Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[ValerieJ]

I've been asked to hatch for a neighbor. How much should I charge above the cost of eggs? I don't want to charge a lot

I have no idea. How about going with the price of chicks at the farm stores?

 

[fuentemoon]

Do you, or have you ever, used Hummie feeders for them?

Oh yes, we have three. There is one just outside the frame in those photos.

 

[notabitail]

Fluffy Butt Friday.
Agathae Butt.

 

[fuentemoon]

Photos from the last couple of weeks.

 

[Sylvester017]

Oh yes, we have three. There is one just outside the frame in those photos.

If my arm gets better mobility after therapy I want to bring out the Hummie feeders for the summer. I'll tuck them away in winter. W/ AI virus virulent in colder weather I'll only leave the feeders out in hot months which for us lasts sometimes 7-8 months in certain years. This has been our coolest season in a long long time.

2014 ~ one of my favorite Hummie feeders w/perch

 

[SimpleJenn]

@RebeccaBoyd
@Ponypoor

Blue egg satin silkies!!!

My friend is paying me for her meat birds today so...I'm getting silkies.

 

[Sylvester017]

Twelve years ago when we started coming here for weekends the houses were literally packed with old stuff. Some of the rooms we couldn't even walk in.
Most of it was trash and we made countless trips to the landfill, but some was really cool like the old kitchen appliances, useful like the garden tools and engines, and all those kitchen pots which do cost a fortune when you get them new.
Some of it was almost creepy... like old medications and prescriptions, old agricultural phytosanitary products, old rat traps (which we did use before we got the cats) !

Those pots make good waterer for chickens like Merle who like to step on their waterer, (when not both feet inside) because as Pony said they are heavy enough not to tip over.

We kept a.few old coffee pots for decorating.
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And this engine from the 1950's my partner still uses though it's rather dangerous with no security. I'm not sure what it is called in english, a brush cutter ?
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Old stuff Friday butt tax - Merle has no fluff !
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WOW! Old stuff is so cool!!!!!

My folks bought their farm in 1940 ~ the location used to be a stagecoach route & my folks actually kept a horse at first. The stable barn had 5 horse stalls w/tack still hanging on the walls, a Wells Fargo type stagecoach, a huge buckboard, a horse plow, a huge domed steamer trunk full of personal letters from the early 1900's, a vintage handheld stereoscope w/ several 1800's stereoscope photographs, and a complete set of old McFadden's medical encyclopedia volumes!!! The trunk was very big & fancy on the outside w/ the inside dome lid wallpapered w/ gay 90's figurines & pastoral scenes. As a kid so much history I never knew how valuable it all was.

A stereoscope like this

The old buckboard behind me & part of the barn & corral showing behind

Pop sold the horse & instead bought a surplus WW2 Caterpillar tractor to pull the horseplow ~ I think these Cats were used in the Pacific islands to build airstrips for the war planes.

The stable to the right of the dog & goose ~
c. 1950's

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

@RebeccaBoyd
@Ponypoor

Blue egg satin silkies!!!
View attachment 4055410
My friend is paying me for her meat birds today so...I'm getting silkies.

A very wise decision. One can never have too many silkies. I will pray for pullets for you, but with silkies you just never know until they are 5 or 6 months old. I'm sure within days they will be your daughter's best friends. If you have a rooster in the bunch I pray you and your daughter get one like Branch the best little buddy ever. Silkies are just so good with people and children. Now that they are not terrified of me I can already tell my Davy and Barbosa are also sweet loveable little dudes. The next warm day that I'm out and there is no snow I'm letting Vivian next door meet the boys. She wanted to hold them the 2nd day I had them but I held off as they were not settled yet.

Looks to me like 3 blues and 1 black, or is it 2 blues, 1 lavender and 1 black?

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Bottom left is somebody's Buff Orp egg, I think little Annie's, 52 grams. Upper right is Hazel's Buckeye egg, 72 grams. She started laying again five or six days ago. I noticed she was resting a lot, sitting when everybody else was standing, and pumping her tail then. At night too. I worried because she has had a respiratory illness in the past.

She wasn't doing any fast breathing, and when sleeping it was the same rate as the others, just with big motion in the back. Then a couple of days later she was walking differently in some hard to define way, and looked a little low to me. So with a heavy heart I felt her belly and on the left side easily and immediately felt a smooth lump in there. She bokked when I gently moved it a little.

Next day she went into a nest box and stayed there for hours. I checked and she had changed to another nest box. Then she came out, ate and drank, and went to roost, with no egg laid, same pumping tail. This was worrying as Popcorn also kept trying to lay, or feeling like she had to lay, maybe because of tumor? before she just up and died suddenly. Popcorn didn't have a pumping tail though.

Anyway next morning she finally laid it. She was pretty perky that day! Then two days later and here's another one. This seems to have moved along faster, is that a good sign?

Thanks for letting me relay my worry! If only we could take care of these dear animals like we can for cats and dogs. So much is unknown! And out of our hands to do anything about.

 

[LhickenChicken]

I've been asked to hatch for a neighbor. How much should I charge above the cost of eggs? I don't want to charge a lot

I charge $20-25 for a dozen of hatching eggs, $5 for a three day old chick.