Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[RoyalChick]

I was finally able to get an updated picture of BG the other day. He hatched May 28th, so he's not even a year old yet, but boy do I find him simply stunning!

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His mom is my tiny Mille Fleur and his dad is my Silkie. I love the Mille Fleur coloring and personality, I just wish they were standard size.

Wow! Can't say more really - he is such a handsome fellow!

 

[BY Bob]

If only their beaks had been trimmed. What they were was butchered.

They look pretty bad. It breaks my heart. Rotten people.

 

[BY Bob]

My girls throw feed around like confetti (I'm looking at you Tsuki!

Daisy, the greatest hen ever, was also a messy eater. Maybe it's a leghorn thing?

 

[Shadrach]

They look pretty bad. It breaks my heart. Rotten people.

They looked a lot worse when they first got here. I filed a bit every other day for a couple of months to try to put a curve back to the beak so they could groom
It's the grooming that is the problem rather than the eating. Both tended to get lice on their bums. Lovely Harold, Tribe 2's senior rooster would pick off as many as he could for them. I knew when they needed doing because Harold would be following them round in circles with his head in their bums.

 

[BY Bob]

They looked a lot worse when they first got here. I filed a bit every other day for a couple of months to try to put a curve back to the beak so they could groom
It's the grooming that is the problem rather than the eating. Both tended to get lice on their bums. Lovely Harold, Tribe 2's senior rooster would pick off as many as he could for them. I knew when they needed doing because Harold would be following them round in circles with his head in their bums.

I really wish you had video of that!

I did not realize you could file them and reshape their beak like that. Did you know that or come up with the solution on your own?

 

[Shadrach]

I really wish you had video of that!

I did not realize you could file them and reshape their beak like that. Did you know that or come up with the solution on your own?

I got shown how much and how by one of the chicken keepers here.
He's had a lot of rescues over the years. He rescues 'retired' fighting birds. Thankfully they are rare now but when cock fighting got made illegal here there were plenty just dumped.

 

[Ribh]

Daisy, the greatest hen ever, was also a messy eater. Maybe it's a leghorn thing?

The campines throw it around, the favorelles tip the tubs over; they prefer to eat from a pile on the ground it seems.

 

[ValerieJ]

I think the food in coop is dependent on keeping arrangements.
If you have a secure coop and run (I'm thinking rats and mice) then leaving food 24/7 is probably fine.
I can't do that here. I can't even leave food down during the day. The coops are open during the day and everything here it seems will eat chicken food.
Another aspect to this is being hungry in the morning isn't necessarily bad, or abnormal for any creature. I'm hungry in the mornings.
My view is if the chickens go to roost with a full crop then that is good enough.
The pullets here metabolize their food fastest which is to be expected; they're growing.
The senior hens tend not to show being particularly hungry most mornings.
Then these is also a marked difference between what is considered underweight in the US for example and what is considered underweight here.
Another aspect to this is that if you feed free range chickens they tend not to forage as much. There is a balance when free ranging. My view and the view of most free range keepers here is that assuming forage is decent the chicken is healthier eating what it finds foraging than it is eating the commercial feed. I think Centrarchid has a similar view with his flocks.
The down side is a foraging chicken is often more obvious to predators.
In the Spring and some of the summer I only feed commercial feed twice a day. In the winter months I feed three times a day.

Just curious, how long do your chickens live? Do you have regular longevity beyond say 5 years?

 

[BY Bob]

The campines throw it around, the favorelles tip the tubs over; they prefer to eat from a pile on the ground it seems.

That's much like dirty or "wild" water tastes better.

 

[Shadrach]

Just curious, how long do your chickens live? Do you have regular longevity beyond say 5 years?

My eldest will be 10 in February. My two next eldest both died a little while ago. Ruffles was 9 and got killed by a stray Husky. Gedit got either pushed or frightened into the duck pond and went into thermal shock. I almost saved her but after 3 hours of drying and trying to keep her warm she died in my arms. She was 8.
My next eldest is 6. They go on down to a few months old.
Without predation I see no reason why many won't live to 10 or 12 years old.