Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[BY Bob]

I’m on a roll with videos today. It’s SO nice out!

Also, the girls don’t know turkey vultures are NOT birds of prey. So cute!

Wonderful videos. I'm very glad they alert on the turkey vultures. It is really nice to learn about your flock as they roam your property. Thanks for sharing these with us.

 

[BY Bob]

Thank you, @Kris5902 , that's it in a nutshell. I have noticed that since the attack Queenie watches more than she did, and Hazel is even more cautious too. There were two hawk kills in the few weeks I knew of Queenie's tribe, one just a day or so before I tried to wrangle them, so the attack here may have reinforced that experience. Here there is no rooster. Queenie's rooster then was as young and new as the pullets he was in charge of, with no elder rooster to learn from.


Thank you for the long post, yes it has been very helpful to hear your thoughts on this, and I appreciate the time it takes to write it all out. All of your comments are well-taken. I can try to control or manage the area they roam in with more places added for cover and predator deterrents, and add my presence. But at least for now, they, aside from Queenie, have zero experience with predators. The point you (and @Shadrach also) make, that there are so many ways a chicken can and will die, be it predation and disease or injury, despite our best efforts - that point is an interesting one to keep in mind in weighing risk versus what one considers a "full chicken's life."

Yes, it is very clear they really enjoy their time out and about now that the snow is gone. They act determined and intense and focused.

Thank you for taking the time to write this post. Everything you write is well worth consideration, and helped me to gauge myself against each criteria, and assess where I am in thinking about this now. It is different now than when I started keeping these chickens.

Your considerations are interesting in how everything is interelated. For instance: coops and runs as potentially greater risks than free ranging, chickens being responsible for themselves, and how we as chickeneers or bucket girls and boys fit in with determining how they live their lives. With inexperienced chickens (and I'm the same as a chickeneer) I think right now I love the goal of trying to aid the chickens in living as full a life as possible, ideally as a feral chicken would live, but there are constraints to that. My deal with my DH is no roosters. I can't go so far as just letting these hens all run free night and day, because they aren't capable of actually living that way at this point. They would all quickly die, and that would make the goal of living a full chicken's life pointless. This is not a reproducing tribe, what I have now, so I given this, there must be some middle way. To your question, I do care about the welfare of the species but I'm now primarily interested in the welfare of these particular chickens.

Your remark about keeping ex-batt chickens rather than supporting the practice of breeding for characteristics that end up not promoting survival (as I understand at least one aspect of your point) is well taken. If one accepts that factory chickens are here to one degree or another then the role of the chickeneer could be more of a rehabilitator and a caring life and death assister.

Yes I could kill a suffering chicken but I have not acquired the skill. I read a lot about various methods many months ago. How do you kill one well without any practice? Some predators I could kill but it would be illegal; others not, but regardless I see that as fruitless because there are always more to take their place, at least the predators around here.

I would be interested in your book - do onypu have anything about it on BYC or do you have a separate web site for it? In your stories thread, last I saw, it is not finished yet.

Thank you for your response, hawks here are protected also, and I do think the level of hunger will drive what they need to do.

Thanks, Lozzy, me too, we were lucky this time!

Here's the chickens' fluffy butts this afternoon and evening, foraging around a fallen but still living apricot tree near the front of the house.
View attachment 2609388
Peanut and Queenie
View attachment 2609394

Super lovely fluffy bums enjoying a chicken's life. Just wonderful.

 

[featherhead007]

I always blame the parents or at least one of the parents. I wonder who is teaching her bad habits, it could never be Alex or he'd be kicked out of his nieghborhood

I blame the choices YouTube makes, while watching music video clips. Alex doesn't influence any bird, in any way (Except at roosting time)

 

[BY Bob]

Was such a beautiful day! This is Pingu, who took a long time to get any tail feathers.

What a sweetheart! I love her name.

 

[BY Bob]

OMG. That’s too funny. I have a “Rock Lobster” in my livingroom. No joke!

That is super cool! I would love to have a tank like that.

 

[BY Bob]

Thanks for indulging me!

You are treating us.

 

[BY Bob]

Yay! Perfect poop!

It's a little sad how excited I get over poo.

 

[Rooster Giddens]

Our other two residents came to us in April as chicks. My wife raised them until they moved outside and then they became my responsibility.

Hattie is our lavender orpington hen. She has not starting laying yet but i expect she will once the days turn longer.
View attachment 1633834

Jabberwockie, Jabber for short, was supposed to be an Easter Egger hen, however, he is clearly not a hen.
View attachment 1633836
He and Hattie are inseperable.

Jabber is a beautiful rooster!!

 

[featherhead007]

We had a blue lobster years ago. My four year old daughter, called it “Dinner “ (true story)

Around that same time, My son caught a Piranha while fishing one day. He brought it home and the family named it "Buttercup" It only ate baby frozen mice. I took it back to that lake two months later. Bye Bye, Buttercup!

 

[BY Bob]

Good morning everyone . Busy here today so just dropped in.

My one fence is almost completed and another hideout is being prepared

Nice. You will have to share pictures when it's done.