Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Aussie-Chookmum]

Jasper the Chocolate Burmese decided to dive out the back door this arvo when I was coming into the house. The girls were out free-ranging. I involuntarily swore in front of my eight year-old and shouted for Jasper to come back. He promptly turned tail and fled back into the house. I don’t know whether he came back because I shouted at him, or he took one look at Charlie (who is almost twice his size) and thought “yeah, nah.”

It’s not like I need extra grey hair!

My cats have had short stints in the backyard while the chooks are out. They pretty much ignored each other. I guess they are used to seeing the chooks through the back windows.

 

[Shadrach]

They are very cute. Are their beaks trimmed?

If only their beaks had been trimmed. What they were was butchered.

 

[Shadrach]

Can I please ask of those who have older hens; do any of them go through the motion of laying when they don’t lay any more? Lucy has gone through the motion twice in the last two days, I’m hoping it’s just habit and not trouble.

Yes, some have here. Fat Bird last year in particular.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

I think the food in coop is dependent on keeping arrangements.
If you have a secure coop and run (I'm thinking rats and mice) then leaving food 24/7 is probably fine.
I can't do that here. I can't even leave food down during the day. The coops are open during the day and everything here it seems will eat chicken food.
Another aspect to this is being hungry in the morning isn't necessarily bad, or abnormal for any creature. I'm hungry in the mornings.
My view is if the chickens go to roost with a full crop then that is good enough.
The pullets here metabolize their food fastest which is to be expected; they're growing.
The senior hens tend not to show being particularly hungry most mornings.
Then these is also a marked difference between what is considered underweight in the US for example and what is considered underweight here.
Another aspect to this is that if you feed free range chickens they tend not to forage as much. There is a balance when free ranging. My view and the view of most free range keepers here is that assuming forage is decent the chicken is healthier eating what it finds foraging than it is eating the commercial feed. I think Centrarchid has a similar view with his flocks.
The down side is a foraging chicken is often more obvious to predators.
In the Spring and some of the summer I only feed commercial feed twice a day. In the winter months I feed three times a day.

That's very interesting Shad. There's not a lot of space to forage in my backyard though, so it looks like my girls are doomed to have commercial food for life!

I keep a treadle feeder in the coop. It keeps the rats & mice out but not bandicoots. They are heavy enough to operate it. My girls also prefer the open tubs. Easier access but they really like to toss their food round on occasion!

My girls throw feed around like confetti (I'm looking at you Tsuki! ) so we have rats and mice hanging around. The treadle feeder seems to keep them out so far. I put a brick on the lid at night to keep the possums out.

I built a treadle feeder a long time ago. The rats climbed in while the chickens held it open.

I hope the rats and chooks don't form a co-operative partnership here!

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

I got a treadle feeder to keep the small birds out. It worked really well until I got Bessie and Charlie who, being twice the size of the Isas, could reach the feeder without standing on the lever so didn’t work out the mechanism. So now I have a brick sitting on the treadle. And all the small birds are back.

My girls kept throwing dirt all over the treadle feeder so I put it up on a platform made of cinder blocks. Would that help your big girls to get closer Lozzy? You could also try propping it open just a tiny bit with a clothes peg so the girls get frustrated and maybe get close enough to open it by accident, or add an extension to the treadle perhaps...

 

[Shadrach]

I hope the rats and chooks don't form a co-operative partnership here!

I find it quite interesting. Food gets shared with a number of species and I very rarely see any disputes between the various species, but do within a species.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

I was finally able to get an updated picture of BG the other day. He hatched May 28th, so he's not even a year old yet, but boy do I find him simply stunning!

View attachment 1992843

His mom is my tiny Mille Fleur and his dad is my Silkie. I love the Mille Fleur coloring and personality, I just wish they were standard size.

Gorgeous boy! He looks like a flamenco dancer with those feathered legs

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

I find it quite interesting. Food gets shared with a number of species and I very rarely see any disputes between the various species, but do within a species.

I've noticed that too.

The rosellas and cockatoos will come down to eat the scratch I throw for the girls. Tsuki will chase away the other hens but she ignores the rosellas!

 

[LozzyR]

Yes, some have here. Fat Bird last year in particular.

Good to know. It’s not the first time she’s done it; I’m just hyper-aware that, as an older Isa Brown, she is susceptible to reproductive issues.

 

[LozzyR]

My girls kept throwing dirt all over the treadle feeder so I put it up on a platform made of cinder blocks. Would that help your big girls to get closer Lozzy? You could also try propping it open just a tiny bit with a clothes peg so the girls get frustrated and maybe get close enough to open it by accident, or add an extension to the treadle perhaps...

I used pegs when training the Isas. My big babies didn’t get it. What they really needed was to stand on a longer piece of wood so that it pressed the treadle down when they stood on the wood. They were/are so big they didn’t need to get close to reach!