Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Sylvester017]

I asked DH to take pics of our girls today since I can't operate a camera very well yet. Seeing a neurologist for the neck issues soon (doctors... they see you when THEY want & not when you need them!)

MIKA in the shade ~ Dark Partridge ~ she looks shiny black in the sun but she does have a hidden gold collar & gold speckled wing tips

KEIKO ~ non-bearded Moorhead ~ our funny girl

DANA ~ one old sweet Dominique

BETTA ~ Blue Silkie a couple days ago

GINNY Blue/Buff Partridge
SUZU Silver (gray) Partridge

Previous videos of the girls on the move

 

[Sylvester017]

Happy Saturday everyone. Time for a long overdue hatch update for Goose and Gryffyn. This fiasco of a hatch is finally over as of last night. I learned a few things. First thing is never trust dad and Rosie when they say they have all the eggs. Second thing, never trust Goose and Gryffyn if they each have a nest in close proximity to each other. Swapping nest fiends. After the first nest swap that I noticed after Goose's first chick hatched I swapped their eggs and left the hens in place. I came out the next morning to find that once again they had switched places . They did it 2 more times Saturday and I just gave up. Sunday morning Goose abandoned her unhatched eggs and took her 1 chick off the nest, right into Russ's stall. Well, that sent me over the edge and I gathered them both up and locked them in the coop until Wednesday for her chick to strengthen up.

Here is Goose's little minion. Going by shell color, and the fact that it has feathered legs it has to be either a spooky chick or one of the cochin chicks.
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Goose is once again a wonderful momma and very contented and proud of her chick.

Gryffyn, after Goose abandoned her eggs Gryffyn stretched that neck of hers and combined nests. She went from 4 eggs to 13 eggs and I had no clue which was hers and which was the ones Goose abandoned. I called her names and left her alone. Wednesday evening she has 2 chicks hatch while I was at work. 1 passed away soon after hatching as mom found it still very wet. The other one is thriving. It is a total guessing game on who the momma is, came out of a light tan egg and it is yellow with no feathered legs. Yesterday Gryffyn took it off the nest as soon as the sun came up. Thankfully Gryffyn chose not to go into the horses stall once, she kept it near the creek bank digging around. It was getting close to dark last night when I went out to make sure everyone was ok and found Gryffyn and her chick missing. Sheer panic trying to find them. I finally spotted Gryffyns head poking out of Russ's dinnertime hay. She may have chose not to take the chick into the stall during the day, but let's take it to bed in the horses stall. Russ had covered them up almost completely with his hay. Nope not happening. I retrieve a very angry Gryffyn and her chick and for the night decide to place them back on her nest. I was planning on tossing the rest of the eggs into the creek and I heard it. The eggs were left alone all day but low and behold there was peeping coming from one of those eggs. Gryffyn heard it too and my unfit mother took being a witch to a whole new level in trying to get back to those eggs with her chick. I let her settle on the eggs with her chick and went in and got the flashlight and a bucket. I pulled every unhatched egg out from under her and candled them. Nest swapping, being abandoned twice did a number on those eggs. Some never developed, some had a blood ring in them. 1 had a bouncing embryo that needs at least a week to hatch. That sole egg went under Spooky who decided to go broody Thursday. At this point why fight the broody girls. I also know for a fact that egg I gave spooky is a speckled sussex egg. The last egg I pulled out from under her had a external pip and a cheeping chick. I also know for a fact from that egg's size it belonged to Gryffyn's sister Flurry. I gave it back to her, tossed the rest of the eggs and hoped for the best. I went out to check at 1 am and it had just hatched. Another little yellow fuzzball, with feathered legs. I checked on them about 8 this morning and Gryffyn has not taken her chicks off the nest yet. I think my unfit mother has realized it needs a few more hours to strengthen up so is staying put.
I took these last night after I removed all but the pipped egg.
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Later today I will go out and get pictures of the 2nd chick.

Welcome to fatherhood George.

So-o-o cute

 

[bgmathteach]

It's Friday

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Ooooh, a shot just for @featherhead007 !



I think the girls were playing 'heads or tails' here

 

[featherhead007]

I asked DH to take pics of our girls today since I can't operate a camera very well yet. Seeing a neurologist for the neck issues soon (doctors... they see you when THEY want & not when you need them!)

MIKA in the shade ~ Dark Partridge ~ she looks shiny black in the sun but she does have a hidden gold collar & gold speckled wing tips
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KEIKO ~ non-bearded Moorhead ~ our funny girl
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DANA ~ one old sweet Dominique
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BETTA ~ Blue Silkie a couple days ago
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GINNY Blue/Buff Partridge
SUZU Silver (gray) Partridge
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Previous videos of the girls on the move

I was hoping that with the spinach, they might turn into real chickens.

 

[featherhead007]

Ooooh, a shot just for @featherhead007 !



I think the girls were playing 'heads or tails' here

I was told specifically by Queen Aurora, not to taunt the little Polish Pullets. It’s her job, when that time comes.

 

[Sylvester017]

Soggy butt Saturday? Magrat had a very yucky poopy butt that hand removal and trimming wouldnt solve so I gave her a booty bath. She was pretty good! A couple minor, short lived freakouts. Now she's just bopping around outside in the sun (73⁰F and sunny with a feels like of 84⁰ currently, with a high of 81⁰— perfect sunbathing conditions)

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Esme had a mini poop ball going on on one foot and another one (maybe the start of bumblefoot, I'm going to read up on it here in a minute) on the other foot, I cleaned up her feet with baby wipes which she wasn't happy about but she was a good girl. And her booty needs a trim but I'll do it later or tomorrow. I don't want to stress her out any more.

Aliss is clean, still need to check Gytha and Sybil. Sybil disappeared for a while today and returned making a ton of noise. Now she's hyper-alert and cautious so I wonder what she got up to out there. She already laid her egg in the nestbox this morning so she wasn't off laying in a hidden nest.

Oh would you look at that, she's off on her own again
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Can you spot her?

Now some non-chicken related stuff. When my boyfriend was here, he and my dad and I started clearing out the area around the future coop/run
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Removing the autumn olive bushes is the hardest part. Even the young ones sometimes are connected to older, larger bushes by a shared root and their roots can get relatively deep and tough. PHEW! What we've cleared so far is maybe 1% of what's growing on our property. Stinking invasive buggers!!!

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Here's another area we started cleaning up. Strangely enough in all our 15ish years living here, the county/power company hasn't come along to look at it and clean it up themselves. Condering the pole/lines in there, that seems like something they should be doing. In fact, they've been doing it down the road a ways, namely in the upper class neighborhoods/developments, for a month or so now... Maybe they've been working their way down the street? Sure doesn't look like it though.

The baby phoebes are looking like phoebes!

Yesterday:
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Still some chickie fuzz...

Today:
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THEY'RE BIRDS!!!

I think there are only 4 chicks. Not sure when that happened but I've only counted 4 for at least the past week? Ish? Still, 4/5 making it to week 2 is great! Keep up the good work mama and papa phoebes! They should be fledging in the next couple days!

Pretty property Phoebes are good sized birds. Our Black Phoebes here don't sing ~ they do one single cute chirp much sweeter sound than the screeching invasive House Sparrows!

Those butt washes have GOT to feel good to those hens. & yes, check for bumblefoot. It's easy to treat w/o surgery but it takes daily work for a few weeks but worth the effort.

Dana's bumblefoot wraps 4 yrs ago

There are trees growing thru power lines all over our older suburban neighborhood. Edison comes thru the street about once a year to cut branches away from street power lines but they ignore backyards that grow trees into the wires! I've lived here 40 yrs & never even once in that time has Cal-Trans pruned down the overly tall Acacia, Maple, or Eucalyptus freeway trees whose debris & branches get blown into our yards constantly. There are power lines that will be affected one day by a broken branch I'm sure but Edison, Cal-Trans, County agencies, & private property owners have certain jurisdictions... so even though power lines might belong to the power company it has no jurisdiction on state property areas, & on & on goes the red tape & nothing gets done.

Even if a tree is not yours but affects your power wires the only way to cut them down is do it yourself or hire someone. We prune our own property trees but not every agency jurisdiction will do their trees. Some agencies have the audacity to charge property owners for tree trimming that's clearly in govt areas!

Bushy tall freeway & palm trees. These pics were 4 yrs ago, these freeway trees are even taller now & state agencies ignore them! The trees are growing way down in a gully so they are actually 80 to over 100 ft tall!

 

[Sylvester017]

I was hoping that with the spinach, they might turn into real chickens.

We were hoping either Popeye or his spinach eating Pappy!

 

[BY Bob]

THIS IS THE WEEKEND FOR DAD JOKES!

Where do chickens rent cars?

Spoiler: Answer

Henterprise

 

[BY Bob]

You're amazing Bob thank you for having this thread and keeping it a welcoming place

I feel that this safe place, among all the noise and nastiness of the internet, is very special. I'm super grateful that it has remained so for such a long time.

 

[BY Bob]

He has a very big broom, and sometimes he uses it to clean out the poop in this room. Admire isn’t a strong enough word to describe this

Thanks Alex. I'm glad you appreciate it and I feel lucky you are here.