Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[BY Bob]

It's funny. Today was not the coldest day of the year so far and yet it almost got me. The gang has been confined to their coop and run for a few days and no one had been out to see them. I decided at lunch today to take them some snacks and collect the eggs. I threw on my thickest sweatshirt and my coop sneakers and headed out. Once Hattie let them know i was coming they all came tumbling out of the coop to the run. I threw in some popcorn (so Jabber could practice tidbitting again) and some scratch. I then went to the nesting boxes on the back of the coop. The latch was covered in snow and ice. I had no gloves on but I thought i could brush the snow away and open it. I should have know something was different as my hand got cold a lot quicker than seemed correct. I managed to free the caribiner and get it loose but my fingers were so cold i had to switch hands, The latch was iced to the lid of the nesting box. I tried with my left hand this time but the latch would not come up. I banged it with my elbow and switched back to my right hand, no luck. Rather than stay outside, I ran back in the house and grabbed a screwdriver. Back out I went, popped the latch and grabbed the eggs. Lilly's frozen and broken and Hattie's laid later still not frozen. I grabbed them relatched the coop and went back in.

Once I got inside, I went to wash my hands I realized they were numb. I ran them under luke warm water and washed up. They started to tingle right away. 15 minutes later they were still tingling hard. It eventually went away and right now they are fine but that was closer than I realized. I checked the wind chill when i got back in and it was registering 5 degrees. By far not the coldest it has been this winter but then again I have not been digging snow out with my bare hands before either.

For some reason I took a picture last night when it was much warmer. Here they are all roosted together.

Tonight, when it is much much colder they roost like this

One would think they would huddle together for warmth but for whatever the reason, no dice.

go figure........

 

[BY Bob]

Now tonight three of them at the other end and Lilly alone. I need to record roost time. There has to be some real nonsense going on. Maybe even shenanigans.

 

[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.

The Originals
So there we were, 6 pullets rapidly growing up in living quarters probably not big enough for 2. It was rapidly becoming apparent we needed to find a home for 4 of the girls. One day I had a thought and I made a quick phone call. The farmer that had given me Speck had since passed but his wife still had a small flock of chickens. She was definitely interested in acquiring some leghorns to mix some high production white eggs into the flock. A home found, I boxed 4 of the girls up and headed back home. She gratefully accepted them, I was sure they had found a good home, and we were ready to proceed with our back yard flock. Everything was looking up.

Life is never that easy and I will forever regret my hurry to move those four hens when I did. Within a week a fox got into her coop and wiped out the entire flock. If I had just waited a week she could have restarted her flock with our girls, instead all were gone. When my dad told me this I was emphatic, do not tell my wife. She loved those hens and it would break her heart to know this had happened. If we didn’t tell her, she would never know. Let’s save her that pain. Of course while dad and I were having this conversation, my mom was breaking the news to my wife. To say she was heartbroken is an understatement. This definitely locked into my mind that there was no way we will ever be culling on our own. The birds living at Fluffy Butt Acres are definitely pets. To me they were still “just chickens” but I had to adjust my thinking to support her.

Now that we had just the two birds it was time to name them. My wife decided that they were country girls and named them Dolly and Trisha. Here they are. I used to know whose comb went one way and whose went the other but it has since passed from memory.

They demonstrated a great affinity for clover and I had an old flower pot full of it. I placed it in the coop for them. They stripped it bare and propmtly turned it inot a dust bath!

I also made a change to the position of the coop. It was originally right by the house but there was no shade and as spring turned into summer it seemed like they were going to bake. Therefore I moved their coop under the birch tree in the middle of the backyard. It actually made for a very picturesque view if I do say so myself.

It does seem that i took no pictures of that coop in the summer. This is from that winter.

 

[BY Bob]

The Originals
So there we were, 6 pullets rapidly growing up in living quarters probably not big enough for 2. It was rapidly becoming apparent we needed to find a home for 4 of the girls. One day I had a thought and I made a quick phone call. The farmer that had given me Speck had since passed but his wife still had a small flock of chickens. She was definitely interested in acquiring some leghorns to mix some high production white eggs into the flock. A home found, I boxed 4 of the girls up and headed back home. She gratefully accepted them, I was sure they had found a good home, and we were ready to proceed with our back yard flock. Everything was looking up.

Life is never that easy and I will forever regret my hurry to move those four hens when I did. Within a week a fox got into her coop and wiped out the entire flock. If I had just waited a week she could have restarted her flock with our girls, instead all were gone. When my dad told me this I was emphatic, do not tell my wife. She loved those hens and it would break her heart to know this had happened. If we didn’t tell her, she would never know. Let’s save her that pain. Of course while dad and I were having this conversation, my mom was breaking the news to my wife. To say she was heartbroken is an understatement. This definitely locked into my mind that there was no way we will ever be culling on our own. The birds living at Fluffy Butt Acres are definitely pets. To me they were still “just chickens” but I had to adjust my thinking to support her.

Now that we had just the two birds it was time to name them. My wife decided that they were country girls and named them Dolly and Trisha. Here they are. I used to know whose comb went one way and whose went the other but it has since passed from memory.
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They demonstrated a great affinity for clover and I had an old flower pot full of it. I placed it in the coop for them. They stripped it bare and propmtly turned it inot a dust bath!
View attachment 1695104


I also made a change to the position of the coop. It was originally right by the house but there was no shade and as spring turned into summer it seemed like they were going to bake. Therefore I moved their coop under the birch tree in the middle of the backyard. It actually made for a very picturesque view if I do say so myself.
View attachment 1695101
It does seem that i took no pictures of that coop in the summer. This is from that winter.

First Egg
Below is a photo of the very first egg we ever got. Dolly or Trisha, who knows? You will notice that it is NOT white. Yet we were sold WHITE leghorns by Tractor Supply. We did not complain but something else was in those girl's dna.

 

[BY Bob]

Today's Fluffy Butt in celebration of Friday, is a blast from the past! Here's Dolly and Trisha working over some tomatoes that grew over the fence. The rule was, if it was outside the garden fence it was fair game. Not a great butt shot but I wasn't focused on taking butt photos yet. Their butts were not real fluffy.

 

[BY Bob]

Jabber is becoming very protective of his flock. At one point today Jabber, Patsy and Lilly were up on the deck hanging out under the table while Hattie was in the coop laying her egg. I bought a huge cabbage the other day and thought I would go hang it in the run. As I walked around the group on the deck and headed to the coop and run I picked up a shadow. About a yard behind me Jabber was following. He shadowed me right to the run where he stayed outside but watched me through the wire. As I turned to come back,I decided to mess with him. Instead of going back the same way I came, I went the other way around the yard. At first that took me away from everyone and he stood in front of the coop watching me. At one point though I turned towards the deck and Jabber figured out the I was headed towards Patsy and Lilly. I have never seen him run so fast. I still beat him to the deck but he was hot on my heels as I went inside. He stood at the backdoor staring at me. My fluffy shadow.

 

[biophiliac]

Such fun to see them responding to our behaviors!

 

[BY Bob]

Such fun to see them responding to our behaviors!

Jabber's behavior has been absolutely fascinating to me. I watched them roosting for 15 minutes last night just to see how he is involved. There are definately some roost shenanigans that he has made harder for the girls, very interesting.

 

[biophiliac]

Jabber's behavior has been absolutely fascinating to me. I watched them roosting for 15 minutes last night just to see how he is involved. There are definately some roost shenanigans that he has made harder for the girls, very interesting.

I hope you are writing up that scene/story too.

 

[BY Bob]

I hope you are writing up that scene/story too.

I have film to edit, lol. Hopefully I'll get it posted tonight