Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[RoyalChick]

Bernadette is quite poised & elegant, as always!

And your peeping Tom is quite handsome! He's a leggy fellow - you must grow them tall down there!

He was quite curious about me (seated) and Bernadette. He zig zagged ever closer.
Then I held up my phone to get a better picture and he was off.
Yes, quite leggy. As is Bernadette who yesterday literally just stepped over Lulu. Judging by Lulu’s reaction she didn’t quite clear with one step. But close!

 

[BY Bob]

A major chicken keeper failure..and some advice needed.

As I mentioned elsewhere my partner 's mother is in hospital and we were meant to visit her today.
She's not in the nearest ICU as it was full, so it's a two and half hour drive to go see her. We were planning to meet my partner 's sister, his aunt and her husband, visit her at 5 pm, and have dinner together after. This meant we would be home toward 23 pm, so we needed to lock up all chickens inside the run with the coop open so they could go roost at night.

Well it turned out we weren't able to get our gang of four teenagers chicken in the run!!! We got our four ex batts in and Théo and Chipie with no trouble, they are used to it.
But the four old chicks / young chickens...we tried everything : coaxing them with food, running after them, driving them around with sticks.. They were terrified and just ran/flew away. And because they are small enough to go through the chicken nettings they can run anywhere around, and they are fast, and don't hesitate to split up. So after 45 mn and quite a few ugly words towards them and between my partner and me, we gave up and I stayed home.

I used to lock them up like this when they were still with Chipie the broody and it was rather easy as they would follow her. But it's been quite a while, almost a month, since we haven't had the need to lock them in the run (we only do that when we both leave the property). And obviously they forgot and now they are just really scared both of being locked up, and of being locked up with the ex-batts and Théo and Chipie.

So I wasn't looking forward to this visit, but I like my stepmom a lot and she really wanted to see me. And now I'm wondering how we are going to train the four of them to come willingly in the run when we need. They like food and three of them will eat in our hands, but this time even broiled eggs and sunflower seeds weren't a sufficient incentive.

One thing I'm going to do is leave their usual food closer to that of the ex batts inside the chicken zone, as for the time being they don't meddle at all during the day. This should force them to get more used to being together. But I also need to be able to make them come inside the run or the coop when it's needed and accept being locked up.

How would you go about it ? They are not chickens we can pick up, but they do come near us and will ask for food and eat from our hands. I need to work from there.

Three of the four culprits playing jungle foil in the Jerusalem artichokes.
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Food is the number one way to traing them. Both @RoyalChick @Ponypoor use food as well. Find something special that they really love and only feed it in the run.

Do you have a chair in the run you can sit in and distribute treats by hand? In an emergent situation like yours you could sit in the run with the treats they like to eat from your hands and then have the door closed behind you when they come in. Then you just need to have enough to keep them occupied while you sneak out.

Despite rumors to the contrary, mine do not get enough meal worms outside of the run that they do stampede into the run when I shake the container and call them. Use a specific call for that treat as well so they associate it with that treat.

@RoyalChick is right, locking them in the night before is the absolute best way to do it. Mine complain as well but it is way easier to deal with chickens at night.

 

[BY Bob]

Burying your head is a good strategy for a lot of things, and here it can help you in reframing the situation. Either through fantasy (go to your “happy place”) or in focusing solely on the physical sensations of your fear and not on the fear-producing events, thus compartmentalizing the fear. Anxiety reducing guided meditations do both routes, and could be helpful.View attachment 3223866

Those just are super attractive ladies. Beautiful.

 

[Ponypoor]

Bernadette’s mugshot for Monday. She is getting a nice set of wattles with some swing to them!
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Our little photo shoot was closely observed from the other side of the fence and gave me a chance to get another couple of mugshots.

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Wattles AND antlers how spectacular

 

[RoyalChick]

Despite rumors to the contrary, mine do not get enough meal worms outside of the run that they do stampede into the run when I shake the container and call them.

That would be not counting the ones that a certain someone gets when she comes into the house. Right?

 

[lightm]

Wednesday, Michelle. So far the hospital staff have been pretty nice & quite understanding. Unfortunately there is a rinse & repeat in 3 weeks time ~ & I figure that will be worse because then I will know how bad it gets.

Best wishes to you. It might be better because you may learn it is not bad at all!

 

[Ponypoor]

Food is the number one way to traing them. Both @RoyalChick @Ponypoor use food as well. Find something special that they really love and only feed it in the run.

Do you have a chair in the run you can sit in and distribute treats by hand? In an emergent situation like yours you could sit in the run with the treats they like to eat from your hands and then have the door closed behind you when they come in. Then you just need to have enough to keep them occupied while you sneak out.

Despite rumors to the contrary, mine do not get enough meal worms outside of the run that they do stampede into the run when I shake the container and call them. Use a specific call for that treat as well so they associate it with that treat.

@RoyalChick is right, locking them in the night before is the absolute best way to do it. Mine complain as well but it is way easier to deal with chickens at night.

Seems we all have similar conditioning strategies! It’s great to see that others also use food and a special call

I really feel for Emmanuella I have been in her shoes tryin to get horses in! And the brats just know somethings up! And gallop madly around the fields sheesh!!! Now I often just bring them in at odd times just to keep them guessing hahaha - but I always give treats when they do come in.

Same with the chickies! Nothing worse than trying to chase down animals that can fly

Of course now I have the opposite problem were both horses and chickies are so food motivated they won’t leave me alone!!! All the horses want is to come inside now! And the chickies keep stealing my bagels and lunch

 

[ManueB]

Thanks so much for all the advice, I'm glad I asked. l will be making a mix of all. I think I need to first get them used to getting locked up in the run on their own, which is easy to do in the morning as they are the last to leave the coop. It's harder at night because they are also last to go in and waiting impatiently for the older chickens to have gone to roost so they can do the same safely.
And I need them to learn to share a feeding space with the others, but I'll begin outside, so it's easier for them to escape when they are attacked.

It's hard to find a really special treat when they have free access to all the fruits and vegetables in the garden! They went crazy for broiled eggs the two times I gave them some but obviously not sufficient to overcome their fear today.

Our run isn't a run, it's just a small pen, we were planning on redoing it this week but my stepmom in hospital means we have to postpone. However it will never be bigger than 8/9 m square due to the land configuration.
Also, I don't want to be leaving food in the coop / run all day (I don't feed at given time, I let them have free access to feed) because we got rid of a bad mice situation and I think stopping leaving accessible food inside helped. So I will have to play with treats to make them follow us, and then maybe feed them in the run when they wake up in the morning.
Once they get used to that and when we have redone the run, we'll try keeping them locked in with all the other chickens in the morning. It will be slightly bigger and certainly more confortable once we've redone it.

I'm trying to find an excuse for my unorthodox mugshot and actually Grochatila was one of the main asset in the fight against mice in the coop. We call him "tigre des Sauches". Hard to believe he's such a fierce hunter.

 

[lightm]

A major chicken keeper failure..and some advice needed.

As I mentioned elsewhere my partner 's mother is in hospital and we were meant to visit her today.
She's not in the nearest ICU as it was full, so it's a two and half hour drive to go see her. We were planning to meet my partner 's sister, his aunt and her husband, visit her at 5 pm, and have dinner together after. This meant we would be home toward 23 pm, so we needed to lock up all chickens inside the run with the coop open so they could go roost at night.

Well it turned out we weren't able to get our gang of four teenagers chicken in the run!!! We got our four ex batts in and Théo and Chipie with no trouble, they are used to it.
But the four old chicks / young chickens...we tried everything : coaxing them with food, running after them, driving them around with sticks.. They were terrified and just ran/flew away. And because they are small enough to go through the chicken nettings they can run anywhere around, and they are fast, and don't hesitate to split up. So after 45 mn and quite a few ugly words towards them and between my partner and me, we gave up and I stayed home.

I used to lock them up like this when they were still with Chipie the broody and it was rather easy as they would follow her. But it's been quite a while, almost a month, since we haven't had the need to lock them in the run (we only do that when we both leave the property). And obviously they forgot and now they are just really scared both of being locked up, and of being locked up with the ex-batts and Théo and Chipie.

So I wasn't looking forward to this visit, but I like my stepmom a lot and she really wanted to see me. And now I'm wondering how we are going to train the four of them to come willingly in the run when we need. They like food and three of them will eat in our hands, but this time even broiled eggs and sunflower seeds weren't a sufficient incentive.

One thing I'm going to do is leave their usual food closer to that of the ex batts inside the chicken zone, as for the time being they don't meddle at all during the day. This should force them to get more used to being together. But I also need to be able to make them come inside the run or the coop when it's needed and accept being locked up.

How would you go about it ? They are not chickens we can pick up, but they do come near us and will ask for food and eat from our hands. I need to work from there.

Three of the four culprits playing jungle foil in the Jerusalem artichokes.
View attachment 3223796

That is stressful. Do they go to the same run/coop to sleep? So they will go inside willingly at night or are they roosting wildly? Sorry I have no advice other than starting to slowly handle them, like a gentle pat when they are eating out of your hands.

 

[lightm]

Bernadette’s mugshot for Monday. She is getting a nice set of wattles with some swing to them!
View attachment 3223868View attachment 3223869

Our little photo shoot was closely observed from the other side of the fence and gave me a chance to get another couple of mugshots.

View attachment 3223871View attachment 3223872

What a beauty!