Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[fuentemoon]

Happy new year everyone, may this next year be better than the last.
Got home in time to feed the ladies some sprouted wheat, hooray for those extra few minutes of evening light! Not that they don't have a yard full of grass and plants now that the snow has melted We had a sunny but cold day, finally reaching 39° around 3pm, just in time to start dropping again.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

Goodbye to a Friend

Today I said goodbye to another friend. This time in the pouring rain. The rest of the tribe watched from the open door to the complex wishing it would stop so they could come out and enjoy the yard but alas it did not.

She is buried next to Patsy. Both of Lilly's friends together. Someday Lilly will join them but hopefully not for a long time yet.

Goodbye my friend, rest in peace.

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Because there was no real free ranging today, I hung out with them in the run. I can't really tell what if any changes are happening in the tribe as a result of their loss. Once i see any I will share.

Sydney did spend some in the Cluckle Hut today.

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That's a lovely set of photos Bob. It even includes a fluffy butt!
She's practically glowing in the one where she's on your leg.

Rest in Peace beautiful Sansa. We will miss you.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

This is going to be my last post on this thread. I may post on my Ex Batts thread for a while I expect if I can keep the chat about other topics off it which seems doubtful.

I’ve seen what chickens can be from the years I lived with them in Catalonia. The things I’ve seen are spread all over BYC from the roosters who died for their tribes, to the mother hens who fought off Goshawks ten times their weight to protect their chicks. I’ve seen the love between roosters and hens that make what humans call love a pale shadow in comparison. The chicken must surely be the most mistreated and misunderstood creature by humans in the sorry history of our species.

I’ve read the posts where people claim to be disgusted at the conditions battery hens are kept in who then get their own chickens and do much the same; keep them in cages that are just bigger versions of the batteries, feed them the same feed that gets promoted by the various chicken forums knowing that the creature is omnivorous while supporting the businesses who all make money on the back of the chicken keeping hobby.

Does it ever occur to any of you that your hobby is in fact helping to turn the chicken from a noble, long lived, independent, adaptable creature into some pathetic simile of what their ancestors were and still are?

Very very few of the breeds kept by the backyard chicken keeper would even exist if it wasn’t profitable to supply the backyard keeper with these breeds. Most are genetically compromised and badly bred. Very few even get the chance to carry out the most basic natural activities because people can’t keep roosters or don’t have the space to let the chickens roam.

The hatcheries most buy their chickens from are just as disgusting as the large commercial egg producing batteries yet the backyard chicken keeper doesn’t want to acknowledge this and fight to get these places shut down because they want chickens. The hypocrisy is truly staggering.

I read post after post of how this person wants this breed or that, this colour or that. These people don’t care that their wants translate into more badly bred hatchery chickens and if this trend continues, it wont be long before the so called heritage breeds have a similar lifespan to the battery hens. At least the batteries only ruin one, or two species.

People order these poor creatures from catalogues, pick them out of bins at their local “farm” stores and the hatcheries throw yet more eggs in the incubators and churn out still more chicks that have never known the sound of their mother talking to them or the calls of their brothers and sisters. For many they will never even know that there are brothers, fathers, male chickens in the world who got chucked into a grinder or gassed because males are an inconvenient fact and don’t lay eggs. Worst of all, many will not even know they are chickens.

The chicks get packed into boxes, sometimes surrounded by a few “excess” males whose corpses are meant to help stop the females from freezing to death in transit, or to cushion them from the impacts as the parcel of terrified chicks gets chucked about while on its way to yet one more chicken lover. Thousands each year die in transit. When those that do survive get to their destination they are put in yet another cage and molested by someone who wants a pet or someone who wants the chicks to provide them with eggs.

This is what humans do to other creatures.
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Have a look at some of the threads where chickens are dressed up in skirts or made to wear nappies or left to some teenager who wonders what will happen if the manage to cross breed this breed to that.

There are regular hatch along threads where people incubate eggs in a machine to produce yet more chickens that will never know what it is to be a proper chicken. It’s all such great fun I read. Fun for who? I don’t think it’s much fun for the chicken.

Some people will tell you they get chickens because of the conditions they are kept in at the commercial batteries, or some nonsense about wanting to know the providence of the food they feed to their families. There are places where chickens “free range” in far better conditions than the vast majority of backyard chicken keepers can supply. Why not buy eggs from such concerns? If consumers refused to buy eggs from concerns that still keep chickens in cages they could improve the lives of millions of chickens, not just the very small percentage kept in backyards.

Does your backyard match this?
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Most of the myths about chickens many of you know to not be true, from the broodiness has been bred out of them to ten square feet in a run is perfectly fine. How can an hour, or two, once or twice a week so called free ranging in someone's quarter acre backyard be anything like adequate for a creature that will roam over acres. We treat human prisoners better than that.

Every time I read that a rooster has attacked a person a little bird in my heart flutters and flies and I retain some small hope that the chicken isn’t fully tamed yet and while they still have the spirit to attack those that would own them and turn them into slaves, hope for the species will live in my heart.

What has been inflicted by humans on the chicken is one of the greatest evils inflicted on any creature on this planet.

I’ve tried my best to get my message across with minimum offence only to read that one, or the other of you, have ordered yet more chickens to turn into prisoners from yet another hatchery which will pack yet one more batch of terrified chicks into a box and send them to you like some mass produced lifeless product.

There are many ways to keep chickens in the backyard environment but not all backyards are suitable.

Sometimes one just has to accept that the environment you can offer just isn’t suitable and put the best interests of the chicken before your own wants.

There are other ways of having chickens live with you other than buying from hatcheries, or the plethora of money centric breeders that have no real regard for the species and inadequate knowledge of the consequences of their meddling.

I can’t support this thread, or what many of you do any more.

You make some good points Shad though I think there are more shades of gray in some of them than you have allowed for.

I have learned a lot from your posts and think I am a more conscientious chicken keeper because of your input. I hope you will still be able to be present on your ex-battery hens thread for some time.

Tax. Edwina runs past her ACV waterer.

 

[Marie2020]

I always talk to my girls if I go out late to check on them. That way they don't startle when I open the door. Some don't even bother opening their eyes.

I will do this next time. Thanks . I should of thought of that

 

[Marie2020]

I only caught the tail end of it, but thought you guys would enjoy this display by Cashew.

She's is just adorable chatting away too you

 

[Marie2020]

If they are OK with it, then you should be too. Why force them to sleep with people they don't want to sleep next to?

I agree, I love you Bob but I'm not prepared to listen to you snoring when I need to sleep

 

[Marie2020]

Thanks so much. Yes, obviously more was going on than the labs revealed.

Labs and vets can't always be right

 

[featherhead007]

Labs and vets can't always be right

Yes they ca……… awe, never mind

 

[RoyalChick]

The saga continues.. .. .. .. Minnie 'slept in' until 5am (for reference the light wakes everyone else up at just before 7am - so at 5am without a full moon it really is deep, dark night).
She went off to the nest boxes (I haven't gone out there yet to see if she actually laid an egg).
In a small improvement in the routine she did not go 'upstairs' and wake up Magge but contented herself with going into the ground floor level.
When she emerged it was still so dark that she kind of missed the step and fluttered down. Then I guess it was too dark to see up to 'Minnie's roost' so she climbed the step ladder to the main roost. There she marched along and woke up both Dotty and Diana by snuggling up to them.

 

[BY Bob]

The saga continues.. .. .. .. Minnie 'slept in' until 5am (for reference the light wakes everyone else up at just before 7am - so at 5am without a full moon it really is deep, dark night).
She went off to the nest boxes (I haven't gone out there yet to see if she actually laid an egg).
In a small improvement in the routine she did not go 'upstairs' and wake up Magge but contented herself with going into the ground floor level.
When she emerged it was still so dark that she kind of missed the step and fluttered down. Then I guess it was too dark to see up to 'Minnie's roost' so she climbed the step ladder to the main roost. There she marched along and woke up both Dotty and Diana by snuggling up to them.

Wow. She is really a night owl. While Hattie eats at night she has never had an adventure like that.