Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[AfiafiAfi]

I’m getting really worried!lilly is gone.they can’t find her.
Where could she have gone?I don’t know if those tabbys feasted upon her but there’s no chicken body except for Era still crowing

 

[RoyalChick]

Dosent anyone except scramble here care about Lilly?

Just logging on this morning - I am in the US - still no sign of her? I didn't totally understand whether she was sick or missing or both but I hope everything turns out OK.

 

[BY Bob]

Advice for Hazel?

I'm not horribly concerned as she's doing chickeny things with more energy, foraging well and she's fiercely pecking others away now, chasing Popcorn around, away from whatever she's digging, to take her place. She had been much less confrontational before during the heaviest part of the molt. Now I've seen her get a couple of worms and she's digging with gusto. She eats dandelion greens, sardines (need to get more), but won't eat sunflower seeds or walnuts too readily. She did eat some yogurt & crumbles mash balls yesterday and one or two today. I have not really seen her eat pellets when I've been with them. I have baby bird feed on order for the future. She just doesn't get in there and mix it up with everyone for food like she used to. She hangs back. Anything else special for her, or shall I just watch her and there's no need to try to get her to eat as this will take it's natural course?

This is her first real molt, hasn't eaten a lot, is still resting more than anyone else, and today I determined who's been having watery poops because I saw her jet one out today. And the wall of the coop had some poop on it, that's unusual). I thought if that keeps up I'll try my first fecal float (that's been a project going along and progressing, I had to get some of my mom's estate boxes gone though and cleared away to make room).

Anyway she is drinking well so I think -hope-she's keeping up. Yesterday I felt quite a keel, seemed to me she was skinnier than I remembered, and so I compared to the other three. I don't have the proper scale to know exactly what she weighs, should be a human scale but digital?

Anyway by comparison Popcorn and Peanut have a keel you can feel but there's much more meat on either side of it. Butters, who makes a beeline for the feeder in the morning, tops up a few times in the evening, and eats a few pellets whenever she can, has a keel line but it's there with the most plumpness on either side of any of them. She's also always been the largest-boned bird since she was a chick, she's a relatively big girl. Traditionally Butters is biggest, then Popcorn, Hazel, and then Peanut. But I'd say Peanut is bigger, firmer than Hazel right now.

Any thoughts?

This behavior is all very similar to what Hattie does every year. I will say that I leave her alone and do not interfere. She has always come through just fine and puts the weight back on fairly quickly afterwards.

 

[RoyalChick]

A lovely tribute to Maggie.
My understanding is that lash eggs can be caused by a number of problems and some of those problems are not necessarily fatal.
An infection can produce lash eggs and hens do overcome such infections.
A reproductive missfire for want of a better description can also cause a lash egg or two but ime the hen goes back to normal relatively quickly.

That is good to know - and obviously Maggie proves the case!
As it was I spent 6 months expecting to wake up each morning and find Maggie had died. TBH I still anxiously check on her every morning even though as it turned out it was poor Elizabeth who suddenly gave up the ghost.

 

[RoyalChick]

That’s @micstrachan, can’t fool me

Well spotted - it is a picture she posted a while back I believe.

EDITED: Good grief my sense of time is off - it was quite a recent post in fact! It was also a lovely post so I will happily remind everyone.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...es-stories-of-our-flock.1286630/post-24902183

 

[BY Bob]

Sounds like how Maggie behaved during her first molt - I mentioned it in my big long Maggie post a few pages back - but she would only eat bugs and worms. I didn't know to try sardines at that stage, but I doubt she would have eaten them.
She is molting again now and today I noticed she was very vigorous in her foraging but showed no interest in the regular food.

I know that Hattie is entering her molt because she stands off from everyone else, barely participates in treats, lays around a lot, and in general is apart from the tribe's activities. This will continue until she is feathered again.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Omg no!pls somebody help! I just duscovered I’m out of feed!the farmer who was supposed to supplie me still didn’t.It’s going to take 2 days!I have no feed!my quails are literally gonna starve without food for 2 days since there’s no good feed store!what should I do!

@Afi, Do you have someone there whom you can call on for emergency help? You've been apparently keeping poultry for about three years. You must know somebody?

 

[BY Bob]

No inputs from me, but I'm interested in your post and the responses....my girls are still under 1 year and haven't had full molts. Feel like they are so skinny (except Pingu, who has lovely heft), so I worry about weight loss. Molt, broody... not looking forward to these stages...

It is helpful to remember that they know what they are doing. In 90% of molts no intervention is needed. I switch them to high protein feather fixer and they take care of the rest. Laying around and distancing themselves from the flock are very normal.

 

[BY Bob]

Run an extension cord and put the heater plate out there with them, it's not like it's going to be a permanent thing and it will ease your mind and warm their little pin cushion fluffy butts too if they need it. It's a familiar item also, they will find it comforting.

My gals were out there on pretty cool nights so I gave them the heating pad on low on one-third of the roosting area of the coop. They did use it. I could tell by their poops. After several days when I checked them at night I saw a couple were half on and half off, like a cat with a bit of shoulder on it, and two were all on it. Then it wasn't long when all of them stopped hanging out on it and I removed it.

Look, you are being so helpful that you are backing me into a corner I don't want to be in.

I give up! I admit it!

I don't want to give them up yet. They are my buddies and once they go outside they will meet new friends more like them and they will leave me behind. I'm not ready yet.

 

[BY Bob]

First a Monday mug
View attachment 2848882
I should have gotten a picture of her out in the rain this evening, she doesn't let any but the heaviest shower stop her

I am supposed to be working a ridiculously long day tomorrow starting at 6am, but my covid test results did not come back today as they should have. So now I am left hanging, technically I can't work without a negative result, haven't heard back from work either, so if I don't so I risk a penalty for being a no show.

Well that stinks on the COVID test.