Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[featherhead007]

Not to be confused with Peking Garden...no carry out here (unless eggs count)

And no Orange chicken either!!!

 

[Lady Red]

Tax...the lovely Whip

 

[Marie2020]

It's too dark to go outside to take a picture. But I can say good night from us here.

 

[Marie2020]

Tax...the lovely WhipView attachment 2781040

This little is a lovely orange chicken. @featherhead007 the lovely lady beats you again

 

[featherhead007]

This little is a lovely orange chicken. @featherhead007 the lovely lady beats you again

No she doesn’t. Here’s my orange chicken!

 

[rural mouse]

It’s been accepted for many years now that the observer influences the outcome of any experiment.

With behavioural studies not only does the observer influence the outcome but they tend to apply value judgements to what they’ve observed and this can be catastrophic to our understanding of behaviour.
One of the things I’ve found fascinating about BYC and also extremely irritating at times is the misinformation spread through applying value judgments and subjective bias to events.

I read with horror that we are all different and chickens are all different and therefore there is no possibility of understanding their behaviour. It usually ends up with “you do what’s best for you in your particular keeping circumstances.” or something along those lines and any notion that behaviour can be predicted and later modified gets overridden by this mantra.

Worse still is despite some compelling evidence these beliefs about behaviour get reinforced and spread until they become like facts, when in fact, many are complete nonsense.
I’ve answered a few questions when a poster has stated that their hens are attacking their rooster. In the case of hens a cockerels this is a likely interpretation but with adults, on the threads I’ve dealt with, something completely different is going on. The observer has misinterpreted what they have seen.

Here is a picture similar to some that have been offered in support of the statement that their hens are bullying, or attacking a rooster.
View attachment 2169664

From here on the threads usually degenerate into various suggests from culling the aggressive hen/s to isolating the rooster for his own protection. Looking at the picture above one could easily be misled into believing this is what is happening if one doesn’t take into account the evidence and rely on on knee jerk emotions.

In the picture is Cillin with his head bowed, unrestrained and Ruffles and Fat Bird are indeed pecking at him but they are grooming him, removing feather quills, scabs and if they are present, parasites.
You can see this behaviour in most stable mixed sex flocks, but the vicious hen myth just rolls on.

Another one that comes up over and over is the myth about the roosters mating dance. Roosters do not dance for their hens. This partly seems to come from a poor understanding of butterfly behaviour where people have seen two or more butterflies spiralling in the air and though, how sweet they’re dancing. They’re not. What they are doing is fighting and the participants are males.
With regard to the ‘rooster dance’ what is being observed is what I call the herding shuffle. It has absolutely nothing to do with mating, or dancing come to that. But, the myth rolls on.

One of the hardest to explain and get accepted is the “my rooster has become aggressive. I used to cuddle him and he was such a sweet boy and now he bites me when I go to pick him up” or something along those lines. Getting bitten by a rooster, open beak grab, is the rooster doing his best to do a mating neck grab on a human. He can’t reach the neck usually and the mating grab is almost unmistakeable. I’ve had a fair few and yes, it can hurt. It’s not aggressive and it’s not his fault. No rooster I haven’t encouraged by my behaviour to believe I am one of the tribe has ever done the mating grab to me. I’ve been pecked, but that is different. A few posts on and the kill the rooster brigade arrive with their badges and the poor rooster is destined for the crock pot by the end of the page. All he was trying to do was get a bit of love.

The egg song is an absolute classic. Somehow the poor hen got seconded to the gender politics war and the egg song became the cry of female fertility. It’s hardly surprising that the evidence suggests that in fact it’s a hen calling for a bit of sex and protection doesn't go down well. There is no doubt about the egg song being an escort call, none.

There are numerous other examples of misinformation being distributed because of ideologies and ignorance being applied to poor observation and lack of critical reasoning. The poor chickens has enough problems without this which could be remedied by a bit of concerted effort on the part of large sites like BYC. Why isn’t this happening?

Bookmarked this one.

 

[RoyalChick]

I'm in Montana, and the stuff grows VERY well. It's also cold hardy to zone 2 (if I remember correctly). Lilacs are another good one, but the chooks won't get the seed benefits

Oh dear I just looked up the Siberian pea tree/shrub and it is considered invasive and noxious with strong recommendation not to plant it.
I will keep looking for what to plant.

 

[rural mouse]

I don't know why they do it on many occasions.
What I do know is there is no correlation between that movement and mating. Roosters do it to roosters here. Some call it a show of dominance, but I really don't like that word. It's much more friendly than trying to dominate anything. Herding is the best term I can come up with and it's the term the chicken keepers here use. It is in part a demonstration that a particular hen is his/their hen. But, roosters here will do that to stray hens from other tribes encouraging them back to the tribe they belong to.

Sometimes it's a chicken stealing dance! Like a native American (mostly plains tribes) war dance?

 

[fuentemoon]

Building materials? just buy an old VW Bus, and hardware cloth the windows. (Probably cheaper) Ge

The prices are down a bit but still way up from a year ago. I am monitoring because of the little shed I want which is honestly pure ‘nice to have’ so I can wait until normal programming is resumed!

That may be awhile, the pandemic is a big part of it, but so are all the fires and drought issues out here in lumber land.

 

[RoyalChick]

That may be awhile, the pandemic is a big part of it, but so are all the fires and drought issues out here in lumber land.

Oh dear yes, I suppose the fires must be what is driving it. What a shame. I will see how things go over the winter and decide on the shed in the sprint.