Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[WhoDatChick]

It's a really crappy picture, but we had a snow squall come through and it made whiteout conditions very quickly. Thankfully it was also very briefly.

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...........

 

[MaryJanet]

A bit of tax for future transgressions.
Tribe 1 minus Treacle having lunch.
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Tack from Tribe 2, also having lunch. She's the most junior so gets to eat last. She usually manages to snatch a few beakfulls before the rest dive in and then waits until the others have finished.
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Tack has lovely colouring! Her crest is bordering on Polish.

 

[MaryJanet]

I believe that it’s the parents primarily responsible for the welfare of the children, and less a matter of “owning” them, to be clear. And that it’s basically no one else’s business, right up until you are hitting the point of extreme indoctrination (as you see in cults) which threatens the physical welfare of a minor. So basically any faith group encouraging or participating in child marriages below the legal age of consent, or activities that are actually physically harming the child. Bountiful BC, and the Heavens Gate Cult come to mind for me. Or children being trained/exploited as soldiers or weapons. Things like that. There a whole lot of grey areas between those sorts of extremes and just say raising your child as Catholic, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, or even as a Satanist. Where can you draw a clear line between being raised in a super conservative sect of a faith, and a damaging cult? For me at Harm to the Child.View attachment 2412795View attachment 2412811View attachment 2412817View attachment 2412822

Look at that donkey! Encouraging the camel!

 

[goldenfingers]

... I’d LOVE to! We were talking over on my thread about taking a BYC tour.. and traveling all over the world visiting our wonderful BYC friends and their chickens!

I like the way you think! Sounds like a blast!

 

[MaryJanet]

oops. Chicken tax!View attachment 2412911​

The best ever cuddle puddle!

 

[BY Bob]

So sorry your birds are so cold.

It's going to get a LOT colder before it gets warmer.

 

[BY Bob]

Excellent points, Kris! Thank you. I will keep an eye on the fraying potential. That is so sad! I am so sorry you lost a bird that way!

We can get very strong winds here. We are at high elevation (for our area) and open on the north and north-west. The house and garage/barn are blocking a lot, but some diverted wind makes it around. I did have a horrible cartwheel incident when only the top and a couple of tarps were on, and no stakes or cinder blocks positioned there to help hold it down either. Now I have both, with additional stakes to hammer in still. I've been observing it and it isn't swaying at all (yet). I was thinking that having it better enclosed would help because the wind can't (theoretically) get "in" to lift, and that may be helping now, but I am keeping an eye on it all. I recognize that a failure in one part could cascade to the kite scenario.

Plan B in potentially bad weather is to unhook the coop & coop run from the walk-in run via the re-useable zip-ties. Then if the walk-in run rolls it won't take the coop run & coop with it.

Plan C is to unhook it and move the coop & coop run into the garage in place of my car. Easy to do prior to the ground freezing, otherwise the skirting frozen to the ground will prevent moving it at all (actually helping everything stay in place - the skirting attachments can be removed if I have to move it, though they may be encased in ice too). This last summer I moved the coop around within a small protected wooded clearing which was good for weathering storms, but then I didn't need electric to it.

Plan D, maybe the easiest in a pinch, but more stress for them, is to get a large enough dog crate that the four birds could spend the night in inside the garage or here in the house. I still need to do that. I have a large cat carrier I have used for transport to free-range areas when they were smaller chicks, which could fit one but is now too small for four of them at once. It's on my list as it would be good for quarantine/hospital times, or the famous broody breaking I hear a lot about. Is there a recommended size? I will search.

Thank you for looking and assessing, I REALLY appreciate it!

Kris is the expert on tractors and tarps. You are right to value her advice.

I like the breakaway scenario in B.

 

[CrazyChookChookLady]

Scooby feels he is more then qualified to be homeschooling Anna.

 

[featherhead007]

So sorry your birds are so cold.

I wonder how they are doing now? (Dark, cold, no heads)

 

[Kris5902]

Excellent points, Kris! Thank you. I will keep an eye on the fraying potential. That is so sad! I am so sorry you lost a bird that way!

We can get very strong winds here. We are at high elevation (for our area) and open on the north and north-west. The house and garage/barn are blocking a lot, but some diverted wind makes it around. I did have a horrible cartwheel incident when only the top and a couple of tarps were on, and no stakes or cinder blocks positioned there to help hold it down either. Now I have both, with additional stakes to hammer in still. I've been observing it and it isn't swaying at all (yet). I was thinking that having it better enclosed would help because the wind can't (theoretically) get "in" to lift, and that may be helping now, but I am keeping an eye on it all. I recognize that a failure in one part could cascade to the kite scenario.

Plan B in potentially bad weather is to unhook the coop & coop run from the walk-in run via the re-useable zip-ties. Then if the walk-in run rolls it won't take the coop run & coop with it.

Plan C is to unhook it and move the coop & coop run into the garage in place of my car. Easy to do prior to the ground freezing, otherwise the skirting frozen to the ground will prevent moving it at all (actually helping everything stay in place - the skirting attachments can be removed if I have to move it, though they may be encased in ice too). This last summer I moved the coop around within a small protected wooded clearing which was good for weathering storms, but then I didn't need electric to it.

Plan D, maybe the easiest in a pinch, but more stress for them, is to get a large enough dog crate that the four birds could spend the night in inside the garage or here in the house. I still need to do that. I have a large cat carrier I have used for transport to free-range areas when they were smaller chicks, which could fit one but is now too small for four of them at once. It's on my list as it would be good for quarantine/hospital times, or the famous broody breaking I hear a lot about. Is there a recommended size? I will search.

Thank you for looking and assessing, I REALLY appreciate it!

Excellent plans! And yes having the tarps go all the way down helps prevent lift off greatly, sounds like you’ve got it all figured out well in advance.