Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Lady Red]

Tacky's lovely loose feathers

 

[Lady Red]

Boss girl Allele strutting her stuff

 

[BY Bob]

Meatbird's Friday fluff....and an action shot with water flying everywhereView attachment 2713797

So much fun! I love it.

 

[BY Bob]

Clever!

Thank you.

 

[BY Bob]

Tacky's lovely loose feathersView attachment 2713800

Lovely is correct!

 

[BY Bob]

Boss girl Allele strutting her stuffView attachment 2713805

I love her name. Is she up on a table?

 

[micstrachan]

Good morning, friends. I don’t think I have a fresh fluffy butt photo, but here’s a little video of pre-work free range time. Today I brought a friend for Ruby.

 

[fuentemoon]

Good steady rain this morning, we sure do need it. It has kept everyone quiet much later than usual.
From the last few days:
Neighborhood watch chicken

A seriously root bound lavender! I had to cut the pot it came in to get it out.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Ooops, did I have a bit of a rant...
Yep, I feel a bit better thanks. I made the mistake of reading the general forums prior to posting. I've also had the misfortune of being shown some of the chicken posts/advice on Facebook by my daughter.
Not having chicken pictures to post means I'm liable to think about what others have written instead of just blasting through the posts pressing the like button. Bound to end in trouble.
I'm going to be sticking to building my Etsy shop for a few days so rant fodder should be minimal for a while. Don't worry though, I'll still find plenty of rant fodder later.

Do you have plans to care for a new tribe at some point? Rehab some battery chickens? Anything you provide would be an improvement over their previous lives...I wondered if you are missing your tribe terribly. I would if in your shoes.

 

[Kris5902]

Hi guys, thanks again for all the support and love! So I’m actually going to ask for some chicken advice, and I’m hoping @Shadrach is available to weigh in on this as well... I’m still trying to catch up. So, Roostie is half blind (from injury to his left eye) and doing fine, free ranging (though his foot is still not completely 100% he’s happy and chickening away, now I have another similar Conundrum.

TLDR version: hen suddenly mostly/completely blind, lives in mobile coop with changing terrain daily, what to do?

I don’t have a clue what happened, but one of the girls in with Hawk is completely blind. She was fine last week, and I haven’t seen any horrific head injuries/scalping, both her eyes are still there. I noticed the day before yesterday that her pupils had almost disappeared and she was acting off and partially sighted while feeding, her eyes seem slightly cloudy. Yesterday she was a little slow but followed everyone out and found the feeder, though she seemed to have troubles eating easily. She was first up to roost last night and picked the top corner, this morning she has been unable to find her way down, on the top roost and trying to locate the next rung down to get out. The tribe was rearranged slightly last fall, but this is quite recent, and everyone has been getting along as far as I’ve been able to observe, though I have been preoccupied this week. She was hatched in late 2019 daughter of Sammy and one of the Hyline rescues, probably Missy.

What do you guys think I should do? The chicken tractors are constantly moving about and the waterer often changes location for levelness, clearly not good for a blind chicken. I’m wondering if I should cull her, or if I can give her some quality of life and what that would look like. I’m thinking I set up a smaller pen and static coop to accommodate her. Free ranging seems out of the question (this was how I previously ran my rehab/rescues, with Sammy my sensitive and attentive Rooster, but I now have mostly free range layers and multiple tribes roaming about, 40-55 individuals). Perhaps another hospital tractor type coop? Should I try to separate out a few companions to go with her? Her original tribe of 4 perhaps? They really wanted to return to Hawk last time I tried to separate them when the integration was going poorly. I’m not really expanding or breeding right now, things here are too unstable, so genetically there’s not much point in keeping them together with him. I could try to return them with their original Rooster and the two Barnvelder ladies I’ve been hoping he will breed with, but since the housing change he’s been behaving less well, I chalk that up to his new girls attitude towards him.