Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Sylvester017]

Yep and it packs in hard as a rock doesn’t it?

Lake effect Snow squall alerts are up here, so I guess more snow on the way.

Horses are out with their winter blankets on
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and the chooks have their new heat lamp. It’s the thing shining up by the front doors - I ran smack into it this morning. Oops!
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I was running around checking on power cords making sure they were not heating up, and making sure they had plenty of food. Seems that the straw in the stalls are the main attraction
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Have a marvellous Monday!

They picked the stall w/ the magic broom

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Heavenly straw

In these parts I'm not sure anybody would differentiate between straw and hay, and all bales for sale are hay I think. But I know there's a difference - is it the grass type? Season cut? I'm not really sure myself.

 

[TOMTE]

In these parts I'm not sure anybody would differentiate between straw and hay, and all bales for sale are hay I think. But I know there's a difference - is it the grass type? Season cut? I'm not really sure myself.

Different types of grass. Hay is edible, straw is basically like... Dried husks of grass? That's the best I can explain it. Google could do better

 

[featherhead007]

The native animals do fine most of the time. Bison will brush snow off an area to find food. Cattle will stand there and starve. Mule deer prefer hillsides, where the wind blows much of the snow off. Whitetail deer prefer creek/river bottoms, where there's brush to keep snow off of browse (and will browse on trees if they have to).....and both will raid hay. Elk like the higher altitudes, but will move down the mountain sides as snow gets deeper up high. Moose.....go wherever they choose. All will make beds in grass, usually on the lee side (of shrubs, hills, rocks, trees) to avoid the wind. The winter fur insulates them pretty well.

The deer are more wary of the unfamilar/unexpected. They've been coming through/living in the fields below their entire lives. There aren't a lot of predators that can take them down (besides humans). Dogs aren't allowed to harass the deer (easier to hunt in season) and other deer predators are also a threat to cattle, horses, and sheep, so when they do show up, get removed fairly quickly (whether Fish & Game traps and moves them or they simply get shot depends upon the circumstances at that time). We've never hunted deer on our property, so they feel pretty safe in that regard.

A few communities have the entire herd living in town. They figured out that cars are the biggest threat...and getting hit by a vehicle at 25 mph....They're more likely to stand back up and trot off while you're still looking at the dent in the front. Gardiner (entrance to Yellowstone) has ELK in town much of the year, and West Yellowstone has had to get the kids in off the playground due to BISON strolling through during recess.

Shy and skittish......no more than any animal vs the unknown.

I heard that Yellowstone is a spa day for cattle, deer, bison , and hottubbers!

 

[SimpleJenn]

 

[featherhead007]

They picked the stall w/ the magic broom

 

[Ponypoor]

We had a dog that would do similar. 4 feet of snow wasn't uncommon at that time and location. He would dig through the snow and excavate the mouse tunnels...and catch them. He was a better mouser than every cat we ever had growing up.

He even caught one in a cattail patch when out for a walk a few weeks after we brought him home as a puppy. Couldn’t have been more than 12 weeks old.

The mouse tunnels, though....we ended up having to replace the pump in the well in January....(that was a cold job)...and every time we were out working on stuff relating, that pup was digging through the mice tunnels, snow (and sometimes dirt) flying.

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That’s awesome cats aren’t the only creatures to hunt mice well!

Even my chooks enjoy hunting mice!

 

[SimpleJenn]

Fenix is a very good mouser...and lizard-er...and baby rabbit-er...

 

[Sally PB]

We're just getting a fine powder snow here... Boooo, how disappointing. We'll get maybe an inch or two. Sigh. Just 10ish miles away they're getting 6-8 inches I think? And on the lakeshore, 8-12 inches. It's like there's a bubble a few miles across that sits over where I live because any time there's weather of any sort predicted we don't get it here!

Same here...

Different types of grass. Hay is edible, straw is basically like... Dried husks of grass?

Hay is cut grass/plants, like alfalfa. Straw is the dried stem of grains like wheat or oats.

We had a low of 4, and it's up to 8 now. The chickens are outside, walking around, like it's no big deal!

But they're fine, and that's the main thing.

 

[TOMTE]

I'm about to eat lunch, bundle up, and sit in the run with my chickies. I'll find a snack for them too, maybe chop up some carrot, a banana... We might have plain oats upstairs, they haven't had oats in a while