Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[BY Bob]

I want to recommend a chicken book to you all. I'm posting it here because most from the three threads read this one.
It's a hard back so that in itself makes it a nice object to own. It's the best all round chicken book I've come accross. It's not about how to keep chickens; it's about chickens.
The book is very well presented and contains bits of knowledge about chickens I've not found in many other publications.
I suspect if one wanted a greater depth of knowledge one would need to read studies and papers which is fine, but often difficult to access.
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I will put it on my Christmas list. Thanks my friend!

 

[BY Bob]

Mel is improving daily. She's got her appetite back and her attitude, much to the displeasure of the juniors.
Unfortunately Fudge is not well. She has a crop issue. It's not compacted but it is slow. She doesn't look at all happy and isn't eating properly. This is recent so I'm on the problem relatively quickly. The thing is I'm not sure what the problem is.
She's going to get wormed and hit with coccivex as a starting point.
I had her in the house early this morning for an inspection. Her crop was large and squidgy but no odour. This hopefully means it's not full on sour crop yet.
I did get a decent amount of water into her by syringe and some frozen coconut lumps. She had four crop massage sessions over two hours after which I put her back with her tribe.
I'm hoping this is nothing too serious. She was incredibly well behaved and just sat on my lap as I fed her the water and did the massages.

I'm glad you caught it early. Hopefully you can clear it up quickly.

 

[BY Bob]

Top hens ime rarely do the enforcing. It's usually the second in command. You may not stay top hen if you've been injured in a fight. Better to let the subordinates get injured. Seems to have worked out well for the top in all the human wars I've read about.

That makes good sense. Yet Lilly was in there trying to break the scrap up. And successfully did so twice before the final brawl. Why try to break it up if you want Hattie to enforce? Did the fight maybe go further than Lilly wanted?

 

[BY Bob]

I have never seen a chicken carrying a machine gun. just saying

If they could us humans would be in trouble!

 

[Shadrach]

That makes good sense. Yet Lilly was in there trying to break the scrap up. And successfully did so twice before the final brawl. Why try to break it up if you want Hattie to enforce? Did the fight maybe go further than Lilly wanted?

Obviously I don't know. But, it seems that Lilly has a dual role. Given it's a single sex flock she does the rooster bit and the empatheitc lead hen bit.
Watching the video, Lilly's actions are very like what I see with the roosters. They tend to get in there and give everyone a dink who looks like they're still up for a fight. They're very fair in that respect. If I'm in there, as I have been in the past, I get a dink as well.

 

[FransGran]

@BY Bob can you recommend a hawk nerf gun like that? I need one badly.

Tax: Corny Bobby on my head thinks it’s FB Friday. Fancy Blanche on my lap thinks it’s Mug Monday. Split the difference?

 

[Ribh]

They won't ship to Oz. I'll try elsewhere.

I've just ordered my copy from Amazon.au ~ but their shipping is a disaster. It's going to take nearly 3 months to arrive here! Ah well, I've waited this long for a decent chicken book...

 

[Shadrach]

HAWK!!!!!!

I promise to read everyone's posts but I just thwarted a hawk attack!

I was sitting in the yard, reading and hanging with the ladies. When to my back on the other side of the pool some dogs took off and scattered. The girls gave a pseudo alarm, pause for a moment and then went back to grooming and scratching.

After a new moments I noticed that it was completely silent. The song birds were gone. The squirrels were gone. Just too quite. I was uneasy. (In fact, as I type this, it has happened again. It is quiet right now. No animal sounds.)

Well that made me look up from the book. As I did I caught a glimpse of something in the peripheral vision of my right eye, above me. Lord bless me, I don't know why but my reaction was to stand up. I think my movement caused the hawk to alter course and get tangled in the trumpet vine above Sydney. It screeched as it got caught and then I moved towards it. Before I could get two steps, it was untangled and gone.

This is the view from where I was sitting.
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Lets step back and look at the geometry of everything.
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This whole party of the year has excellent aerial coverage. The magnolia tree and trumpet vine meet so there is no path through (purple arrow). There is a small gap of no more than 2 feet between the clothes line and the trumpet vine. I think the hawk was shooting for that gap.

I don't think that Sydney was the target as she was actually right up against the fence. I think the target was Sansa!

Usually after a thwarted attempt the hawk returns. So I armed myself.
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In this instance, unless it happens now, there has been no return visit. Everyone is quite fine grazing in the yard as my pulse slowly comes back to normal. That was definitely a close one.

That trumpet vine was the location of a lot of playing song birds today. I am guessing that may have first attacked the hawk.

I've considered a paint ball gun in the past. It's legal and has a bit more bite than a nerf gun I expect.

 

[Ribh]

I've considered a paint ball gun in the past. It's legal and has a bit more bite than a nerf gun I expect.

Those things leave good sized bruises. I expect you could kill a hawk with one of those.

 

[Shadrach]

They won't ship to Oz. I'll try elsewhere.

Let me know if you can't get it.