Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[LozzyR]

Ha! My Charlie went from being 'absolutely-not-a-lap-chicken' to me having to push her off me if ever I tried to eat anything whilst out in the garden with them!

I might have to try that!

 

[LozzyR]

I'm so Mad at Myself

it got smoking hot in the coop yesterday before I noticed it. The coop can get quite hot in the summertime when the late afternoon sun clears the birch tree. Yesterday was really the first day since Sydney started setting where it was that hot without afternoon thunderstorms. I never even considered it.

That was until I lost Phyllis.

It was 7:30 pm and I could not find Phyllis. Now Phyllis goes to bed early but that would be 90 minutes or more before sunset. That's silly early. Before I panicked and started looking outside the fence for her, I checked coop cam.

There was Phyllis on the roost clearly roasting. That's when it hit me. I ducked inside to see and the inside coop temperature was 99°F (37°C). I removed Phyllis from the coop and put the fan in the front window.

I then took Phyllis around to all the best worm locations. Moving boards, planters, etc. Until she had eaten them all and the coop temp had dropped by 15°F.

I feel so guilty now about poor Sydney sweltering all afternoon in that heat.

The fan will now remain until fall.

Roosting Adjustments

So the new warmth in the coop led to new roosting locations. Here is how roosting has been working ever since Sydney went broody. Aurora normally gets to the roots too late to get to the high roost. I took the photo because she had gone to bed early for some reason and made it up there.
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Now the high roost is obviously going to get less air circulation than the main roost, even with the fan. So it will be warner up there. That just so happens to be where the temperature sensor for the coop is as well so I get the extreme reading.

The extension on the roost that Maleficent loved so much is right in front of the window. Now right in front of the breeze from the fan.

Normally when Phyllis roosts for the night she goes for the high roost. Then Lilly comes in and makes her get off of it. Phyllis goes to the spot that Daisy (the greatest hen ever), Patsy, and Lilly all thought was best prior to the introduction of the high roost. Hence the arrangement above.

Last night everything changed. See the video. This Ovid after the fan was in the window.

I did not think to take a picture of the final roosting positions but when I locked the complex up last night, all the big girls were on the low roost with Aurora starting right into the fan, feathers fluttering like she was in a Mariah Cary video.

That’s really hot! My prefab coops get hot in summer, I’m thinking of making some screens to keep the sun off them.

 

[LozzyR]

I don't go anywhere on hatch days, or the first couple of days after. I also like to be there the first time mum ventures out with the chicks and when the rest of the tribe turn up to inspect.
I may be a bit over cautious but I've had chicks die from pasty butt and others left at the nest when mum heads out with the others. No heat from mum and they don't last long if it gets chilly.
I also like to be there in case mum leaves a partially hatched chick behind. I don't like them to suffer and kill them as quickly as mum will let me.

What exactly is pasty butt? It certainly conjures up an image but I’m not familiar with it.

 

[LozzyR]

On a happier note. I just couldn't resist. Moon.
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Are those miniature roses? Gorgeous photos!

 

[LozzyR]

Big (small) changes coming to the Chicken Palace
I hesitate to post this here because I do not want to detract from the count down to Sydney's hatch - honestly I am possibly more anxious about it than even @BY Bob himself!
But I have to post here because, people, this is all your fault.
You are enablers!
You could have said how lovely it is that the Princesses have so much space in the Chicken Palace. You could have said that three is plenty for a flock. You could have said that baby chicks are a real handful and I should avoid them at all costs.
But no, instead you said things like 'looks like you have plenty of room for more' and '3 isn't a real flock'.
And because of that I have ended up with these insanely adorable, cute little fluffy butts.
I am terrified (what if I can't keep them alive and healthy?). But I am already besotted. So thank you all for your enabling.
I will try to get better pictures but honestly they have little jet-skis attached to them and they take off in all directions at great speed and are very hard to corner until they go in under their hot cave which is where most of these pictures are from.
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So gorgeous!!! I don’t know if I was one of the enablers but I can have chicks vicariously through this thread!

 

[BY Bob]

That’s really hot! My prefab coops get hot in summer, I’m thinking of making some screens to keep the sun off them.

It is hot but with the fan it stays the same temp as outside. Normally no one is in it that early as well.

You can see in this photo how the sun bake it in the late afternoon. It is under the tree for a reason.

 

[BY Bob]

What exactly is pasty butt? It certainly conjures up an image but I’m not familiar with it.

Poop can get caught and dry on a chicks butt like cement. It will then block the chicks ability to relieve itself. Things back up and if untreated the chick will die.

 

[RoyalChick]

Poop can get caught and dry on a chicks butt like cement. It will then block the chicks ability to relieve itself. Things back up and if untreated the chick will die.

I am checking the new babies for that multiple times a day - well whenever I can catch them really. I did say I was a nervous wreck! So far so good - it seems their poop method is largely 'projectile' so it doesn't hang around on their rear end!
I am hoping projectile poop is a normal chick thing and not a sign of something wrong with them.

 

[CrazyChookChookLady]

There's a wrongun in that first picture. It's got too many legs for a start.

Yes that's Marigold. She loves the chickens. She often hangs around with them.

 

[BY Bob]

Hot Lava

When my brother and I were small we invented a game one rainy day to keep ourselves occupied. The game was called "Lava". The principal of the game was quite simple. The floor was lava. The only way to keep from dying was to stay on the furniture. If any part of you touched the ground, you were burned up by the lava and the other person won. There were multiple variations on the game, sometimes there was a quest and the teo of us would have to work together to retrieve something from across the room. Other times it would be a race or of course, a Battle Royale to force the other one to touch the floor. We had great fun playing it although we did too over a lot of furniture, we never broke anything. (That I can remember)

So why tell you about this? By early afternoon yesterday, the hens in my flock were treating the sunlight light like lava. And like little boys, they seemed to get as close as they could without venturing into it. Check this out.