Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[ChicoryBlue]

@ChicoryBlue - you may well be right. The reason I think it might be that she wants a friend is that during the day a lot of the heat has gone out of their interactions and they spend 80% of daylight hours together without any chasing.

True, as Queen and tribe leader she wants everybody gathered together at night
(But as Aurora and Hazel have demonstrated that still offers opportunities for domination! )

 

[Ponypoor]

Ask Aurora

Today's question comes from @RebeccaBoyd chicken "A disgraced and tired monarch".

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She writes......

Dear Aurora,

How does a reigning queen recover from being utterly humiliated in front of her entire kingdom, horses included by her human servant. I am molting now and therefore am entitled to be grouchy. I get no peace at night and constantly have to peck everyone who thinks it is wise to try to snuggle up close to me. I NEED my space right now. Tonight I desperately wanted a good night sleep so I chose to sleep in the hay pile. I worked so hard to arrange every piece of hay to hide all but my comb. Imagine my horror a few hours later when my human stumbled upon me while throwing down hay to feed the horses. I do not care what she said, I did not almost get crushed by a tossed hay bale, it missed me by inches. I also do not think I deserved to then be forcefully removed from my bed and carried in front of everyone loudly protesting only to be unceremoniously plopped down on the roost in the chicken coop and locked in. That coop is for the silkies and mothers with babies. Now I have to listen to non-stop chatter of the little pip-squeaks and their mothers until morning. If I wanted to hear children peeping I would hatch some myself. I just wanted a good nights sleep.

Yours sincerely,

A disgraced and tired monarch.


Dear A disgraced and tired monarch,

Human servants can be so frustrating. I am constantly being asked questions about “Why do they do this?” “Why do they do that?”. Invariably the indignity done to you happens to every chicken at some point in their lives. What is to be done about it?

Sadly as hard as we work to train our human servants some of them will never reach the status of the truly enlightened ones. Ones who respect our ways and visit as little physical indignity as possible. Of course, we want to be rescued from some location where we were trapped or god forbid the super dangerous pools of water that sometimes populate their yards. I don’t understand their obsession with jumping in water and splashing around. You would think they were imbeciles splashing around like a bunch of brainless ducks. Nonetheless, If that goofy Phyllis falls in the pool again (it would be at least the 4th time, my gosh she is dense) I am sure she will want our human servant to pull her out and dry her off. But that should be the absolute limit of any contact. If Glynda wants to jump up on the human’s lap and talk to him in order to make a point, more power to her. But don’t dare try to pick her up and hold her.

I’d like to say our human servant knows this and really most of the time he is pretty good. However, lately for some reason, who knows why, he has taken to picking Hattie up and moving her to where the rest of us are in the yard. I don’t know why he is doing this. It is very vexing to both me and Hattie.

I have worked very hard to get Hattie to understand that it is best she sticks around her house. In fact, I just spent more than 20 minutes trying to convince her that it is in her interest to sleep in her house and not in my coop. It was exhausting chasing her out onto the porch only to have her come back in. It feels like I have been running in circles for days and now I must sleep in a nest box because it is too dark to roost. Why won’t she just take the hint?

So everyone is mad, me because Hattie is with us again and Hattie because he picked her up and moved her about the yard like she was some kind of stupid garden gnome.

I’ll tell you what, last time he picked Hattie up I was so mad I sent Lady Featherington after him. She was going to peck him hard if he had not moved quickly.

Sometimes I really wish I had a newspaper………

And that leads me back to your problem. Unfortunately, there is not a lot you can do. The humans are bigger than us and sometimes they are quite dense, like yours. Try to train them as best you can but sooner or later they are going to pick you up. What you need to do is make them pay a price for picking you up.

You can do that immediately by pecking them hard and often. They do not realize how much a peck can hurt until you show them. You never know they might be startled and drop you. Look for a piece of their skin that is visible, peck it hard, and be ready to flap as soon as you peck so you can land gracefully. If pecking them doesn’t work there is another way to make them pay a price for being so disrespectful.

Humans really live in a mushy state where they feel all their chickens should like each other and get along. We all know that is not The Way of the Chicken but sadly most humans do not. Therefore a great way to hurt their feelings is to terrorize all of the lessor chickens in your tribe. Now you need to be careful not to go too far as you don’t want cause too much distress. The key is cause enough to make you feel better and to remind everyone that they will pay a price whenever you as disgraced in this manner. It has the added benefit of securing your reign as top hen by remind everyone of their place. Do try to pick on their favorites as that will cause them the most distress and be certain to do it while they are watching. Sudden and unprovoked is best.

Sansa was exceptionally good at this. Gosh I admired her moxie. She knew how to the play the game the right way. I’ll never forget one night Phyllis thought she should be allowed to roost in the prime spot on the roost and Sansa was torqued over the human giving Phyllis more walnuts than her that afternoon. Walnuts were Sansa’s special thing with the human, and she knew that goofy old Phyllis was one of his favorites. So with him watching she walked right up to Phyllis on the roost and just pecked her right in the face. Gosh it was glorious. I never laughed so hard in my life. She was a true chicken that Sansa.

Before I go let’s discuss this chick situation you have going on at night. You need to put a stop to the incessant cheeping. I can only imagine how annoying that is. You have erred greatly in permitting this to continue and you need to put a stop to it. Now let me first say, I love the young ones. Not enough mind you to waste months of my valuable time hatching and raising them. I am a career hen. I don’t have time for that. But I respect the hens like Sydney who decide to take on the task of raising the next generation. I have had many chances to be with the little ones and I think that when they are raised well, they are little darlings. I love nothing more than walking by and talking to them, showing them the best grass to eat, etc. Remember, chicks are our future. It is not their fault if they are badly behaved. It is their mother’s fault and that is where you need to address their behavior.

You have been lax and now you are going to have to drop the hammer. If a momma hen can’t keep her chicks in line than you need to send one of your minions to deliver a message. Of course, pick a hen who is smart enough to actually relay the message. Once they deliver the necessary discipline and message I assure you that things should calm down. I do know that I addressed this with Sydney up front. I threatened her nest. I told her I would destroy it like I destroyed Phyllis’s nest if she did not promise to keep her little ones in line. Sydney knew the ground rules and Ned and Lucky were perfectly behaved little darlings. I hope that someday one of my tribe will hatch out little ones again. I just hope that the human does not let that annoying Phyllis hatch eggs. She would be even more unbearable than she is now. And can you imagine, a bunch of those little weirdos running around. How annoying would that be!

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Oh thou great Aurora, hast thy gloriousness begot ones greatness and as they great bard himself sayeth:

“Th’ abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.”

(Shakespear - Julius Caesar)

I shall likely get a slap down from HRH for that one!

 

[Ponypoor]

I've had to play "what breed of chicken is this chick?" I've also played "where did this trait come from?" In the process, I've read some of the breed histories. Those frequently spark curiosity about a breed used in development. I also tend to retain much of what I read (not everything). Example: Storm (pardon the moult).
View attachment 3386280 She hatched out blue. Her parents: blue laced red wyandotte and olive egger. Her brothers were also blue. The wyandotte was pretty light....so had to be splash laced to produce all blue babies. He was rose comb, but she isn't so he had to be Rrpp to produce a straight comb. Neither parent had a crest. When she popped hers, I had to go back and check genetics of olive Eggers (varies from location): where did that come from? Concluded one of her grandparents had to be cream legbar. Other one likely a cuckoo marans as mom was black with thin white stripes and brothers all barred. The whole curiosity bug led me down the rabbit trail of assorted breed development. In the process, I found the kippenjungle (or however it's spelled) genetics calculator which was helpful in figuring out how Whiskey and Kren got their speckled breasts (Colombian wyandotte can pop it in some cross breeds.....who'd have thunk that!) I've run across some other genetic info like this

https://poultry.extension.org/articles/poultry-anatomy/poultry-genetics-an-introduction/

I think she is actually one of @Kris5902 battle cassowary....

 

[ChicoryBlue]

I was out after some pictures and this girl once again drew my attention to her. She is going to be a hard one to let go when it is time to place the pullet's I do not plan on keeping in a few months. Frankly if she stays much longer I may not let her go and keep her for Ducky's companion. If you cannot tell by her butterball shape she is my only cochin mix chick that I have managed to hatch out. She is also one of the ones that nearly froze to death that dreaded day. I swear if I were within a hours distance of @RoyalChick I would put her in a box, stick a bow on top and leave her in front of her coop door. This young chunky monkey is going to be too heavy one day to fly up to the rafters with the math majors. She would have to sleep next to Bernie.
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Ooh she is beautiful! Are her eyes all dark like it appears they are? I love her head shape too. Is she a Cochin and Marans mix? Why aren’t you keeping her? Is that why she isn’t named?

 

[ChicoryBlue]

I will have some (tall) guys around the place tomorrow - we will figure what to do.
Bernie did not try to fly up this evening. She looked longingly up there but settled quite fast in her solo spot.

From your diagram I would hang the fabric over each end rafter, and have it hang across under the ones in between.

 

[Ponypoor]

Whew, what a day it has been. You know what happened?

SNOW!

And a lot of it. Here are some photos of snow.
I am making a story so yes, I really did insert a picture of the door to start the story.
So when you first approach the chicken area, you'll notice a green door.
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When you open the door, here's the area you've all seen before.
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Where you'll meet Tony, Parmesan and Mozzarella.
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Who try to avoid the snow as much as possible because it's too cold for their feetsies.
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I don't know what's happening here but Tony likes to bite Parmesan and Parmesan is supposedly getting too close to the enemy.
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So, you're probably wondering where Grandma is... She's not in the coop.
She's in the house! With a snowball by her side.
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She cried for what felt like the dozenth time today so she headed to the room to learn some math... chicken math to be precise, while covering her head with a blanket.
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Parmesan came by before this to remind every chicken to eat their vegetables.
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And no, she did not eat the entire stack of spinach in one go.

That was great! Thanks for the wonderful smile today - I needed it.

Oh and FYI - great photos - you keep the snow though!

 

[Ponypoor]

I'm tempted to just drive her and deliver her myself.

can you imagine her face seeing another chickie show up?

 

[rural mouse]

If I ever have a question I will just ask you.

Spark the curiosity bug again, huh. Oh, well. Chickens are interesting and so varied.

 

[Ponypoor]

Watching island at the top of the world

Greenland?

 

[Ponypoor]

Best yet!!!
Brilliant question too. And those videos.
Priceless.

I love the sucker punch - that was epic!