Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Lady Red]

Yes, I take daily preventive meds which might need revision again, though generally speaking my headaches are less severe then they were before I started it. I also have meds for when I get a migraine

I'm sorry. As a migraine sufferer, I know how debilitating they can be.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

It's Friday!

I'm going to give you an unusual Fluffy Butt this Friday. It is a video bum!

I took down the chicken wire around my new grass yesterday. I knew this was going to be a issue for the ladies as the straw at the bottom of my delicate grass would be full of creepy crawlies and would be irresistible to them. Pair that with delicate new grass and I would be right back to where I started with bare patches dug up by them.

Sadly, I was right.

I had to take down the fence and mow as it was getting over grown. I waited as long as I could. Check it out.
View attachment 2713784View attachment 2713785

First Aurora found a spot to destroy. She was easy to move along. She doesn't want to be touched. A waive of my hand and she is gone.

However, Hattie found a spot that she fell in love with. I tried to move her on but she would not move. I tried pushing her and she pushed back!

I had to do something to protect my grass.

Here is your Hattie butt for Friday and my solution.

Clever solution BYBob, but I feel sorry for Hattie, that looks so frustrating!

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

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.

Bob's idea seems sensible for any blind animal but how is she in herself? If she seems content and is getting enough to eat and drink I see no reason to cull her but you would be the best judge of that.

Any idea what caused the blindness? If it is a developing condition your choice may become clearer further down the track.

Either way I'm sure you will do what is best for her .

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

Since this group seems to be good at it, we could use some healthy/healing thoughts our way. It has been another not great headache week for me (nothing unusual, but ugh,) and Bill has done something to his back. He is in a ton of pain really hoping he just pulled something and lots of rest will make it better. And of course we still have 2 broody hens, though Rosie is good as long as she is locked out of the coop, min she is let in she is back to the box and all puffed up again, even after a full day out. It's been 5.5 weeks already.

Healing thoughts and positive vibes winging their way across the ocean towards you all.

Take it easy and I hope you feel better soon.

 

[featherhead007]

My insomnia is starting to be a real problem. I have been planning my Hawaii trip. It’s very complicated. How do I care for my lovely chickens, when I fly to meet my family? (My SkyHawk can’t accommodate 12 chickens, and there wouldn’t be any in flight service, if I did take them! Maybe I should take my roo Jaffar, he could be a great co-pilot, except for his Bantam Cochin legs are too short for the control pedals (I really love my precious little rooster)

 

[Shadrach]

A few days ago my friend got me interested in jar terrariums and obviously my go to concept was chicken related. Here's my doodling process.View attachment 2712576

Poster worthy is that.

 

[Shadrach]

Tragedy Strikes the Gardens at Fluffy Butt Acres

For years I have been cultivating Black Eyed Susans in one of our flower boxes around the backyard. You can see them here in this photo of Sansa.
View attachment 2712812

I have them so they come back every year in significant numbers spread around the box on their own. This year they are just now starting to show the bugs of flowers. I love them and get excited when they start to bloom.

This morning before work, Mrs BY Bob and Phyllis decided to weed that box. I say the two of them because I know Mrs BY Bob got caught up in supplying bugs for Phyllis to eat.

Now there are weeds in ithe box, no doubt about it, as I have not yet gotten to that box this year. However, Mrs BY Bob targeted my Black Eyed Susan's as weeds. She pulled them all out.

Every last one.

All of them.

None were left.

Now there may be some hope. Mrs BY Bob is not a great weeder. She does not knock the dirt off the roots and she does not clean up after herself. So my Susans were in the pile on the patio with the other weeds.

Desperate to try and save something, I sorted them out, dug a hole, planted what I had, watered them, and even put a cage around them to give them support and hopefully give Mrs BY Bob pause before she pulls them out again.
Here they were at 9:00 am after I replanted them. The Susans are in the circle. That is lavender in the picture below them. The rest of the green is weeds.
View attachment 2712813

I hope you got them back in the soil in time.

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

From my personal observations I've noticed the correlation of smaller groups of chicks to greater growth. My new birds are three weeks old and came from a batch of around 52 but are the size of two week olds. For those of you who have raised chicks, have you noticed similar observations?

They are adorable and hopefully this time really are pullets. As far as growth patterns I've noticed here it really does not depend on the size of the group there will always be 1 or 2 the first couple weeks who are a little bit smaller. But they are coming very close to the age when all of mine take a huge growth spurt almost over night. Between 3 to 4 weeks they go from still looking a little babyish to wow you doubled in size. In this growth spurt the smaller ones seem to catch up or even surpass the bigger ones. With plenty of food and some outdoor exercise I'm sure yours will take off like a rocket to in the next week or so. Oh and for my brooder raised chicks that has been another trigger for a massive growth spurt, when they are old enough to spend a lot of time outside. But then in warm weather that also falls around the 4 week mark as well.

 

[LaFemmeKatia]

Not sure if it is affecting everyone, but You Tube now has a beta “shorts” program running and it was being applied to many of my shorter videos, and it’s incompatible with the media embedding in BYC... I’m not very tech savvy, I just know it annoyed the heck out of me and you may want to make sure a video is “long” to avoid having it posted under the shorts beta if you upload to you tube. I tried uploading it several times.

I have tried to do this too, just the other day, a short of my new ducklings. It won’t allow me to post it here. And I know I have done it before.
I would love it if BYC would figure out how to allow videos to be posted directly.

 

[BY Bob]

I agree with Bob that calcium will be diluted while free ranging unless extra calcium, like oyster shell, is supplied.

It always feels good when you agree with me.