Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[bgmathteach]

I’ll have my lawyer take a look at that tax payment schedule. Maybe she could find a few loopholes.

Yes,, there are a couple......
Beneath Betty's 'looped' feathers

Monday mugs: chickie from last spring:

Tax on the 'loop holes':
A barred bottom

And this is for @RoyalChick & @MaryJanet for all the help regarding FLHS: May last year's chicks live a long & happy life!

 

[BY Bob]

While we are on the topic of trees and flowers… (boy have I got a lot of catching up, eh?) the last upright on the Dogwood torn apart by our last Bad storm has come down. I am planning on taking some cuttings from it though, to see if we can maybe keep a part of it alive. It is going to be a very long time before anything I take reaches the size or beauty of the former second largest Dogwood in the Province… but at least it will sort of live on.

I love this idea. That tree was spectacular.

 

[BY Bob]

Hi folks. Sorry I did not take photos this weekend, but the girls did enjoy free ranging all day Saturday and part of Sunday.

Remember the quilt I was working on? It’s finished!
View attachment 3058471

That is really special. Great work!

 

[BY Bob]

Monday Mugs

 

[rural mouse]

I love watching the sentinels at work. It is a favorite part of tribe observations.

I see lots of sentinels. Catching the changing of the guard (and who) was a delightful surprise. I'm gonna speculate on the babies interactions and hazard that the weather has been too chilly for them to want to venture forth, so the bigs are leaving them be/not guarding the coop yet. The littles have done some coop exploration, but not done more than look out the hatch on warmer days. There's also the lack of ground cover/ leaves. That should be changing by the end of the month, putting them at 6-7 weeks.

 

[rural mouse]

Chickens are great at getting rid of foxtail! The only thing on the island that will eat it, and they love it. I’m pretty sure the seeds don’t survive the chicken processing either… I virtually eliminated all the foxtail near my trailer, without even really trying!

They've been working on the stuff around here too. There's enough of it to keep them busy for several years....now if they would eat some of the other undesirables, like knapweed....(on second thought, I don't want knapweed flavored eggs).

 

[rural mouse]

Mugs

Peekaboo! They've figured out how to squeeze through/shoulder the door open wider.

Broody Jessica, still on eggs plus 1 fake (I haven't seen any, but she's turning them regularly)

Silver just before sentinel duties

Asphodel, such a sweet face, behind which lurks a smart little thing

 

[rural mouse]

And a double mug that wouldn't load for the main mug post. Cheetah and PITA

 

[Marie2020]

What a disastrous day. My gardener did 3 quarters of my garden and his strimmer cord stopped working, he's such a kind honest guy and wouldn't take any money, I was so upset for him. We all need money but he needs it more I hope this can be resolved for him, it's his lifeline

Adding. This company that this strimmer/,hedge cutter has come from are now sending what I consider to be intrusions to my phone asking that I download an being in the form of a app which is not ONLY for the evidence too be sent but for my private photographs and a load of other private details too be added. All we wanted was a replacement part which was to be paid for, even though this contraption is still under guarantee. Their first link came up as not a valid address. . These games being played today is now way beyond the joke

Flexi wouldn't look into the camera she's gone shy all of a sudden

 

[Marie2020]

Yes I think you are right. Let me try and summarize what I have learned having spent a few hours deep in academic articles. Hope it helps everyone. The disease is called FLHS (Fatty Liver Hemorrhagic Syndrome) and I am only talking about chickens not people.

FLHS is a metabolic disease related to how the chicken metabolizes carbohydrate and fat. Like most metabolic diseases it is very multifactorial with the main factors generally recognized as contributing to it being:

• Genetics - particularly high production breeds as well as age of chicken and time of year. Basically it is associated with high laying so 'peak production' is often what stimulates the fatal event. This is where the link to estrogen comes from and why some have the hypothesis that a diet low in soy would be best. There is no experimental evidence that soy causes FLHS, but many want to reduce the use of soy for other reasons (bad for the environment, GMO etc.)
• Temperature and stress - both seem to be triggering factors
• Low exercise - this may be independent of obesity - like running around is good in its own right
• High calorie diet, particularly when the calories are mainly from carbohydrate

Several papers believe it should be renamed as Liver Hemorrhagic Syndrome because not all of the cases have fatty liver or are obese.

The role of flax is poorly understood. There are papers that suggest it protects against FLHS and others that suggest it doesn't and one that suggests it is harmful. The source that said it was harmful was not a peer reviewed journal so I am now thinking maybe flax is just fine (or it is unknown). Sorry to introduce the flax red herring!

Beyond Flax which is a puzzle, the interventions that have been shown to be helpful are:

• Exercise and not over-feeding
• A diet where a lot of calories come from protein and fat
• A diet which includes Selenium - farms with multiple cases of FLHS are recommended to supplement feed with selenium. Diary like yoghurt and cottage cheese are good dietary sources of selenium
• A diet that is rich in lutein - again this can be supplemented - but comes from leafy greens like kale
• A diet that is rich in choline - corn is low in choline, wheat, barley, oats and oilseeds have more choline

Putting this all together the Scratch and Peck feed does look like it is scientifically better for FLHS than many of the others.

Phew! I really should not have read so many papers. My brain hurts!

One tidbit I picked up for @micstrachan is that FLHS is the most common cause of death in backyard flocks in Northern California!

I am going to give the Scratch and Peck food a try, but it is very costly so I may do a mix and just try and give them more meat and introduce kale on a regular basis.

Edit: Sorry folk for long post - I didn't source all the papers I read - I started reading and didn't keep track - I read about 15 papers - if anyone really wants to dig through them I can probably figure out what I read from my browser history.

Marking this post too come back to.
Thanks RC