Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[BY Bob]

Thank you. I will try not to fuss too much.
I am thinking the little ones must have Campine blood: noisy and flighty captures it well! And they really fly. The Princesses were older when I inherited them but they never flew like these little ones do.
Minnie is making a habit of flying up to my shoulder or head.
She isn’t as big as she looks here. It is camera angle. Hard taking a picture with a little chicken on your shoulder!

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She is absolutely adorable. The pictures have come out quite well for selfies! Remember when your big hand could not come near them and they would squirt poo at you? Now they are roosting on you. Great job with them.

 

[BY Bob]

That's what is says under my avatar.

I thought I would point it out to others in case they had not noticed.

 

[BY Bob]

Pale Egg

My girls do not lay dark colored eggs by any means. Most of you know that i get light brown eggs from everyone. One of which I call pink from Aurora and Phyllis' exotic white egg.

I've been noticing for a while that someone's egg is losing pigment. It has turned cream colored,, almost white.

I can mostly match eggs and layers by shape and size. The egg in question is the shape of Aurora's but too small. It is the size of Lillys but not the right shape. None of the other eggs are Hattie's as they are too small and these are from when Hattie laid in the house. So it is one of the four, Sydney, Aurora, Lilly, or Sansa.

I know stress causes laying changes. Would the stress from the heat cause changes in color? I know eggs can fade as hens get older. That happened with Patsy's eggs they were no longer deep brown at the end.

I guess the real question i am posting is, should I be concerned?

 

[RoyalChick]

She is absolutely adorable. The pictures have come out quite well for selfies! Remember when your big hand could not come near them and they would squirt poo at you? Now they are roosting on you. Great job with them.

They still prefer to come to me rather than me picking them up. But Minnie in particular is quite open to me stroking her throat and chest.
I guess I am benign compared to Maggie.
I have watched on the coop-cam, so far the Princesses haven’t actually attacked the littles. It is more that the little ones panic when they see a big Princess ‘lurking’.
And the Princesses have perfected the art of lurking nearby. Watching them makes me think of the sound track from Jaws!

 

[RoyalChick]

Pale Egg

My girls do not lay dark colored eggs by any means. Most of you know that i get light brown eggs from everyone. One of which I call pink from Aurora and Phyllis' exotic white egg.

I've been noticing for a while that someone's egg is losing pigment. It has turned cream colored,, almost white.
View attachment 2258166

I can mostly match eggs and layers by shape and size. The egg in question is the shape of Aurora's but too small. It is the size of Lillys but not the right shape. None of the other eggs are Hattie's as they are too small and these are from when Hattie laid in the house. So it is one of the four, Sydney, Aurora, Lilly, or Sansa.

I know stress causes laying changes. Would the stress from the heat cause changes in color? I know eggs can fade as hens get older. That happened with Patsy's eggs they were no longer deep brown at the end.

I guess the real question i am posting is, should I be concerned?

As you all know, I am no expert but I have observed that my eggs change color over time sometimes getting lighter sometimes darker. I assumed that was normal so interested to hear from everyone else.

 

[BY Bob]

They still prefer to come to me rather than me picking them up. But Minnie in particular is quite open to me stroking her throat and chest.
I guess I am benign compared to Maggie.
I have watched on the coop-cam, so far the Princesses haven’t actually attacked the littles. It is more that the little ones panic when they see a big Princess ‘lurking’.
And the Princesses have perfected the art of lurking nearby. Watching them makes me think of the sound track from Jaws!

Sansa and Lilly are back to their mean old ways where the littles are concerned. Lilly has taught Sansa the pure joy of surprising them and watching them scatter in panic. I feel bad for the Lucky and Ned because in what appears to be a coordinated effort, Sansa will run up on them and scatter them, then just as they settle, Lilly will do it again. Then Lilly and Sansa trot off quite happy with themselves.

After being scattered by the mean clique, they sometimes will run up on Hattie, who is minding her own business and chases no one. However, Hattie is big and that scares them again and the panic continues. Poor Hattie has this look on her face. What happened just now?

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

BY Bob Lucky and Ned are adorable. I'm glad you've gotten to have the fun of one of your girls raising her own babies. My first batch of the year are now 2 months old. Nugget weaned hers over 3 weeks ago and was back to laying a few days after. Momma hen in the last week decided she was done with her 2 and started back laying 5 days ago. So that put me up to 5 laying hens with several nesting boxes perfect solution right. Wrong! All but holly chose to lay in the placed i fixed for Henrietta who finally deemed one suitable and quite playing find the easter egg on the hillside. I thought for a time she herself was going to go broody and had decided to let her but she did not commit to setting. She layed a clutch of about 14, set for almost 2 full days then, nope not having it its too much work and was back to herself. In that time frame My marans girls Daisy and Holly began laying and Daisy decided Henreitta's box was perfect so she would use it after Henrietta was done. Nugget and Momma both followed suit when they began laying again. It would occasionally cause back ups and angry hens when either Henrietta or Daisy decided to be mean and stay in it for a hour or so after they layed. For the past 2 weeks we've been dealing with heat and horrible humidity so like a idiot i wasn't watching for signs of anybody going broody. Huge mistake, Nugget is her momma's daughter and 4 days ago when i went to collect eggs I was met with a shrieking, pecking demon....In everyone's favorite box. She refused to budge, and momma and daisy ended up laying on top of her. Pulled her out a few times, got flogged for my efforts and she was right back in there. So we got to thinking and decided to move her and let her have some Daisy eggs to hatch off to test her and Drummies fertitility. epic fail, not having her new spot so switched to plan B. Let her have the nest box and fix another one for the girls right beside nugget and block off their access to nugget. Nugget is happy, the other 3, not so much, they deemed it unsuitable and thankfully all 3 chose another location, the old doghouse i reared the marans in when i moved them outside. The new box instead is like a playground for the 5 chicks i kept. Once I got Nugget settled i gave her 6 of the freshest Daisy eggs and 1 Henrietta egg and she is on Day 3. I am praying the maran eggs are fertile and most hatch. I have been looking for more but its either Rural King stock which i dont want or twice i've found someone who's selling day old chicks as straight run a couple hours away. If i'm going straight run they might as well come from my own.

 

[BY Bob]

BY Bob Lucky and Ned are adorable. I'm glad you've gotten to have the fun of one of your girls raising her own babies. My first batch of the year are now 2 months old. Nugget weaned hers over 3 weeks ago and was back to laying a few days after. Momma hen in the last week decided she was done with her 2 and started back laying 5 days ago. So that put me up to 5 laying hens with several nesting boxes perfect solution right. Wrong! All but holly chose to lay in the placed i fixed for Henrietta who finally deemed one suitable and quite playing find the easter egg on the hillside. I thought for a time she herself was going to go broody and had decided to let her but she did not commit to setting. She layed a clutch of about 14, set for almost 2 full days then, nope not having it its too much work and was back to herself. In that time frame My marans girls Daisy and Holly began laying and Daisy decided Henreitta's box was perfect so she would use it after Henrietta was done. Nugget and Momma both followed suit when they began laying again. It would occasionally cause back ups and angry hens when either Henrietta or Daisy decided to be mean and stay in it for a hour or so after they layed. For the past 2 weeks we've been dealing with heat and horrible humidity so like a idiot i wasn't watching for signs of anybody going broody. Huge mistake, Nugget is her momma's daughter and 4 days ago when i went to collect eggs I was met with a shrieking, pecking demon....In everyone's favorite box. She refused to budge, and momma and daisy ended up laying on top of her. Pulled her out a few times, got flogged for my efforts and she was right back in there. So we got to thinking and decided to move her and let her have some Daisy eggs to hatch off to test her and Drummies fertitility. epic fail, not having her new spot so switched to plan B. Let her have the nest box and fix another one for the girls right beside nugget and block off their access to nugget. Nugget is happy, the other 3, not so much, they deemed it unsuitable and thankfully all 3 chose another location, the old doghouse i reared the marans in when i moved them outside. The new box instead is like a playground for the 5 chicks i kept. Once I got Nugget settled i gave her 6 of the freshest Daisy eggs and 1 Henrietta egg and she is on Day 3. I am praying the maran eggs are fertile and most hatch. I have been looking for more but its either Rural King stock which i dont want or twice i've found someone who's selling day old chicks as straight run a couple hours away. If i'm going straight run they might as well come from my own.

So I'm not the only one with nest box issues. It is crazy how long they will hang out in them. I am keeping my fingers crossed that your marans eggs are fertile. I would love to watch some marans chicks grow up. Good luck!

 

[BY Bob]

Together Again

The chicks did sleep together again last night. It was much cooler last night than the night before. Maybe it was heat related.

I caught them up on the roosts this morning.

 

[GhislaineDel]

]
I caught them up on the roosts this morning.
View attachment 2258772

Ha! The French verb "pondre" means to lay an egg. My bilingual brain tripped over Lilly pondering. LOL