Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Kris5902]

I and a few others have a different view of chicken keeping to the majority.
The essential difference is I try to manage a chicken population rather than keep a few chickens. I want this population to be able to replace itself rather than go to the shops or hatcheries and replace those that die with yet another group of genetically challenged poor quality fowl. I keep a closed flock and I free range.
I want the chickens here to live as close to a natural existence as circumstances permit and I would rather not be burying them at 4 and 5 years old. I get attached to them.
Before the backyard chicken keeping craze took off in the USA most literature I read gave an average life expectancy of 10 years old for the heavier dual purpose breeds and 12 years old for the lighter bantam breeds. This is what I aim for. Next year I will have my first 10 year old Marans. My eldest bantam died at 9 years old earlier this year unfortunately.
Most of the local chicken keepers I know here expect their chickens to live to the above average ages if not culled, or predated. We don't have large commercial hatcheries or much in the way of keepers that describe themselves as breeders.
Many here start their flocks with an adult pair purchased form flocks with known heritage. Nobody here picks a few random chicks out a bin in the local farm store if they are serious about keeping chickens, or gets chicks delivered by mail unseen with no real knowledge of the quality of what they are getting. Some keepers here, particularly the game bird enthusiasts will travel to other countries to ensure they get quality birds.

That is very different from here, including me. I appreciate what you are doing and love hearing your stories. And I love having you comment and participate here. Frankly I would love to do the same but I do not have access to the land necessary.

Fluffy Butt Acres is a backyard pet operation. I want the girls to live as long as possible and be as happy as possible. I would like eggs but as they seem to have figured out right now, it is not required. I hope you are not offended by how I get my hens but that is what I have to work with right now.

And then we have people working at preserving rare and heritage breeds, people like me looking at it from a sustainable farming angle (aiming for a small profit as well as pets/food), and all our lovely Aussie friends we’ve got quite the spectrum of different keeping environments, methods, and relationships with our feathered friends! We’re all working with what we have available, and I feel for anyone limited to just the tractor supply bins.

My first chickens came from a semi-local breeder in the form of a $380ish investment in eggs. I mostly was concentrating on Isbars (3H) Marans (2H,1R) And Barnvelder (1H,3R) I also got a few mixed breeds for Olive (1R) and blue eggs (1H,1R, but lost the hen to coccidiosis). That was out of 48 eggs, turns out hatching isn’t quite as easy as the hens and videos make it look! So I got some chicks LHxCCL (3H,7R) and 4 more Barnvelders (1H,3R) from a cancelled order the breeder had. They brought in coccidiosis , and clearly I have WON at the cockerel lottery!
I can’t afford to be buying chicks/eggs to keep a productive and sustainable flock. Needing to grow my flock for egg sales, and to keep all those boys from going crazy, I needed more pullets. I’ve borrowed/rescued the chickens from the farm coop (11 Hyline, with all the reproductive issues, and 1 ancient Barred Rock). Then I figured “my pretty Olive egger boy might not give me eggs, but let’s see what we can do with his daughters before he goes to Freezer camp for being a jerk?” And thus my Easter-egger Marans/Ameraucana x Hyline Red mutts were born! 73 chickens under my care (and counting again come spring!).

 

[Shadrach]

That is very different from here, including me. I appreciate what you are doing and love hearing your stories. And I love having you comment and participate here. Frankly I would love to do the same but I do not have access to the land necessary.

Fluffy Butt Acres is a backyard pet operation. I want the girls to live as long as possible and be as happy as possible. I would like eggs but as they seem to have figured out right now, it is not required. I hope you are not offended by how I get my hens but that is what I have to work with right now.

Of course I'm not offended. I was just trying to point out the difference.
I do find the hatcheries offensive, but that's a different topic.

 

[Kris5902]

Kris, I hope you will DROP that guy, like a bad habit

Done and done! No more chickens for him!

Did he happen to mention this habit of his when he accepted your rooster?

We do both also run meat birds, but in different ways, he said he wanted a “good free range Rooster for his layer flock” at the time. Though I don’t completely object to eating chickens, not a good Rooster from excellent breeding (l’ll admit to eating his brother, at 20 weeks old, but I had 3 of the same line and two more a month younger at the time)

Good lord! He ate him because he was Molting! What an idiot. I'm so sorry.

As I often said at work, in front of both customers and management “sometimes you just can’t fix stupid!” Most of the customers thought it was hilarious (I did sort of look to see who was nearby before offering this gem up to another supervisor) management “lady” who walked up behind me? less so.

 

[BY Bob]

Why do they always do this?

As soon as I clean the coop....

 

[Shadrach]

Why do they always do this?

As soon as I clean the coop....
View attachment 1955377

 

[Shadrach]

Mine love cabbage. I hang it in the run. I was in there with them today because it was raining. There was a nub of cabbage left hanging and Lilly was struggling to get any off. I thought I would help by pulling some pieces off and feed them to her.

Of course as soon as I started Maleficent showed up. Fortunately Lilly and Mal share ok. Things got really crazy when Hattie figured out what was going on. Everyone else likes cabbage, Hattie LOVES cabbage. She showed up and started, literally, throwing her weight around. She body checked Lilly out of the way and forced her to stand back behind her. Even when I tried to reach over her to give Lilly some, Hattie would jump up and take it from me.

Once Hattie had Lilly out of the way, she turned to force Maleficent away. That did not go as well for Hattie. I believe that Mal may be almost as big as Hattie now. Hattie's attempt to push her away was met by a growl and a snap of the beak. Maleficent even physically pushed her back. It was settled at that point. They shared the cabbage as i broke it up. Aurora took to darting in and out stealing from the others and I had to specially work to get cabbage to poor Lilly in the back.

I've seen this happen to a physically smaller alpha hen before as Patsy did it to Daisy (the greatest hen ever) over swordfish. Patsy was twice Daisy's size. Patsy actually jumped over Daisy to get some fish and landed on top of Daisy. After that Daisy just stood aside and let Patsy have it.

I wrote something about this. Let me see if I can find it.
Here you go. It's an unedited chapter in my book. It got about as much interest as a wet leaf in autumn.
You can train them to take turns. They do understand the 'turns' concept. You know this because of how the hierarchy eating system works.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/a-sense-of-fairness.1267780/

 

[BY Bob]

I wrote something about this. Let me see if I can find it.
Here you go. It's an unedited chapter in my book. It got about as much interest as a wet leaf in autumn.
You can train them to take turns. They do understand the 'turns' concept. You know this because of how the hierarchy eating system works.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/a-sense-of-fairness.1267780/

This I need to try. Thanks!

 

[Ribh]

I don't have the space to do flock self replacement. Or I would. However if I introduced a rooster my neighbours would be very unhappy, eggs or no eggs. I do buy from a reputable breeder & I do have [& will be adding more] Campines, who are both rare & endangered & whom I like enormously. My girls are supplying 1/2 the neighbours with eggs on our street. I'm not really keen on raising chicks...So my motives & aspirations & choices are different again. I'm still learning because last time my choices were even more limited. Now I know more I will make different choices in the future.

 

[Shadrach]

I don't have the space to do flock self replacement. Or I would. However if I introduced a rooster my neighbours would be very unhappy, eggs or no eggs. I do buy from a reputable breeder & I do have [& will be adding more] Campines, who are both rare & endangered & whom I like enormously. My girls are supplying 1/2 the neighbours with eggs on our street. I'm not really keen on raising chicks...So my motives & aspirations & choices are different again. I'm still learning because last time my choices were even more limited. Now I know more I will make different choices in the future.

Bear in mind I do this as a job. These are not my chickens, although one wouldn't know it.
I'm lucky in that there is lots of space here and the people who own these chickens have no interest in them anymore.
You can keep a sustainable flock in a back yard but it can be an awful lot of work and heartache. I have a friend in the UK who has a quarter acre back garden and he keeps a rooster and three hens as a base. But, he lives in the end terrace of farm workers houses and everybody is used to farm animal noises so the rooster isn't a problem. He lets his hens sit and hatch and he sells breeding pairs if he gets them. He manages to keep the flock size by eating those he doesn't sell.

 

[Ribh]

Bear in mind I do this as a job. These are not my chickens, although one wouldn't know it.
I'm lucky in that there is lots of space here and the people who own these chickens have no interest in them anymore.
You can keep a sustainable flock in a back yard but it can be an awful lot of work and heartache. I have a friend in the UK who has a quarter acre back garden and he keeps a rooster and three hens as a base. But, he lives in the end terrace of farm workers houses and everybody is used to farm animal noises so the rooster isn't a problem. He lets his hens sit and hatch and he sells breeding pairs if he gets them. He manages to keep the flock size by eating those he doesn't sell.

lol And right there is my 1st problem! I'm vegetarian [ok, ok most of my friends eat meat] & raising chicks entails an awful lot of unwanted roosters & there's really only one thing to do with an unwanted rooster...


A family down the road has a smaller [but very flat] property & raises both meat & egg birds but his set up stinks ~ literally. You can smell it out on the road & I am sorry for his birds. I'm happy to have a smaller but sustainable flock that will hopefully calm down in the very near future.