Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Sylvester017]

I’m still saluting your metal chicken statue. Can I put my arm down now? It’s tired

Salute returned! At ease!

 

[Ponypoor]

At a certain age our girls got the Don King look hair straight up in the air!
View attachment 3926177View attachment 3926178View attachment 3926179View attachment 3926183View attachment 3926184View attachment 3926185

So cute at that age

 

[Ponypoor]

This is how it’s been past few nights


All the ladies crammed into the end of the roosting ledge in Hen House A.

And here is the reason - Rosario has the other end all to himself.

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

I will resist, I will.
Same general area, less then 15 minutes away this was posted 2 hours ago.

These are listed as grey/splash.

hmm, I wonder if they offer hatching eggs.

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

I snooped, and the parents of those chicks are lovely. I messaged them to see if they plan on offering hatching eggs next spring. Snooping on their personal page led me to the price of them. They are too young to mix with my chicks, they are too young. I must keep telling myself that. $6 each, they are too young Rebecca.

 

[Sylvester017]

13+yrs saga cont...

(2020)
All seemed to be going well w/ the 4 hens and w/ the progress on their chicken yard.

The two Dominiques (JEWLZ & DANA) kept little VIOLET protected from bully CHAR.

Violet could always depend on the Dom's vigilance over her.
2 Doms w/Violet.

4 hens w/ Breda hen CHAR keeping her distance near the wall. I felt sorry for Char but then she had to face the consequence of being put in her place in the flock.

CHAR ~ she was such a tall stately hen & seemed to feel secure around us humans & she LOVED sunflower seeds.

Meanwhile 2019-2020 was great for getting more work done in the chicken yard. Made a couple makeshift benches from leftover lumber lengths from patio remodeling & the hens used them for shade. And before we erected all 3 popup canopies the hens used the 5 dog houses for shade & snoozing.

COVID nonsense was progressing in most of 2020 but I happily retreated to yardwork, gardening, & chicken run progress. Face masks were flying off store shelves!

A sunny day working in the yard

A rainy day

In June I commissioned a retired military veteran (Love our military vets!) who built Redwood items like gates, furniture, etc, to have him make a walking bridge for our chicken yard. COVID was in full bloom so here we are w/me in a fashionable mask in his garage workshop!

We had a brutal hot hot hot 2020 summer w/ the mountains on fire behind us.

And so hot that we lost Jewlz while she was laying an egg in 115 degrees w/ heat index of 122 that day. Heatstroke got her and she hobbled down the ladder & died in front of me before I got to her

We now had lost two of our 3 Doms & now we were down to just one Dom DANA, one Breda CHAR, & little Silkie VIOLET! Within a couple weeks we got a DNA-sexed Silkie pullet from a local breeder (no longer around). We hoped to add the pullet to the flock so VIOLET would have another Silkie to toodle around together.

AMBER ~ dark partridge Silkie. Amber was a special story so I'll continue her next time.

...to be cont...

 

[Sylvester017]

I will resist, I will.
Same general area, less then 15 minutes away this was posted 2 hours ago.

These are listed as grey/splash.
View attachment 3926256

hmm, I wonder if they offer hatching eggs.

Cuties! Are they DNA-sexed?

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

Cuties! Are they DNA-sexed?

Nope straight run. I've contemplated taking 2 but I have talked myself out of it. If they were a day or two old I would jump on the chance. Poppet is still very much a determined broody and has sat long enough that I could attempt to foster chicks on her. These were hatched August 4th, too old to foster onto a momma hen. They will still need heat, I have already broken down my brooder. I also would not attempt to move them outside for another 3 to 4 weeks old. They would have to join the littles who then would be around 14ish weeks old. I do not feel comfortable combining groups of chicks with that big of a age gap. Now, I have noticed that they so far this year have had chicks hatch out about every 3 to 4 weeks. If Poppet is still broody in a week or so and she has more hatch out maybe. I like her color options on the adults. She has black, white, blue, splash and red adults.

 

[Sylvester017]

Nope straight run. I've contemplated taking 2 but I have talked myself out of it. If they were a day or two old I would jump on the chance. Poppet is still very much a determined broody and has sat long enough that I could attempt to foster chicks on her. These were hatched August 4th, too old to foster onto a momma hen. They will still need heat, I have already broken down my brooder. I also would not attempt to move them outside for another 3 to 4 weeks old. They would have to join the littles who then would be around 14ish weeks old. I do not feel comfortable combining groups of chicks with that big of a age gap. Now, I have noticed that they so far this year have had chicks hatch out about every 3 to 4 weeks. If Poppet is still broody in a week or so and she has more hatch out maybe. I like her color options on the adults. She has black, white, blue, splash and red adults.

Wise not to mix age differences.

We got 3 Silkie chicks w/ one chick about 2 weeks younger and the youngest was 4 weeks younger but the breeder had them all together so they were used to each other when we picked them up. Surprisingly the littlest chick taught the bigger ones where the feed & water was. To this day she is the smartest (blue chick)

 

[Ponypoor]

I snooped, and the parents of those chicks are lovely. I messaged them to see if they plan on offering hatching eggs next spring. Snooping on their personal page led me to the price of them. They are too young to mix with my chicks, they are too young. I must keep telling myself that. $6 each, they are too young Rebecca.

$6 !! I would take the lot and deal with Roos !

Here silkies are $25 for chicks