Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[BY Bob]

It's cold a wet here, so mixing up their food to keep them occupied.

I use layers and pellets crumble iin different parts of their dishes then in the morning they will have the fermented.

I found the fermented recipe here and they just love it. Their last feed is all of the above with a little oats oregano with sometimes an egg or sardines thrown in and mixed with warm water. I like to give them warm food in the winter they seem contented.

Very nice. I like how you mix it up to keep thing interesting for them.

 

[RoyalChick]

It's cold a wet here, so mixing up their food to keep them occupied.

I use layers and pellets crumble iin different parts of their dishes then in the morning they will have the fermented.

I found the fermented recipe here and they just love it. Their last feed is all of the above with a little oats oregano with sometimes an egg or sardines thrown in and mixed with warm water. I like to give them warm food in the winter they seem contented.

You have now set a whole new standard for me to strive for. You mix it up so they don't get bored and they get a chef's special hot meal!
This may be beyond what I can achieve during the week when I work, but I love the idea. My only concern is I have noticed that my picky Princesses seem not to like anything mushy (except Kefir or yoghurt and even then they prefer it frozen so they can chip off iced flakes of it).

 

[BY Bob]

I found that lice hates any form of salt and vinegar, the salt burns their eggs.

I've used washes like this for cats dogs and chickens, then I cover them in oil, which suffocated them . If I had a goat I would give this a try.

I am now picturing a greased goat contest!

 

[BY Bob]

You have now set a whole new standard for me to strive for. You mix it up so they don't get bored and they get a chef's special hot meal!
This may be beyond what I can achieve during the week when I work, but I love the idea. My only concern is I have noticed that my picky Princesses seem not to like anything mushy (except Kefir or yoghurt and even then they prefer it frozen so they can chip off iced flakes of it).

They can be as finicky as a cat sometimes. It is also amazing how what they like to eat can also nchange as the year goes on. Especially when they are molting.

 

[CrazyChookChookLady]

The Ring

In general dry chicken feed comes in 2 varieties, crumbles and pellets. The school of thought describes the advantages of each as follows.

• Pellets: Less wasted feed. Chickens don't drop as much on the ground.
• Crumbles: It takes longer for the chickens to eat. It is closer to normal food intake and therefore provides a more satisfactory eating experience for the chickens.

The disadvantages of each are generally the opposite.

• Pellets: The chickens fill up quickly, the feeding experience is not satisfying and boredom can result. Boredom can lead to behavioral issues like feather pecking if there are not suitable enrichment opportunities for the chickens.
• Crumbles: Waste. Chickens will scoop feed onto the ground while looking for bigger crumbles or just fling feed onto the ground as they eat.

I started my ladies out on pellets. After taking my course on chicken behavior and learning of the potential for boredom and then evaluating my small coop and run in the winter when they were trapped inside, I made a decision to switch them to crumbles. I wanted to head off any potential boredom issues. Additionally I added some enrichment to the run for them.

With the rat infestation I started to wonder how much food they were actually spilling. So this past week I decided to try a little experiment. I placed a feeder up on the deck in the sun. After 5 days, this is the ring of spilled food they made. The feeder was full at the start of the 5 days so this is the waste from 1 feeder full of food. Chickens are for size purposes.
View attachment 2495282View attachment 2495283

Yep looks about right...

 

[fuentemoon]

Mine won't eat pellets. When we got the littles we thought it might just be Rosie so we got a few scoops (backyard chicken store carries them in bulk) and no go. I do find our spill way less since I hung the feeder.

 

[RoyalChick]

They can be as finicky as a cat sometimes.

Don't talk to me about 'finicky as cats'. One of mine is not in my good books.
He just got back from the vet having had two teeth removed. Poor baby!
My instructions were that he would not be that hungry and his tummy might be a bit delicate because of the anesthetic and I was not to feed him for at least an hour and be careful because he might be woozy and fall down the stairs so try not to let him near the stairs for a couple of hours.
Poor baby!
What happens? I open the carrier, he leaps out. He leaps on the kitchen counter (what was that about stairs?) and proceeds to lick all the butter cream frosting off a cake I was decorating for a virtual tea party with a friend (what was that about delicate tummy?).
WTH?

 

[Kris5902]

I found that lice hates any form of salt and vinegar, the salt burns their eggs.

I've used washes like this for cats dogs and chickens, then I cover them in oil, which suffocated them . If I had a goat I would give this a try.

I am now picturing a greased goat contest!

Respectfully speaking, I’m going to immediately initiate chemical warfare on the little buggers! I detest lice. Right now it’s just more a matter of what weapon to choose from my very limited arsenal. It’s not that the other natural remedies don’t work, they are just much more time consuming, and we don’t really have the weather or facilities here to be shampooing, salting, and oiling even a small goat. It’s a difficult domestic situation for us at the moment, due to our environment and my In-Laws. I was wondering if I could convince her into the shower with me for a shampoo today, but given the general dislike of her, it is less risk of confrontation to quietly “borrow” some ivomec, than to let her out of the truck at the farm area, NVM bringing her into the shared bathroom facilities for a quick spa day!

I’m just thinking about the smell and what a salt and vinegar goat coated in oil would do to our furniture and bedsheets! If I had a time machine, I would go back to 2016, and tell myself to avoid the RV situation, just buy three or four singlewides and cobble something together from those! Although if I also mentioned the house goat, 100+ chickens, the pandemic, and farming in a friends greenhouse on the other side of the island rather than the irrigated acre of established garden here... I would think future me is clearly on drugs or something.

Oh, and Bob? The Greased Pig Diapering contest was a staple of the Lamb BBQ here until the 90’s... so it’s not that much of a stretch of the imagination!

 

[Kris5902]

Don't talk to me about 'finicky as cats'. One of mine is not in my good books.
He just got back from the vet having had two teeth removed. Poor baby!
My instructions were that he would not be that hungry and his tummy might be a bit delicate because of the anesthetic and I was not to feed him for at least an hour and be careful because he might be woozy and fall down the stairs so try not to let him near the stairs for a couple of hours.
Poor baby!
What happens? I open the carrier, he leaps out. He leaps on the kitchen counter (what was that about stairs?) and proceeds to lick all the butter cream frosting off a cake I was decorating for a virtual tea party with a friend (what was that about delicate tummy?).
WTH?

Well, people also respond differently to the affects of anesthesia... or maybe they gave him the happy pain killers instead of the sleepy ones by mistake? Clearly the vet was underestimating the lure of buttercream icing, and was probably meaning he just shouldn’t eat hard kibbles for a while?

 

[BY Bob]

Yep looks about right...

Always good to get your