Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[drumstick diva]

It's always something isn't it

 

[BY Bob]

Everyone is laying now. Hattie and Patsy on one day, Lilly on her own day.

Pretty eggs, Hattie's seems a little pinker.

 

[BY Bob]

Wondering what to do with those left over roses from Valentines Day? I have good news, Jabber has a solution!

 

[BY Bob]

It's Friday!!! Time for another Fluffy Butt. This week it's Lilly.

 

[BY Bob]

The ducks have arrived on my pool. Spring in central PA can't be far behind. They know to avoid Lilly but I wonder how Jabber will handle them?

 

[BY Bob]

Hattie got her first taste of lasagna today. It's a big hit around these parts usually. Jabber had the other 2 somewhere else. Sad for them, great news for Hattie!

 

[BY Bob]

The Coop
Well my wife lived up to her promise and she loved those chicks. She did hold off on naming all 6 knowing that 4 of them would have to be rehoused at some point and that if they were named it would be extremely difficult to let them go.

Soon they were growing into pullets and we needed another housing solution. We could not keep them in the trunk much longer. The source of our adventure had a couple of you assemble coops that looked to be the solution to our problem and they seemed attractive enough to be in our backyard (according to my wife). This is where the biggest mistake we made occurred. We trusted the housing recommendations provided by the coop manufacturer. The coop (and enclosed “run”) we selected was supposed to hold up to 6 chickens. In the end it would not be big enough for 2.

So decision made, off we went to the local Tractor Supply to purchase our coop. Imagine our surprise when they were sold out of the one we wanted. Of course through procrastination and overall busyness of our life we had waited too long to get a coop. The pullets were too big to stay in the trunk any longer. We needed a coop and my wife wanted THAT coop. Tractor Supply found one in another store 75 miles away. So off we went.

Now as I have said before, we are suburban people. At the time we did not own a pickup truck or SUV, all we had was my 2009 Jetta. It holds quite a bit especially with the back seats lowered. However, there was no way this coop, even removed from the box, was going to fit into the Jetta. The side walls a roof were just too big. So we purchased some straps, fortunately I always have a blanket in my car (in this case my oldest’s Kansas State blanket) and onto the roof went the sides and roof. Here is my wife with the load on the roof of the car.
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Here is the coop assembled and awaiting the pullets.
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Here are the pullets in their new house
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Not long after placing them in their new house did I learn that they needed a roost. The coop supposedly had a roost but you had to remove the floor from the coop in order for them to have one which made absolutely no sense to me. So I built one out of an old post hole digger handle, some pieces of a serpentine belt off of our old minivan that we no longer had some screws. I cut the handled to the width of the coop, drilled pilot holes in the ends, placed a small piece of the belt on both the inside and the outside of the hardware cloth and then suspended the roost by pinching the hardware cloth between the serpentine belt pieces when I drove the screw into the handle. This enabled me to build a roost higher than the coop and nesting boxes. Here is a close-up of the end of the roost.
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Here they are on the roost. Unfortunately only 5 of the 6 fit at any one time. There was always one sleeping at the top of the ramp. Of course since we were going to drop down to 2 soon, I let it go.
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This became one of my favorite and most annoying things about the chickens and it wasn’t even their fault. There was always something that had to be done to make this $300 plus coop work for them. I loved coming up with the solutions but they frequently had to be done in the worst conditions as that would be when I uncovered them.

Of course by building the roost “outside” the tiny coop area, I was setting myself up for issues when winter arrived. At this time winter was the furthest thing from my mind.

I found a better picture of the roost I came up with for them. You can see the fan belt pieces. I taped them to the roost to hold them in place until I got everything screwed together, hence the duct tape.

 

[BY Bob]

The ducks have arrived on my pool. Spring in central PA can't be far behind. They know to avoid Lilly but I wonder how Jabber will handle them?

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I was thinking about this and I'm not sure I have told the story of Lilly vs the ducks from last year. Lilly does not like any other animal in her yard. The ducks (boy and girl) come every spring and use our covered pool as a pond. Last year they spent a lot of time grazing in the yard. Lilly did not take kindly to that. She surprised the gentleman one day and got into his back. She rode him while viciously pecking at his head. He was stunned and had trouble getting away from her. She also caught him standing by the pool and rushed him hitting him with her chest and chesting him into the pool. After that his head was on a swivel, always wondering where she was. That's when Lilly got the name, "The Enforcer".

 

[drumstick diva]

Lily takes her job very seriously, she deserves a raise.

 

[BY Bob]

She is very good at patrolling the yard. I watched her run through a bunch of doves the other day. She scattered them like a bomb went off. Doves flying everywhere.

She cornered a squirrel one day next to the run and I didn't know whether to intervene to save him or not. He did finally escape. Hasn't been back when they are free ranging. He only comes when they are locked in the run.

Special treats for her quite often.