Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Marie2020]

Here’s a question. From memory the seeds are quite huge in this type of pumpkin (we can only buy them at Halloween here)
I’m thinking too big for the chooks to eat/digest? I have no idea! Or bake them first? Just fear crop issues hahaha

Maybe cutting them in half?

 

[Marie2020]

Rain Out

Today was a nearly complete rain out. Cold driving rain. So much that the yard is flooding again. It has never dried out from the hurricane. The ground has been consistently mushy for weeks.
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Today was a sad day for another reason. I ate the last of the girls eggs. We will not have anymore until Feb/Mar. Thank you Aurora for laying so late into the year.

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My eggs exploded in my microwave

 

[Marie2020]

Oh, yes, she sure is!

Or looking for bugs

 

[Marie2020]

The worst of the beak problems.
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Begining to look like chickens.
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Both Volt and Amp will tolerate me now.
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You have done incredibly well against all the odds

 

[Marie2020]

I could have a bit of a rant if that would help clarify?

Ranting is good on some occasions

 

[rural mouse]

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Yes, it looked to me like you guys get both ones passing through, and ones that will come and stay. In mild enough Winters more will stay... But correction to my location, I can't seem to draw on this from my phone... I'm actually about in the tip of the purple triangle below the white blob and the "C" of ChicoryBlue. Plenty Red Tails here, but not like you, they don't stay up here at 2230 ft in winter, hunting is too hard.

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They do around here. 4400 average feet, lots of farm/ranch land, reds stay year round. Baldies like it along the rivers (creeks are too shallow). Osprey also like the water. Golden eagles are rarer but not unknown. Turkey vultures aplenty, lots of little kestrels. Thent here's the owls: long eared, a few great horned, occasional barn, plenty of great grey (having them stare in the window at you mid morning is disconcerting), burrowing...oh and the one and only snowy is saw was at a range of about 10 yards, off the tree branch on one side of the road we were WALKING along, swept over it at about 2 feet above, into the trees on the other side and vanished. My then 12 year old son turned to me with eyes the size of dinner plates: was that a hawk? No, son that was an owl. You couldn't hear the wings. Looked like female, on migration north, mid winter. Non predatory birds: sandhill crane's, curlew, Canada geese, trumpeter swans, brown pelicans, western gulls, pheasant (chicken rooster trying to run off pheasant rooster is a funny sight), ravens, crows, magpies, assorted songbirds (reminds me, saw one I don't know yesterday, need to look it up) all the way down to Rufus and calliope hummingbirds.

 

[rural mouse]

Well since we're talking raptors. I've had an idea about chickens and why they are so good at finding worms. I saw a show about mouse-hunting raptors (I don't remember what kind) where besides the incredible detailed vision they have, it was pointed out that the expanded light vision enabled them to see mouse urine. It stood out to them. So they could essentially see the patterns of mouse paths, where the path was visible to the sky, 'cause as we know, mice pee everywhere they go. (We can see those well-traveled trails in the meadow grasses and lawn grasses in the Spring, after the snow melts). I remember a graphic showing a network of glowing trails superimposed on a shot of a meadow. I don't know if this is absolutely true or was only a theory. I will try to find out. But if it's true, maybe chickens also see these things.

I've noticed the Buckeyes instantly know when a spot of earth or clump of soil is good worm hunting or not. How so? The soil texture or type? I can sometimes see the worm holes in a clump of soil I dig. So that might be some clues. But sometimes the chickens get really intense when I dig something or they dig in a spot, like they glance at it and KNOW there's worms in there (and there are), and they up the digging effort and pull it apart with their beaks, pull a pebble over, break into the clump of dirt, whereas they ignore other clumps and test spots. They do take a look, but go, "Meh, next please!"

Suppose worms' body slime stands out when you can see a larger spectrum of light? Suppose they shed this slime as they move along, and leave trails, and chickens can see that? Maybe even distinguish between fresh and old trails? Or maybe it's the worm castings they see?

Research time. And that bird I saw: can't find in Audubon app. Swallow type flight, ring around neck, colors on bird yellow, white, grey/black. Nothing looks close.

 

[rural mouse]

Maybe cutting them in half?

Nah, if they're lucky enough to get hold of the seeds, they eat just fine raw or roasted.

 

[BY Bob]

Beautiful where have your baby girls gone? So grown up now

I know. But still so little compared to Phyllis. They have a ways to go yet.

 

[BY Bob]

Vi requested a vampire so I did what I could…
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Tax
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That is excellent work!