long as she's behaving herself. Hazel has taken over the protecting of me like Popcorn used to do. She comes over looking very concerned when Diane starts her whiny keening sound at me. Diane is afraid of her and often retreats.

But Diane is surprisingly tame, she eats pellets from my hands, nicely & well mannered until she's had her fill, which isn't as much as it used to be maybe because of the molt. She doesn't struggle much when I pick her up to examine her. Sometimes when Diane is being a total pain I just carry her around like a football under my arm so I can get something done, even if one-handed. She's pretty compliant. Have I brought this on with my keeping practices? Nobody else here is like this.

I am hoping she will mellow with age, she's 15 months old, but am prepared for what's probably going to be a life of pecked & bitten hands and needing eyes in the back of my head (shout-out to barn boots).

DH calls her "Diane Tire-Biter"
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Great update.

 

[BY Bob]

How blessed you are to enjoy such a variety of birds!
In the beginning I hadn't wanted black feathered birds because our summer sun is brutal here & figured the black would absorb more heat unnecessarily for the poor bird. But even the non-black birds are suffering in heatwaves & all seek out shade & sprinkler/hose water to cool down anyway so I changed my mind & have since had many black, dark partridge, or cuckoo black birds.

You captured the black sheens perfectly in pics

Teehee ~ You need a ring too that resembles the hawklike pose Magrat does.

A stainless steel ring I got on ebay that resembled my breda fowl "Char"
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Love the ring. Just awesome.

 

[Sylvester017]

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Preening party ~ a chicken Beauty Parlour.

 

[BY Bob]

2fer Tuesday

 

[featherhead007]

How blessed you are.

I received no blue egg blessing today.

 

[featherhead007]

Not with this tail

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Well, it’s Bob’s cat