Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[RoyalChick]

It is absolutely possible. He has definitely been amping up his game with girls lately the closer they get to laying age. Wing dancing and awkward hop grabs, its kinda cute actually in that awkward teenage boy way. I have not seen him be even remotely aggressive about it though but that doesn’t mean one of the girls didn’t take offense and nip him good for attempting.

Or .. or .. it could actually be dirt and I am all worried about absolutely nothing. Its my first winter with chickens so everything feels like more of a big deal then it likely is.

I have decided to calm the heck down, try and forgive myself, watch him closely and keep giving aspirin and mash with added protein, eggs, peanut butter ect. If indeed it does turn out to be frostbite I will carefully reevaluate my coop and see what needs adjusting and strongly consider a panel heater to have on hand for extreme weather events. This isn’t remotely normal for my area. I will not touch it as much as I would like to know for sure if it’s dirt or frostbite its not worth potentially causing further harm.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I am a research person and I have read tons but its not the same as having experience and dealing with the emotional roller coaster AND the emergency. That will take time to develop and your help is much appreciated .

I don’t think you need the aspirin. If it is frostbite it won’t hurt unless messed with, infected, or very swollen.
The black stuff in frostbite is dead and you are just waiting for a scab to falloff.
Watch behavior closely, and if normal I think you can assume no medicine is needed.
I have dealt with frostbite a couple of times, I too felt like it was all my fault. But the chickens were like ‘no biggie if I get treats’!

 

[RoyalChick]

I hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas. I know, I know... I'm two days late! (Let's just call it "Hawaiian time" )

Just wanted to share my favorite gift this year:
View attachment 3360240
My fiancé surprised me with this framed photo of Chickadee What a sweet & thoughtful gift.

I also found the perfect place to display her photo... on my book cart (or chicken cart )
View attachment 3360241

What a wonderful gift! I love it.

 

[RoyalChick]

I will get pictures tomorrow morning, I was in a tizzy today of worry so I didn’t think to get any photos. I know they will really help others help me and Oreo.
Thank you for sharing your go round with frost bite it makes me feel a little better knowing I am not alone with the issue.
If indeed it is frostbite I will be watching him super close with 10 girls one of them could well have a go at it. I have an emergency tent enclosure that could be set up inside or in the garage ready to go if need be. I could even bring in one of the less inquisitive girls to keep him company.

Here are two pictures of Dotty’s frostbite before it fell off.
Two points of her comb were affected. One actually recovered and the black you can see fell off.

 

[Ponypoor]

Awesome!!!!

I feel for you, I had a long distance plumbing issue today. We have a storage unit in the city near our old house, they had a leak of some sorts. Communication was initially “there’s water coming out of your unit you have to open it”. I was sending my Dad to go so they could cut the lock, but they refused. Several abrupt phone calls later… no person to cut a lock until tomorrow, paperwork, “it’s in the hallway, we don’t really know…”. This is after my Husband has left work here, I did a 2km forced hike with the 3 goats to bring him the backup key, and several hundred dollars in ferries has happened. Not to mention a challenging drive home with three goats in nasty mud and a torrential downpour (which started halfway through the walk down). It was Ciaran’s very first car ride. Jimmy’s first not crated trip… and I was stuck driving and managing all three.

DH got to the locker… and it FINE. The water didn’t even leak in from the hallway and was most certainly not coming out of our unit. He will have a “discussion” with the manager tomorrow when they are back in, as the ferry arrived well after the office hours at the storage place ended. The communication provided initially led us to believe that we had a situation like yours. Picturing water pouring out of the overhead plumbing/fire suppression… considering most of what we have stored there is books (lots and lots of books….) and antiques/family heirlooms, art, and old irreplaceable photos, we wanted to keep safe and dry… so relieved and angry at the same time (not to even mention the overall cost of storage since summer of 2017)

The chickens ha e mostly had the good sense to stay in recently… please accept a goat tax picture instead! They did SO great on walking down, through three feral herds and the pack of farm dogs outside the slaughterhouse.View attachment 3360237
Ciaran’s first “snow”

Awww sounds like they did well!

I was tempted to take Fluffy to Pet Source for photo with Santa but I worried she would be stressed. I think I’m the spring when o get home I will train her to walk on a harness and wear a chicken dropping catcher maybe Curly also as she is quiet.

 

[Ponypoor]

I hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas. I know, I know... I'm two days late! (Let's just call it "Hawaiian time" )

Just wanted to share my favorite gift this year:
View attachment 3360240
My fiancé surprised me with this framed photo of Chickadee What a sweet & thoughtful gift.

I also found the perfect place to display her photo... on my book cart (or chicken cart )
View attachment 3360241

Awwww so sweet and a lovely photo of her

 

[Ponypoor]

Pics please… the tips of the comb will go first generally. Yes, I finally ended up with frostbite experience last year… Dean lost several comb tips he was standing “guard” out in -5c with -20 or lower windchill for who knows how long before I noticed and manually relocated his girls (hiding from the blizzard) and him back into the coop… and Mr Marans got some as well (I think the metal roofing, condensation, and roost placement was the problem there).

As @Ponypoor points out it was fine until some of Dean’s girls pecked at it many weeks later, it bled like crazy, so I brought him in, which led to several other rooster/flock politics issues. Also frostbitten areas are more prone to subsequent cold damage. The area around where Dean lost the parts of his comb to frostbite last year bled again this year in our far less intense cold snap. We tend to get very wet cold weather here.

Oh no that’s too bad - I was very worried about Mr Ps wattles but he is ok.

 

[Ponypoor]

It is absolutely possible. He has definitely been amping up his game with girls lately the closer they get to laying age. Wing dancing and awkward hop grabs, its kinda cute actually in that awkward teenage boy way. I have not seen him be even remotely aggressive about it though but that doesn’t mean one of the girls didn’t take offense and nip him good for attempting.

Or .. or .. it could actually be dirt and I am all worried about absolutely nothing. Its my first winter with chickens so everything feels like more of a big deal then it likely is.

I have decided to calm the heck down, try and forgive myself, watch him closely and keep giving aspirin and mash with added protein, eggs, peanut butter ect. If indeed it does turn out to be frostbite I will carefully reevaluate my coop and see what needs adjusting and strongly consider a panel heater to have on hand for extreme weather events. This isn’t remotely normal for my area. I will not touch it as much as I would like to know for sure if it’s dirt or frostbite its not worth potentially causing further harm.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I am a research person and I have read tons but its not the same as having experience and dealing with the emotional roller coaster AND the emergency. That will take time to develop and your help is much appreciated .

Get a good photo so we can see. It could just be pigmentation coming in as he gets older. The aspirin won’t hurt if it is just dirt or such

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Thank you for the reassurance, I feel so guilty but I honestly do not know what more I could have done.

I’m not sure that frostbite goes from a perfect looking comb to a couple of black spots overnight. Wouldn’t the frost bitten area/spot look “too red” sore and injured first, maybe lose blood and turn whiter, the tissue eventually dying and then turning black in a few days?

 

[RoyalChick]

I’m not sure that frostbite goes from a perfect looking comb to a couple of black spots overnight. Wouldn’t the frost bitten area/spot look “too red” sore and injured first, maybe lose blood and turn whiter, the tissue eventually dying and then turning black in a few days?

My experience with Dotty and previously Maggie with frostbite is that I first noticed paleness and slight swelling. Then it went black.
My experience of sudden black spots over night was tiny blood spots from pecks from other chickens. I was way more upset than the chicken who got pecked.
I will look through my photos - pretty much every chicken I have had has had tiny black spots on comb and/or wattles from their sisters.
Here we go. Another Dotty photo showing the very early pale tips to her comb and two black spots further in and closer to her head. The black spots are just little pecks. Likely from Maggie.

 

[Ponypoor]

My experience with Dotty and previously Maggie with frostbite is that I first noticed paleness and slight swelling. Then it went black.
My experience of sudden black spots over night was tiny blood spots from pecks from other chickens. I was way more upset than the chicken who got pecked.
I will look through my photos - pretty much every chicken I have had has had tiny black spots on comb and/or wattles from their sisters.
Here we go. Another Dotty photo showing the very early pale tips to her comb and two black spots further in and closer to her head. The black spots are just little pecks. Likely from Maggie.

View attachment 3360304

That’s great information! Thanks for sharing! I only have the one hen with a comb and wattles (Sophia), might have rethink my adoration or wattles and combs

So what about wattles? Has anyone had issues with wattles getting frosted?