Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Pastel the Rooster]

This is what I have in placeView attachment 3579896

This Hen House is only 4x10 feet so these two make a huge difference.

I talked to my dad about getting a fan. Need it to be small and battery powered. And cheap.
I'm gonna see if I can get it by August. It's the worst month of the year. And of COURSE its my birth month, so I can't have a party until November or something because of how hot it is.

@ValerieF, are you okay?

 

[rural mouse]

It's always feast or famine, now I have the person who wanted 3 dozen eggs last week, wanting 6 dozen! I told him I might get 4 dozen for him. Also that I had some pullets growing up and would be laying in the next couple months. He was happy to hear this and more than happy to wait and get whatever I could get him

So I might just have to keep all these darn tootin pullets! I may have to rethink this only keeping 13 or 14 chooks. And I may have to just get the Shavings Room converted into a second Hen House. Yee gads!

I was thinking of just pulling out the wall and making it the full 10x10 again, but got to thinking that if I put in a second Hen House then I would have a place to put quarantines, broodies etc. Not that I want broodies mind you, such pains in the fluffy butts.

Speaking of pains in the butt... I have once again been invaded by security breachers.

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Definitely need at least 2 roos

 

[RoyalChick]

I have a ice block in front of the fan blowing cool air.

Perfect. Your humidity is so low that anything you can make wet near the fan will dry and provide evaporative cooling.
I have used old towels and sheets hung up wet from the rafters and even with moderately high humidity that cools with a fan blowing in them. For you it could make a big difference.

 

[Skyewatcher]

2 mugs and raise you a fluffy butt - best I can do for today...

 

[WhoDatChick]

I’m still not caught up, but only four days behind now instead of a week.


Haven’t made it far enough to see if the chicks have arrived yet. I did want to mention that there is a difference between “available heat” and “constant unavoidable heat”. This is why they always say when setting up a brooder you need to have an area that is cooler than the heat lame/heating pad area, so the chicks can find a comfortable area and go warm up as needed. So the chicks will probably be fine, but keep an eye on them. Maybe even have a frozen water bottle wrapped in a towel at one end that they and/or mom can use to cool off a little when desired.



Sorry for your loss. You did a great job of making her last day a good one.


Sending prayers and healing thoughts, hope he gets well soon.


Hi! I don’t think you have been on here since I started posting, but I have read the first 1000 pages of the thread and remember you. Hope you are doing well.


Hope she feels better soon, and that you keep managing to get some nutrition in her.


Sweetheart I know the losses are hard. Losing Miss Z has been tough, especially since I feel guilty that I didn’t know enough to be doing what I could to prevent her getting sick, and didn’t realize what to watch for. But as Ponypoor has said, part of having livestock, or any type of pet, also means having dead stock. It is just a fact of life. And you have to also remember how much LIFE has been posted about I. This thread. All the funny antics, and all the na at chicks being born. Don’t let the bad outweigh the good.


We are still having unrelenting heat. Doing my best to keep the chooks cool. Put a rubber pan as a wading pool and they finally decided it was a good thing. Caught two of them in it today pecking at anyone else who tried to join them. Going to add a second one tomorrow. Every afternoon I take out a bucket of ice and add some to all the waterers and to the wading pool (after rinsing it out, there is rarely any water left in it).
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For some reason everyone started bullying Buffy about a week ago. She ended up getting an impacted crop and I think it is partially from getting dehydrated. They were chasing her off when she would try to drink. I think I have gotten the crop issue resolved, and I have added water in two more places, and at least twice a day go “stand guard” while she gets a good drink and some food.

This was the extended forecast on Tuesday:
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And here it is today:
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Humidity has been 40-50%, so heat index is even higher.

Coco went broody again a few weeks ago, about three weeks after she finally broke the first time. Luckily after only about a week she decided it was too hot to sit in a nest box all day. All the girls have been eating less and not laying as much. Even my ISAs have taken a break once or twice a week. And the eggs are running a little smaller too. Hope we get a break soon, hasn’t rained in several weeks or even longer.

On a non-chicken note, DH had cataract surgery yesterday. It went well, but he is horrible about having eye drops out in so that is quite the chore. Will hopefully be doing his other eye in two weeks.

Hi there! I am well… thank you very much!

 

[BeefQuesoritto]

My quail eggs were delivered today. This is probably gonna sound stupid, but I had them delivered to my house. They're gonna sit out there for some while. I don't know why I didn't think about the heat, but it's about 100 F. Jeez what a dummy. I could have had them delivered to my job. I guess lessons learned, we'll just see what's what.

At least I only work until 17:00 instead of 21:00 today? Ugh!!!!

Maybe best to skip the resting period and set them right in the incubator?

 

[BY Bob]

Hattie's Hatchday!
Guess who is 5!

I've started a thread to celebrate her!

Thread 'Happy 5th Hatchday Hattie' https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/happy-5th-hatchday-hattie.1590737/

 

[Ponypoor]

I could get a old fan up and running from a few years ago.
I was going to use it for my greenhouse but it didn't fit.

I got my box fans at Walmart - inexpensive and easy to drag around.

 

[featherhead007]

“Daddy, it’s really hot, where’s the cool air?”

 

[Lilion]

The shed has arrived! Here it is!

It's bigger than we remembered. I think it's 12x28. The door is the end where the coop will be. It's about 3:30 pm in this picture, so hottest part of the day. It will get some sun but not a much as the other coop gets. I'm thinking to put the run off the left end, and they'll have shade pretty much all day in the run. We'll add more windows of some kind. It has soffit and ridge venting and I'm thinking of adding more at the tops of the walls. We'll see.