Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[rural mouse]

Tiny visitor in the house!well look here.Lyle learned 12 words already!
red,pine,baby,disco,disco,disco,disco….View attachment 2862174

Does he dance too?

 

[rural mouse]

Oh no. Poor chickens. October snow! Mine hate snow!

It's is a 95% guarantee to have snow on the ground before Halloween everywhere in Montana. The other 5% is the occasional odd year tossed out to make the weatherman look like a monkey. That snow usually melts off.....guaranteed by Thanksgiving.....of course more snow can occur at any point in time (summer included)

2 years ago, Thanksgiving day (if you don't like hunting, don't open this)

Spoiler: snow hunting

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

I don't know about @RebeccaBoyd, but I have never been able to see the through the shell well enough to tell if an egg is fertilized without cracking the shell & looking directly at the yolk...even with a strong candling light. Here is a link that may be helpful to you.

https://www.hobbyfarms.com/fertilized-eggs-how-tell/

As far as I know you can't tell if a egg is fertilized by candling. If the shell is light enough you can see if it's a double yolk egg or not.

 

[Ribh]

Another Silly Guessing Game

What color do you think everyone is going to lay?

Katydid
View attachment 2862057

Rime
View attachment 2862059

Shirina
View attachment 2862060

Platina
View attachment 2862062

Katydid: buff brown
Rime: Blue
Shirina: Green
Platina; Blue

 

[RoyalChick]

I believe it is Monday and here is Mni’s Monday mugshot. Look how tattered her feathers are. She slept in her own private roost again last night. It was her choice it seemed to me.

View attachment 2862209

Ooops. That is Dotty.
I will have some explaining to do at roosting time!

 

[Marie2020]

So, the point I want to make after all the stuff about crop complaints, hens off their feed due to moulting, underweight chickens in general and medical style interventions is essentially a point about keepers and not so much about the chickens themselves.

We all want to do the best we can for our chickens and of course we start off with a fairly limited toolkit in both knowledge and equipment and as our experience of the numerous problems chickens have increases so does our knowledge and hopefully skill. What seemed to be impossible tasks when we started out become easier and they go into out toolkit.

The first case of egg binding is likely to send the less experienced keeper into a complete funk and some will never have touched a hens vent before let alone shoved their finger in it covered in grease.

Many are worried about hurting the hen and it gets forgotten that a hens vent can stretch enough to pass an egg you may have trouble fitting in your mouth whole.

Then there is the worry about breaking the egg. If you are an avid follower of the ER threads there will be dire warnings about pushing bits of shell further up the oviduct, infections and cuts; the list of possible horrors seems endless. Hens breaks shelled eggs in their oviduct more often than one might think. Particularly sitting hens who are delivering their last egg before switching off their laying cycle.

They break them because they push their abdomen down on the clutch they’ve laid. Some of you will have seen a hen wiggling down on a pile of eggs trying to ensure maximum body contact.

Have a look at a good diagram of a hens reproductive tract and look in particular at the various bends and where these bends are in relation to the egg productions process. Eggs that get stuck when shelled are in the very last delivery stage, at worst they are still in the spray booth where the colour is applied.

I and my vet have broken eggs in egg bound hens and then carefully flushed out any bits of shell with no ill effects. Yes, you need to be careful but sometimes this is the only way the egg is going to come out.

The point? The first time I did this I was a bundle of nerves, shaking and worried. Now, I wouldn’t think anything of it.

BUT! Each time I see a hen who looks like she may be having trouble laying an egg, I don’t go for the full on emergency procedure just because I can do it now.

Many of us can end up feeling helpless confronted with any sick animal. If one has been unfortunate and had a succession of chickens die it can undermine ones confidence and lead to overreaction to any perceived health problems. There is often then a tendency to reach for the most powerful tools in our toolbox in an attempt to put the problem right.

Some cultures are more prone to this than others often due to the availability of the medication or the knowledge. Unfortunately along with these availabilities comes a conviction that all can or should be saved at any cost.

The indiscriminate use of antibiotics is a classic example. In Spain I’ve witnessed people getting antibiotics for the common cold! In the food production antibiotics were given as a matter of course as a preventative! Antibiotics are for when there is a life threatening infection, not as a just in case treatment.

Tube feeding; It’s for emergency situations. I’ve been through all this with the sheep we kept in Catalonia. The person who owned the sheep had read about tube feeding but hadn’t really understood what it was for. When the lambs arrived and those that were having difficulty latching onto mum or just wandered around clueless, out came the tube feeding kit. Not one single lamb I dealt with ever need tube feeding; what they needed was patience and attention and an understanding that perhaps it was better for the lamb to die if it was never going to be able to feed from its mother; not just better for the lamb but better for all those who would have to prepare bottled feed and go and pour it down the poor creatures throat four times a day for the next few weeks.

Tube feeding, it’s a great tool to have in your toolbox but it should be at the bottom of the box and only used in emergencies when all other avenues of help have been exhausted. If you’ve got to the point you have to tube feed then you have failed at some earlier point in your chicken care.

Thanks fur sharing this valuable information.

 

[featherhead007]

View attachment 2862363
They tried eating this guy! (I dont know why but anything with legs makes me feel to bad so i try to intervene, unless its already hurt, then why make it have a painful life. they usually stay away from him cause of the bright colors, but i figured they might peck him or something so we brought him inside to warm him a bit and relocated him
(sorry for the lack of chicken pictures, im currently away from my house so im not able to take more at the moment!)

That’s a newt. Wait a while (He might get better)

 

[Chicken poppy]

That’s a newt. Wait a while (He might get better)

Yep! We find lots of salamanders and newts here. Especially the northern red spotted newts.

 

[featherhead007]

I dunno peeps. It’s windy and cold here. Fires are still burning and the air quality is lousy. I brought all my chicken friends inside, to the chickens room. So now for them, it’s meally worms and a movie!

 

[featherhead007]

Arizona and Dakota are taking the best seat in the house for the movie: