Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[BY Bob]

Sigh. Maggie went to bed in her nest-box again. She didn’t seem poorly. On the contrary she was very active today. I think she just likes to be alone sometimes. She had always had the habit of going for solitary walkabouts (with me following attentively), so maybe she just wants alone time. It is strange. She was very sociable with the others all day.

Maybe a whole day of them is just too much for her?

 

[BY Bob]

Crikey

We have two colder nights coming up this week. Temps will be bouncing around here. Of course, it will be colder at the Chicken Palace.

 

[micstrachan]

Close to 0F, -17C this morning. Tremendous wind yesterday, and very calm today. After the pop door opened I went out there and upped the heating pad in the coop to medium. Finally the sun rose enough over the hill to hit the run.

This afternoon Hazel began a bath, sounding little boks while she beaked around in it and made a hole; Peanut ran right over to her and got in, standing and digging next to her, finally getting down too. Hazel then started making loud, deep, running bok purrs with every breath. I took this and the next pic from the door, not wanting to disturb them.
View attachment 2953519

Peanut's head is getting new feathers I believe. She has had whitish, almost bald-looking patches, above her comb and especially her cheeks, but they are tiny pins I think (hope). The rest of her is feathering out pretty quickly but she's not full-feathered yet and she can't fluff much. Her comb is pretty pale, Hazel has the most pink of them all and is not very pink.
View attachment 2953518

Awww… such sweet little buddies!

 

[micstrachan]

Sigh. Maggie went to bed in her nest-box again. She didn’t seem poorly. On the contrary she was very active today. I think she just likes to be alone sometimes. She had always had the habit of going for solitary walkabouts (with me following attentively), so maybe she just wants alone time. It is strange. She was very sociable with the others all day.

I think that’s perfectly fine, if that’s what she wants. I understand you being concerned, but I honestly think she’s probably fine.

 

[micstrachan]

We have two colder nights coming up this week. Temps will be bouncing around here. Of course, it will be colder at the Chicken Palace.

Bob, I’m glad you aren’t prone to power outages like we are. That would be scary in your temps.

 

[micstrachan]

I'm pretty sure I'd win most summers, so I do the graceful thing and opt out of competing

Truth: I'm often half melted and can't manage to lift my fingers and tell people about it

I think I could compete in the temperature wars on the hot end, but not the cold end.

The day Rusty died, it was 114°F.

 

[MaryJanet]

I think I could compete in the temperature wars on the hot end, but not the cold end.

The day Rusty died, it was 114°F.

Yep, that's quite hot. Was it around that temp for a week? Did it go higher?

 

[micstrachan]

Yep, that's quite hot. Was it around that temp for a week? Did it go higher?

Nope. Just that one day. That is a rare occurrence here. Over 100° is common, but over 110° is uncommon.

 

[MaryJanet]

Nope. Just that one day. That is a rare occurrence here. Over 100° is common, but over 110° is uncommon.

Still hard to get through though.

I think it was two summers ago when we had temps around 44 for a week, up to 46 one of the days.

This page says we got up to 48 (118)that year, but I think that must the high for the whole state, not for the city.

 

[BY Bob]

Bob, I’m glad you aren’t prone to power outages like we are. That would be scary in your temps.

That's why I chose the only development with the electric lines buried underground. We are looking at an ice storm tomorrow morning. I would hate to lose power. It's happened once in over 25 years when a full substation went out. I have a small generator that I ran in order to power 1 light and an oil heater. That was a long night.

Chicken tax