Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[BY Bob]

So then what? You have a kitchen bowl full of oily mice. What do you do next?

Put them in a cardboard box and drive them over to your house. Then let them go in the chicken Palace as treats. Peanut and mouse, that's dessert for your lot.

What else would I do?

 

[rural mouse]

Two weeks

1 week to go. If any hatch, you have to name one Christmas and one Yule.

 

[RoyalChick]

another blast from the past:
@RoyalChick Did you ever discover what the noise meant/was in reference to? I have a couple of chickens that do this also (2 hens and my roosters) I have suspicions as to what it means, but not sure.

No idea. Suggestions welcome!

 

[BY Bob]

I have

 

[RoyalChick]

I don't know to be honest and I think it may partly depend (yet once again) on relatedness of the tribe.
I've never built big coops but that is in part because I haven't and wouldn't keep chickens where temperatures dropped low enough for them not to be able to leave the coop and free range.

Mine don’t really stay in it. They have a door that mostly stays open so they can go out. And mostly they do.

 

[BY Bob]

Just read the story of Mrs BY Bob's stroke. It sounds like an absolutely harrowing experience. I'm so glad that both of you are essentially okay. What a thing to go through as newly weds, and what a testament to both of you's love for each other.

Thank you so much. We are stuck to each other. No one is getting away 34 years later.

 

[BY Bob]

Another blast from the past:

Wow, what a good momma...she only had one tieeny tiny nibble...all the rest fo the time she kept bringing attention to the spaghetti for the littles. Amazing for her to forego ALL of it, My experieince is a hen will tidbit or pick it up and break it into smaller pieces for the chicks and let them eat...but then eat some at the end herself. I'm so impressed with Sydney!!!

I also loves watching Lucky race off with her find to eat it, while Ned ate it right there with momma.

Oh these are marvelous memories. I'm so glad you are reading through that time period.

 

[BY Bob]

I got close scrutiny once but it was fleeting, when I played in a small jazz group for a Commencement ceremony at a State University in the area, and Senator Hilary Clinton was the speaker. We had started loading in before anyone arrived and I stashed my little electric upright bass under the bleachers behind us to be safe out of sight while I left to load in more (things get stolen in those moments). I was using the case it came with at the time, a soft padded 30" rifle case!

We were almost finished setting up, people were filling the place up, the Secret Service arrived, and Senator Clinton took her place, and my last step was to turn around, kneel down and pull my bass out of the shadows of the stands, but then I realized what that sure looked like. I looked up to see at least two of those guys over there looking solidly at me. I unzipped it and opened it up as far as it would go laying there so they could see what was in it...slowly took it out, put it together....when I stood it up with it I saw no one was giving me the stare anymore. Whew!

That was close!

 

[BY Bob]

Peanut update - Naked But Not Afraid

She's doing okay I think. She is pretty naked on her legs, breast, belly, shoulders and wings, but things are growing too, and she's eating. That's the coop warmer in the first picture, she likes it and goes there periodically to warm up.

I've also put a heating pad set on low inside a plastic bag and covered with a big T-shirt and a bit of hemp on the roost bars along the back of the roosting area (the green roof seen here is the bottom of that part), it covers a little more than a third of the area, so they can get on it or not, it's available for Peanut, who I suspect though sleeps in the nestbox area which has chopped hemp she can snuggle into (that's the white area above her and the coop warmer here. It probably puts a bit of warmth up there). The evening I put the heating pad in they were afraid of it and two slept on the roost bars and somebody wedged in with Peanut like Yin and Yang into the nestbox, so that was even better.

Here you can also see a bit of the red bowl which I've been putting in Exact baby bird food pudding every morning, she eats a lot of that. She also chows on the Feather Fixer pellets and the last of the brussel sprout greens. It may help that she's Alpha, nobody pushes her around with the food. Hazel takes some liberties but mostly lets her do what she wants. Peanut takes herself away though when things get too close, she hates to be touched now. So when she warms up she stands here or pecks around near it. Sometimes I see them all grouped around it, even someone lying down next to it. They also go up into the coop for daytime rests. Those slots are not vents, just reinforcing curves in the plastic.
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Here below is Peanut taking some baby bird formula from my finger before I put the bowl in the back. This was after she saw the bowl in my hand this morning and just laid right into it right there, her beak smacking with the pudding. This was a second round. Warms my heart to see her eating! I have not tried to hold her or feel how skinny she is because of this. I think she is hanging in.

She often stands with one leg tucked up, I think it keeps her nakedness warm against her skin. Why waste the opportunity when you only need one leg at a time?
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She is tough and is adapting very well. She will make it through this just fine.

 

[BY Bob]

I don't know to be honest and I think it may partly depend (yet once again) on relatedness of the tribe.
I've never built big coops but that is in part because I haven't and wouldn't keep chickens where temperatures dropped low enough for them not to be able to leave the coop and free range.

I do build coops big enough to keep them locked in if needed either because of a blizzard or temperatures well below zero. These same coops provide safe and dry places during tropical storms and hurricanes that come by every so often.

I do this because the climate where I live includes both extreme heat and cold as well as the periodical big storm.

I will also note that after the recent hawk attacks the tribe spent a large portion of their time not out in their run but rather safely in their large coop which I built for them. It provided them with lots of room and somewhere they felt safe.

I will also note that even in extreme cold you will not find my tribe huddled together. They would rather be cold than appear to like each other.

OR

They are comfortable in their big coop and don't feel the need to huddle to stay warm.