Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[MaryJanet]

Hello Bob. I am a forever lurker. You are a very good story teller. I am going to be very frugal on commenting or replying on this thread because I am currently at page 1960, and I don't want to give myself more to read.

Anyway, I just played this and my house chicken (injured, you may remember from Shad's thread) totally responded and made the same squeaky sound that Aurora did. It was interesting.

PS: I have calculated that I will be able to catch up in half a year (including the new ones of the half year) if I can read about 3.5 days worth of pages every day. Currently I am doing far better than this.

Nice to see this post on Bob's thread LM

 

[MaryJanet]

Agreed, I left Fb because of the toxic environment and never look back. My best friends and close family keep in touch. I don't need fake friends. I'd rather hang out with my dogs, ducks and chickens and oh yeah, my wife

I left when FB conducted experiments on its users without their informed consent.

 

[MaryJanet]

OK I got some video today. This is the rat-proof chicken feeder, where the selling point is that the distance of the treadle from the food bin is beyond a rat or squirrel's reach but fine for chickens. Apparently rats have figured out ways to overcome treadle-feeders with close treadles. Also a plus is the door opens inward rather than outward, so is safer. Caveat: bantam chickens are too light for it, it is made for full-size chickens, but can be used with bantams when there are full-sized chickens in the flock. Like Hazel, they learn to get in on the action when the big girls have got it open.

Of course half or more of training chickens is training the trainer. Hazel likes to nip in on the left side when others have got the treadle down, and I did not plan for that at first. And now, the 6x6 chunk I had used on the left side previously to block was in use elsewhere so not available for today's video. In the first video I should have positioned myself on the left to be the block, in the two later videos I did. I had both sides blocked in the beginning of training after most everybody wanted to get to the food around the "barrier" of the treadle. So in this video I eventually gently herd Hazel to approach the feeder from the front. She is not afraid of it now, I would not have done that earlier.

Basically the idea is you reveal the food to them by stepping on it and pushing the treadle down, then lift up and close it, and do that a number of times, when they're hungry. You step on it partway, and when they step on the treadle too, let up. My foot wasn't very effective though. I found that because I have sort of inadvertently trained them to follow my hand and finger, as I do with cats - I tap on anything I want them to see and know about - I would tap on the treadle, and push it down a little. I also tap on the door and push it in a little, while holding the treadle down a bit with my other hand, about halfway in the beginning of training, as I found they were hesitant to lift their foot that high and get on top of it. But they will step on it and over it to get to the food. If they stepped over it I let the door down and treadle up. Same if they step on it and then kept going. If they stepped on the treadle I let up and let their weight take over and the door would open fully. Everybody except Hazel learned pretty fast.

Here I'm trying to get Hazel to try it and somebody else just steps right up to eat.

Here Hazel happened to be in the right position, in front of it, and I tried again. She didn't need to eat anymore for awhile after this.

It took some tweaking of three elements to get the weight to resistance ratio and travel distances right. The link length is a fourth but that's pretty well set by the maker. So -the spring tension/length, and the distance the treadle moves / door opens with a proper, firm, bottoming out of the treadle, and the last, which I eventually took out of the equation for the time being, a soft-close mechanism I had as an add-on. The very, very cold weather I thought was making it's operation stiff. I backed it off completely. Thus the door bangs shut for now, but everybody has gotten used to the sound and it doesn't scare them. It is true when I'm out by the run I can hear when somebody has just gotten off the feeder, so I know they are using it.

I thought the soft-close mechanism played a part in making the door too easy to push in when I had the weight-to-resistance ratio about right - I heard a scraping around in there and saw a mole leave, and saw either the same guy or another push it open and about to go in before I scared it away. The last mile of the close, the last half-inch - was too loose, but in pushing the door open further there was resistance, so making the spring stiff enough to hold it tight was making it hard to get the Buckeye weight-to-treadle/ door-fully-open right. The maker is very good at answering questions and providing help and he confirmed the mechanism needs a stiffer spring than one without it. I decided I didn't want to deal with it further for now because training the hens to use it was priority so I backed it off so it would have no effect. When the resistance is too great for the chicken's weight the treadle won't reach the bottom and be fully open, the treadle will float and wiggle some, which is another new and weird-feeling, and potentially unsafe thing for the chickens to deal with.

OK very long and I hope generally informative, though definitely extra-nerdy there at the end...

This afternoon, I bought a treadle feeder in a different design which I'm really looking forward to. It has a pin to lock it shut at night to keep pests out, and a pin to gradually adjust the opening until the hens are no longer concerned about stepping up and the pin can be removed (or something like that). I also like the deep tray and grill to stop pellets getting flicked out (I'm looking at you Ivy).

Seems your hens learned very quickly! Did you put treats in there at first? I'm planning to put tomato, cheese and lettuce in there on the first day.

 

[MaryJanet]

I went looking for you on FB and couldn’t find you (I think I’d found you previously) and figured you’d completely ditched it, or gone incognito. I agree, it can be so toxic, plus I have a sneaking suspicion that algorithms can put you on or keep you off people’s radar. The dopamine hit from ‘likes’ is problematic and with the (deliberately) infinite scrolling, it’s such a time-waster, never mind people getting a bee in their bonnet over something you said. I’ve also seen some of the negativity on BYC but I generally stick to just these threads and it’s mostly non-existent. How do you find the Reddit forums?

Yes, that's how FB's design and algorithms work. It drives dependency. Eyes on screens is one of the products they sell to their customers.

 

[MaryJanet]

They did yesterday. Wonderful peaceful roosting today as well.

This is going so well Bob!!

 

[MaryJanet]

It’s a good day today! I passed the test, and just need to send in the paperwork to reinstate my PPL .
I’m headed home now to see my chickens (and tell them I have my wings again)

 

[MaryJanet]

Poppy is gone. I went out to let everyone loose this morning and while opening the door to the coop Poppy flew off the roost and crashed into the door. Thankfully it was quick and she was gone almost instantly although I'm shattered and been in tears all day.

Ohhhh no!! I'm so sorry. How awful for you.

 

[MaryJanet]

I would like to see training videos if possible please.

Hmmm it's a tall order but there's lead time, so we'll see how it goes.

 

[MaryJanet]

I don’t tell my princesses when I eat chicken.

I told James to shush the other day when he mentioned going to the shop to get chicken thighs for dinner within hearing of the hens!

 

[MaryJanet]

Lady Gouldians Finch is good, and will ship their “pet supplies” to many locations. Although the delivery has been a little slow, in 2020/2021, the pet supplies and Bob’s dosing information finally started clearing Roostie’s foot issues up.

Oh I'm so glad to know roostie's foot came good!