Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[CCsGarden]

And star bread.
(Before my tree was fully decorated )

 

[Ponypoor]

Snow from yesterdayView attachment 4024709View attachment 4024711

Lovely photos!

Still don’t like snow though

 

[CCsGarden]

Lovely photos!

Still don’t like snow though

Why? Its super beautiful!!

 

[CCsGarden]

Why? Its super beautiful!!

It can also be cold, so I understand that

 

[Ponypoor]

And Merry Christmas!

Took more pictures of my doves!
View attachment 4024712View attachment 4024713View attachment 4024714

Merry Old Christmas to you also

We call it the epiphany.

 

[CCsGarden]

Merry Old Christmas to you also

We call it the epiphany.

Yes! Very true!

 

[CCsGarden]

Happy Fluffy Butt Friday!

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

Hi everyone.

We are in the midst of round 2 of snowmageddon. Another 1 1/2 inches since about 3 on top of what we already have and it is still snowing. I went out today and manhandled some very angry chickens. I am pleased to report even though they hate the white lava none of them are showing any signs of frost bite on their combs and wattles. Their feet also look great. In retaliation to this snow my girls have stopped laying, nothing the last 2 days. Oh well, I'm not hurting for eggs so if they do not lay for a week I'm ok with it. I am very thankful that Turkey was 5 weeks old before the weather turned. He/She was fully feathered and Poppet is doing a wonderful job keeping him/her warm. Turkey was 6 weeks old yesterday and right now I am leaning towards pullet.

I may be starting to get sick of the weather but then I saw a post on facebook that won the day and I no longer care if this crap weather hangs on for another week or so.

"I'm not even mad at this snow.....Those yellow jackets had it coming."

Oh I feel this. Those little stinging devils were awful and we had to break over and hire a exterminator this year to remove a nest from our insulation. If it can kill a lot of them out, we can unthaw around the first of March and I will not complain.

 

[lightm]

Yes. But some of these are more elaborate.
This one follows a chapter on how chickens suffer in the cold and has these plans for basically underfloor radiant heating for them!
View attachment 4022833

Here are two that are built into the hillside. I did seriously consider that approach for the Chicken Palace.
View attachment 4022835

My personal favorite, just because I think it is an intriguing approach, is this one.
View attachment 4022836
If I had seen this before constructing the Chicken Palace I might have adopted this design.

In case anyone is interested, these are all from this book published in 1881.
View attachment 4022837
View attachment 4022838

Wow! What a book! I love it so much.

Glorious old wisdom. Any approach not involving electricity is an approach I love.

 

[lightm]

Last summer after reading about the avian flu vaccine being used on California condors to save them (vaccinations have finished, now they are monitoring), I came to the conclusion that there isn't widespread use of an avian flu vaccine because -

1. Similar to Marek's, a vaccinated but uninfected bird will show antibodies upon testing, which makes it indistinguishable from a non-vaccinated infected bird, and vaccinated birds can get infected but be fine with it and appear otherwise healthy.

2. A vaccine at this point can't be really specific because it mutates so much, and people want a magic bullet. For instance the human infections that are causing severe illness is a different genotype than the more common one infecting wild and domestic birds (so far). (Also, I read that people fear a more virulent strain developing if the virus encounters the vaccination. I'm thinking on this last point, that boat has sailed, vaccination or no.)

3. Cost. Maybe that should be #1 on the list.

Isn't partial protection still useful when a vaccine isn't matched exactly? At this point, a vaccine may be beneficial against what can be a severe disease. And so buy us and our birds time - don't viruses usually evolve to cause less severe disease over time, in order to more efficiently spread (by not quickly killing everyone it infects)?

So there is a conflcit in lines of thinking - vaccination of all domestic poultry and monitoring, which I think China does - versus the places/countries (U.S., E.U. etc) that are still attempting to control the spread of avian flu through quarantine and culling.

Maybe I'm off-base here, and I'll not post further on it if this is too sensitive, let me know. Also please correct any errors. But I see this as the same as a discussion about Marek's, and I don't see how our situation is pointing toward any other solution than widespread vaccination efforts, for both people and birds.

The beautiful Buckeyes sharing a moment, Summer 2023
View attachment 4023605

I appreciate the discussion. Thank you.