Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[RebeccaBoyd]

Ok everyone the deed is signed, sealed and will be shipped Tuesday. The silkie breeder I have been stalking finally had eggs from black breeding stock that did not have a chance for naked necks. First let us pray those 6 nuggets arrive unbroken. Then let us hope for a successful hatch and then finally pray with everything in us that I am able to hatch and raise 1, just 1 pullet. I would love all pullets but please, please just 1 pullet.

For those of you with facebook, here is the post that shows the parent stock.

https://www.facebook.com/geri.godina/posts/pfbid0VttcUr7TG7u79ewKiaT3KiTFPduhour1AcNSbMumC2h2qyMCo289HH9RzKMFmbUal

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Next up is some Bubba love.

I am sad to say there was a casualty while I was petting him.
View attachment 3544403
His longest tail feather and a blood feather as well darn it. It will be a bit before that one grows back. He should not have lost it, I was just stroking his back and tail and it pulled off in my hand.
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He and Branch turned 2 a month ago and all I can say about him is WOW! He is big and he is gentle. Looking at him I can only imagine how good Drummie would look if he were still alive.

I was thinking of Drumstick looking at these pictures! How Bubba looks thicker-legged, and broader in the chest. Maybe Drumstick was taller? Or Bubba’s standing a tiny bit crouched here, and is a little hot too? Is Bubba built more like a tank than Drumstick was, or maybe Drumstick just didn’t get the chance to really fill out?

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

I was thinking of Drumstick looking at these pictures! How Bubba looks thicker-legged, and broader in the chest. Maybe Drumstick was taller? Or Bubba’s standing a tiny bit crouched here, and is a little hot too? Is Bubba built more like a tank than Drumstick was, or maybe Drumstick just didn’t get the chance to really fill out?

Drumstick was 18 months old when he passed and 16 months old when those pictures were taken. Marans get big but take time to fully mature. My poor boy was taken before his prime, he would have filled out more until he was around 2. Bubba is built like a tank though which is good, he was thick and wide even as a chick. In the pictures I took of Bubba he was a little crouched and not standing tall and proud, he was busy tidbitting to the girls so I had to snap a picture as he straightened up. Not going to lie, at times it hurts to look at Bubba. All I can think and wonder is what would his father look like now.

 

[Pastel the Rooster]

Um..
BBQ kicked Willow off the nest and is sitting right now. Willow is still very broody, and BBQ is pecking my stick.
I think that she is laying, but is it normal for a hen to kick a broody hen off of the only nest?

 

[Pastel the Rooster]

Drumstick was 18 months old when he passed and 16 months old when those pictures were taken. Marans get big but take time to fully mature. My poor boy was taken before his prime, he would have filled out more until he was around 2. Bubba is built like a tank though which is good, he was thick and wide even as a chick. In the pictures I took of Bubba he was a little crouched and not standing tall and proud, he was busy tidbitting to the girls so I had to snap a picture as he straightened up. Not going to lie, at times it hurts to look at Bubba. All I can think and wonder is what would his father look like now.

How did Drumstick die? That's so sad.

 

[Ponypoor]

EE EE EE EE EE EE EE EE EE EE
Umm Umm a way....

Oooo that’s were the lions and tigers live

 

[BY Bob]

Grass Seeds
I have let the grass get a little long and the ladies are enjoying the seeds. It is there job to keep the grass cut after all.

20230618_123915.mp4

• BY Bob
• Jun 18, 2023
• easter egger frost legbar jubilee orpington polish

The tribe enjoys some grass seeds

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Drumstick at 16 months old
View attachment 3544447
His son Bubba will be 25 months old in 2 days.
View attachment 3544453

Mom may be on to something and I do need to try to hatch off and raise a son of his this fall or next spring.

Okay, maybe Drumstick was just so much younger. Bubba The Tank!
SHRA, tax forthcoming if possible - I need new pics!

 

[Ponypoor]

Could you fashion a 'poop board' with an old towel or pillow case and fasten it just below the nest, but still allow space for mom/dad to get in/out of the nest? Then just clean it once, when they fledge! (or, toss it - it will be gross by then!)

Nest is there top centre, poop pile I have on the go is that pile of shavings just behind the Tween.

If they had nested up over top of the light panels it would have been ‘cleaner’

I have been sweeping poops from the chickens into a pile under the nest and that seems to be working, the chickens are pretty good about not digging in the crud.

I usually have a whole row of swallow nests down the centre of the barn

 

[Ponypoor]

I do have calibrated droppers and syringes (and I forgot to add: nail brush and castile soap) Those live in the kitchen ( the droppers and syringes) I don't have a scale, but I've opened an amoxicillan capsule, added a bit of water to make a slurry, and measured/dosed that way.

I should consider Corid (I have - knock on wood - never had coccidosis in my flock - and have never used the medicated chick feed. Now, saying that out louds, I have probably jinxed myself!!!)

Where do you get baby bird formula? I've never seen it in stores! Is it an 'online only thing to be ordered?

Also - you may be surprised at this given what I have done, but I would be really, really nervous about tube feeding - what if I slipped it down the wrong way?? They frequently pull their head up and away when trying to do things with them. Where would you get the small, flexible tubing for that? (and what size??)

I will probably forgo the gel caps - I have been mostly successful with pills...and if their mouth is damp, the gel caps can 'stick' and have to be pushed again.....

All very good suggestions, though. (And, no I don't usually use any anti-biotics. I only ever used it once with crop Surgery - for Crop Girl - as that was pretty invasive - in an 'unclean area' and she was probably too weak at that point to fight an infection if she got one!)

Yep I agree I would not know how to insert a tube into a chooks esophagus- I would be afraid of getting not o to the trachea

Next time I go to my small animal vet with the chooks I am going to get her to show me how to do this.