Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[TOMTE]

Grandma has a question for you all.
She wants to know how you all got your BYC usernames. Mine is quite obvious so there's no need for me to explain.
She's eager to hear your answers!
View attachment 3990570

Tomte is the name I go by online Anyone familiar with Norway/Sweden history/mythology might know what it means

 

[TOMTE]

Slugs, worms, bugs, she loved them all.

My girls won't touch slugs. Or worms for that matter, unless they're dead and dried up. Mmm, worm chips.

I'm okay with that, knowing the parasites that worms and slugs can carry

 

[RoyalChick]

Here are some mugshots to wish everyone a happy Monday.

 

[ILoveDaffy]

Grandma has a question for you all.
She wants to know how you all got your BYC usernames. Mine is quite obvious so there's no need for me to explain.
She's eager to hear your answers!
View attachment 3990570

My favorite pullet when I first got chickens was a very small Buff Orpington, and because of her golden color, she got the name Daffodil. Her much larger sister got a coordinating name, Dandelion, and they were shortened to Daffy and Dandy. A few weeks after I got them, Daffy passed away, and I was still grieving at the time when I made my account, so I picked ILoveDaffy. For anyone who wants to know, I have no idea what Daddy passed from, I just woke up and went to go feed the chickens one day and from the looks of it, she had just dropped off the roost that night dead. No sickness or marks on her and the others were just fine. Looking back it may have been a Failure to Thrive type thing since she was so small compared to the others.

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

It's time for a Poppet update.

She is still sitting tight. The "Get off those eggs and come out from there" demands are going in one ear and out the other. She is a little over a week in now. She does not come off the nest every day. She is a every other day kind of girl. Bright and early too. I admit, Dad lets the chickens out and feeds them with the horses before he heads to work at 7. I do not get up until about 8ish. He is the one telling me when she is off the nest. Me and dad are still the only ones who know about Poppet's plans. He is looking at this as another experiment. I strongly suspect with her and Branch's bunch of chicks there is a lot of girls. I have never ever had a pullet producing hen. He thinks this new group will tell the tale if it is full of girls as well. He also thinks she is going to be a she-devil with her babies and is looking forward to seeing my tiniest hen beat the stuffing out of me.

I have learned one thing. As soon as Poppet is done sitting, before spring I am putting up a board on the bottom of the hay stack. No more hidden nests for any of the girls.

 

[Sylvester017]

Rosie likes slugs too, at least most of the year. Just like worms, they seem to have seasons to them.

If a slug is teeny tiny enough a hen MIGHT gulp it but if it's one of those 1-inch-thick ones (you know those gross ones!) the hens leave them.

 

[Sylvester017]

We need feeders and waterers for four breeding pens that'll be finished soon, so hubs and I had about an hour of conversation and searched the web on our iPads to see who could come up with the best idea or best deal. Treadles came up so I told them about ya'll saying they don't work for silkies. We don't have a mouse/rat problem anyway. Two cats and a border collie that likes catching them, and these scent pouches I wrote an article about keep them out of our buildings.

We priced making two PVC pipe feeders for each pen. Yikes! Too expensive for that many, so we'll just do a 5-gallon bucket for each with PVC ports. We already have one and those work well. Their coops/hutches are each 5'x5' so I guess that won't take up so much room. I just wanted more floor space for them when they get locked in during blizzards and cold snaps here.

TY for posting about the scent pouches. DH & I wondered about their effectiveness & safety to animals so it answered our questions. However, my DH is allergic to most of the scent ingredients & the price is prohibitive anyway for the short time they stay effective. Since I'm handicapped he would have to be the one making & checking the pouches so he's too allergic to use this method.

We had to resort to live humane traps to catch rats. At $19 for a small cage trap we caught a couple dozen to date setting it in the garage. Then DH plunges the cage into a deep tub of water to drown the rodent quick. There are expensive electronic traps but they take equally long to electrocute a rat as drowning does so since drowning a cage is effective we bought a 2nd one to set outside by the raised garden beds also so our veggies don't get chewed by rodents!

Whatever works for anyone, go for it! It's worth the effort to catch varmints detrimental to our pets & property!

We got these small cages on Amazon $19.99

 

[Ponypoor]

Hector. The wind was blowing most of the day. Stepping out of the rocks or away from the bush in ANY direction other than that exact spot led to an extreme ruffling of feathers. He spent quite a bit of time there doing sentry duty too.

I was wondering if you had a frizzle hidden away!

 

[Ponypoor]

Apparently she’s a people person

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/she-s-a-peopl...res-positivity-in-b-c-neighbourhood-1.7110396

 

[Ponypoor]

It's time for a Poppet update.

She is still sitting tight. The "Get off those eggs and come out from there" demands are going in one ear and out the other. She is a little over a week in now. She does not come off the nest every day. She is a every other day kind of girl. Bright and early too. I admit, Dad lets the chickens out and feeds them with the horses before he heads to work at 7. I do not get up until about 8ish. He is the one telling me when she is off the nest. Me and dad are still the only ones who know about Poppet's plans. He is looking at this as another experiment. I strongly suspect with her and Branch's bunch of chicks there is a lot of girls. I have never ever had a pullet producing hen. He thinks this new group will tell the tale if it is full of girls as well. He also thinks she is going to be a she-devil with her babies and is looking forward to seeing my tiniest hen beat the stuffing out of me.

I have learned one thing. As soon as Poppet is done sitting, before spring I am putting up a board on the bottom of the hay stack. No more hidden nests for any of the girls.

I was wondering yesterday how she was getting on.

Only another week and half to go!

Meanwhile Mrs LC is either not laying, or hiding her eggs. I will have to haul all the lumber out of there anyways next weekend so I will find them if she is still laying.