Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[rural mouse]

Oh read this!

“Their legs are clean and come in many colors, though yellow is the most common, and their faces can be clean or bearded. Whiting True Blue chickens have pea combs”

Oh I just bet she’s one of those birds

She has a straight comb and hatched out of a brown egg. FWI, Twirp is a Whiting

 

[rural mouse]

Aster is getting grey (lavender?) dashes all over her. Look close in these photos. Up around her neck. These are from a few days ago. She even has a tail feather with some grey now.

View attachment 3934673View attachment 3934674View attachment 3934675View attachment 3934676

If she grows like Blanche and PITA do, those splashes will shift with every adult moult. I find them rather intriguing. Make me think of inky fingerprints, some darker than others.

 

[rural mouse]

Oh you know I love spots She’s going to be a real beauty! And I would say she is a pullet.

@rural mouse what do you think?

Definitely pullet. I think they both are.

 

[Lilion]

Rodents (rabbits, rats, mice, squirrels, gophers, etc) are the scourge of city & farm life ~ the buggers have teeth that chew thru anything except metal! We caught 9 rats in the cage trap just in August & a cat caught one. We leave the trap out at dusk after the hens go to roost. We thought rats were too clever to trust entering a cage but follow instructions & it works! Then DH drowns the rodent while still inside the trap using a deep water-filled trash bin. He doesn't trust opening the cage till the rodent is dead. Those darn things move quick when alive! We tried sticky traps outdoors but were a waste ~ all we caught were crickets, spiders, lizards, & sparrows!

As far as I know we haven't had rats, just mice. The plan is to feed the hens outdoors in all but the worst weather once we're ready. For indoors I had the Bucket of Death...which works pretty good actually. But we eventually gave up...

 

[Sylvester017]

Just get a zap trap like I do! They die instantly no stress for them.

Or in my case let the chooks catch them - I find it very entertaining to watch them all hanging out around the mouse holes just waiting for one to pop out and BAM another one bites the dust. They are as good as my cat at catching mice. Maybe better!

In our case mice aren't a problem ~ but scurrying rats from off the Freeway's homeless encampment area is a problem. Never had so many rats before but the encampments propogate them!

Our paver stone front & back yards are good to discourage burrowing mice & gophers but rats are more debris/sewer/wood pile dwellers rather than ground burrowing.

DH says that Governor Nuisance ('scuse me I mean Newsom) finally did something useful to declare a cleanup of California encampments. Around once a week Cal-Trans & Highway Patrol come around to disperse & clean up Freeway encampments at the end of our cul-de-sac.

Last week the Freeway pedestrian walkover bridge was roped off cuz of a dead homeless person. Never a dull moment around here! On weekends there's always at least one loud party going on too.

Tx ~ sweet old Violet our longest lived bird over 11 yrs!

 

[Sylvester017]

Not yet. But I have three who are escape artists - Tippy, Eli-too (who’s name sake was a stellar flyer), and Butterscotch.

Those three are the reason I can eat all the junk food I want. Chasing their fluffy butts around.

Last night I saw Tippy in the horse paddock but was trying to get Rosario in; gave up on him, went to get Tippy. Couldn’t find her! I looked everywhere.

Went back to get Rosario - oh there’s Tippy, went back down the length of the barn out the back door back down the side of the barn. No Tippy again - sheesh!

Oh there she is - she had flown back into the run and was now perched on top of the 6’ high fence to get away from Rosario. Jeez! Ok walk back up the side of the barn, in the back door, down the whole length of the barn and opened the door for Tippy - whoa ! Dodge to the left as a black feathered missile flies past my head! Ok so that left only Rosario to get in. And we all know that story!

Teehee! That scenario is precisely why we chose non-flyers for the flock. Bantams tinier than Silkies are notorious agile flyers!

 

[Sylvester017]

Would you call this a pea comb?

View attachment 3934684

Depends on how old she is?

 

[rural mouse]

I’d call that a rose comb…. what do I know??

That's a straight comb and a pea comb respectively

 

[Sylvester017]

As far as I know we haven't had rats, just mice. The plan is to feed the hens outdoors in all but the worst weather once we're ready. For indoors I had the Bucket of Death...which works pretty good actually. But we eventually gave up...View attachment 3934838

Mice are tiny but rats are half the size of Silkies (exaggeration I know) so our chickens can't catch the quick rats.

We bought a 5-gal bucket to construct a rat trap but used the bucket somewhere else. I ordered the small cage trap to catch a baby squirrel & shocked when we were catching rats instead! Winner!

 

[bgmathteach]

Aster is getting grey (lavender?) dashes all over her. Look close in these photos. Up around her neck. These are from a few days ago. She even has a tail feather with some grey now.

View attachment 3934673View attachment 3934674View attachment 3934675View attachment 3934676

Maybe you should have called her 'telegraph???

she is full of dashes and dots!!

She is a beautiful girl, whatever her genetics are