Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[BY Bob]

to @BY Bob & Mrs. BY Bob:

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Those were great. Thanks!

Everyone knows I was not fishing for happy birthdays, right?

 

[Marie2020]

Special Treat

January is a special month at FBA, it is birthday month. Both Mrs BY Bob and me celebrate our birthdays in January. In ccelebration we went out to breakfast and both ordered Eggs Benedict. They were amazing but e did not finish them. That makes for a lucky day for the chickens because who else would we share with?

Leftovers
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I diced everything up into bite sized pieces.
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And created 2 very nice plates for the ladies to enjoy.

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Then I delivered their special breakfast.

Frankly I was a little underwhelmed by their response. I think they must have been full when I showed up. I am sure that they finished it all off this afternoon.

@Ribh, @micstrachan, @MaryJanet, @Aussie-Chookmum, @ChicoryBlue, @LozzyR, @Chicken poppy

Happy Birthday Mr&Mrs Bob

Have a day too remember

 

[bgmathteach]

Thank you for saying that. I suggest everyone zoom in on this photo of Lucky. You can really see the lacing on her feathers. I think she gets prettier every single day. Add to that how she eats out of my hand now, and sits by me even when Neds off gallivanting........its going to be hard to say goodbye.

She's beautiful
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BFTP:
This picture makes me think of 'The Princess and the Pea"

 

[BY Bob]

BFTP:
This picture makes me think of 'The Princess and the Pea"

She was on a pile of cushions so that makes sense.

 

[featherhead007]

I was sitting out on my chair, and Rocks-Anne pecked me on the leg. She wanted me to pick her up and hold her. Such a sweet hen!

 

[BY Bob]

I was sitting out on my chair, and Rocks-Anne pecked me on the leg. She wanted me to pick her up and hold her. Such a sweet hen!
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Wonderful.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

It's nice to see him again. I'm so tempted to put the bird feeders back out. I miss all of my song birds badly. It's just too quiet around here.

You get a lot of joy out of watching and hearing the winter songbirds. They mean a lot to you and are a highlight helping you through a long winter. So you might consider resuming your feeder activity. Of course plan on scrupulously supervised time out of the run for your tribe. The downside I see is that hawk attacks on the songbirds will reinforce your tribe's caution and fear of the outside. If that's a good thing or not is for you to decide.

At this point, the plan so far has been to make your yard less attractive to hawks, particularly to that hawk that has been hanging around there, and with less hunting possibilities, the idea is maybe it will move on. I guess I think it's possible it will go elsewhere, but how will you be sure it's gone, or that another won't show up? Hawk patterns may be changing and you may have more of these as regular occupants of your neighborhood. So maybe it won't really make a difference in that respect whether you feed the wild birds or not.

Speaking for myself, I also am not feeding the birds this winter. But it is also one less thing for me to do every morning, and they will still nest near our house in Spring. We don't feed year-round b/c of bear anyway. I'm okay with not having a hawk swooping in to sit on one of the apple trees and the chickens subsequently freaking out. They already are on fairly high alert when in the big run with any little wild bird noise, and they can see fairly far through the plastic on one side. Plus, the regular appearance of Cooper's hawks hunting the chickadees is nice to do without (and also the associated guilt of having attracted the chickadees here in the first place). Part of me irrationally thinks that not having a feeder will keep the chickens a secret to passing hawks.

But in the end I think about both our situations and ask, okay, how will we know this strategy is effective? At what point will we be comfortable enough to risk unsupervised time out of the run? The answer for me right now is that level of comfort is not likely to come about. Hawks are always passing through on the regular, or the winds have brought some off their usual migration paths and to an area they hadn't been before, or there are pressures on juveniles to leave their home territory and go exploring. So I don't see the threat ever really going away enough for me no matter what happens with the feeder.

Sorry for the long post. I've been thinking about this for awhile, going back and forth on it, and your comment prompted me to write it out.

 

[featherhead007]

Wonderful.

Isn’t it great when they demand love?

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Lots of chickadees called today, they r starting to establish their territories for the up coming breeding Season. Really nice to hear them

Yes, it is nice to hear them! They say the ones that are calling early, the low-high-high-high territory whistle, are the new young males. They are practicing.

 

[Ponypoor]

Yes, it is nice to hear them! They say the ones that are calling early, the low-high-high-high territory whistle, are the new young males. They are practicing.

Lots of young studleys out there in that case

Tuesday I saw a huge flock of turkeys - they were picking through a corn field, next time I will get some photos