Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Ponypoor]

Full Sail

In my experience, normally leghorn type chickens usually hold their tails very narrow, no more than a couple of feathers wide, like Aster in this photo.

View attachment 4140294

On rare occasions you will catch them doing "Full Sail" and spreading their tail feathers out, like Daisy, the greatest hen ever, in this photo.

View attachment 4140293

Sadly that photo was very late in the year before her molt so those tail feathers are pretty tattered and worn.

That is why it was a special moment yesterday when Aster was feeling it and decided to go Full Sail. What a beauty!

View attachment 4140287View attachment 4140288

Glorious

 

[Ponypoor]

Update: the ice in my ice tray was still frozen not melted into one piece of ice. The freezer is full and there shouldn’t be any issues with the frozen food. PTL

That’s great - also as long as your food still has ice crystals in it you are safe to Re freeze but if it’s fully thawed cook or throw away.

 

[Ponypoor]

Heavy is the head that wears the crown

Look at you quoting Shakespeare

HRH takes her reign very seriously!

———————————————-

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown"

Shakespeare: Henry IV

 

[bgmathteach]

Interesting sun rise this morning, a big red ball. Smoke from the wild fires in the atmosphere is making things very hazy.

Chooks and horses sneezing wheezing, me too!

View attachment 4139902View attachment 4139903

Two old hens
View attachment 4139904

The 'old hens' are lovely

 

[BY Bob]

New arrivals! 5 Buckeyes. More than I ordered (3) but that's fine, was secretly hoping for extras. All are appearing healthy. One has a strange spot over her eye (see picture). Mostly okay with being held in my hand, these guys are pretty chill relatively, and took drops of warm water from a syringe, then warmed up nicely under the heat plate for a short time. Scooted back out soon enough. Then the nipple waterer wasn't working, so before I figured out it was a bubble airlock I hand-syringed more water to all of them by holding the 1ml syringe like a waterer and slowly pushing the plunger. They took 10 refills before they had enough! They are eating tiny bits of crumbled crumble and doing wing flap calisthenics now with short runs and jumps about the brooder.
View attachment 4140028
View attachment 4140029

Waterer's working now
View attachment 4140030
View attachment 4140051
View attachment 4140052
View attachment 4140053

Here below is the little one with the spot. Even from a photo blown up it's hard to tell if this is thin feathering with skin discoloration, or what. At first glance she looked like an Easter egger.
Anyone ever see this kind of thing before?
View attachment 4140032
View attachment 4140033

This is amazing! I'm so happy for you. They are such lovely chickens.

As far as the spot goes, it doesn't look like damage of any kind to me.

 

[BY Bob]

Mr.Rat
I have a rat in the Chicken Palace. He has been there a while and appears to be solitary.
I have been watching him on cameras to try and identify how he gets in.
I have found his burrows inside the Chicken Palace. Curiously he seems to prefer tunneling from one part of the Palace to another when he could easily just walk.
But I cannot find any burrows outside.
I have been trying to capture the moment he enters to give me a clue. But so far no luck.
I have no idea what kind of rat he is but he is quite cute and has a white tip to his tail which is rather dashing.
Anyway, as he has gotten bolder - running around even when the Princesses are still up and about, I have started to worry about him nibbling on their toes or eating a chick if I ever get some for Tassels.
So with heavy heart I decided that today was the day I would dispose of him even though I haven’t yet figured out his entrance tunnel.
So I blocked off the down hill burrows I had found inside the run and poured 10lb of dry ice down the burrow where I see him disappearing just before dawn each morning.
I don’t believe all that CO2 even gave him a headache. Here he is checking things out in the cool of the evening after. He looks puzzled about the burrows I blocked off but no doubt he will reopen them during the night.
I will admit I wasn’t all sad that he survived!
View attachment 4140232

I will continue to use cameras to try and figure out how he gets in.
I was thinking I might get one of those colored smoke bombs they use at gender reveal parties to see if I can find his burrow outside the Chicken Palace.
Anyone else got any ideas?

Rat tax: Piglet has discovered the heap of wood chips I piled up to try and smother the poison ivy that has been growing up through my bench.
View attachment 4140241

Wow. I'm so sorry the dry ice didn't work. The entrance you chose must not have been the top level or the rat wasn't home when you dropped the ice in.

 

[BY Bob]

Josey does it while sitting and it's pretty. She can pull it off better than the Cream Legbars.

Photo please.

 

[SimpleJenn]

Full Sail

In my experience, normally leghorn type chickens usually hold their tails very narrow, no more than a couple of feathers wide, like Aster in this photo.

View attachment 4140294

On rare occasions you will catch them doing "Full Sail" and spreading their tail feathers out, like Daisy, the greatest hen ever, in this photo.

View attachment 4140293

Sadly that photo was very late in the year before her molt so those tail feathers are pretty tattered and worn.

That is why it was a special moment yesterday when Aster was feeling it and decided to go Full Sail. What a beauty!

View attachment 4140287View attachment 4140288

My tiny olive egger, Roadrunner, does that with her tail!
I appear to only have half-sail photographic evidence.

 

[RoyalChick]

Wow. I'm so sorry the dry ice didn't work. The entrance you chose must not have been the top level or the rat wasn't home when you dropped the ice in.

As I was closing up this evening I apparently disturbed his dinner and he ran over my foot to get away from me.
This was a great opportunity - I rushed to look outside the Palace to see where he emerged. I knew the cameras would pick up his internal route.
Well good news, the place I thought might be a weak spot in my fortifications turned out to be solid - he failed to get out that way.
In sort of good news the camera got a very clear video of where he did run to.
Now the bad news. He escaped to an area that is completely inaccessible without largely demolishing the structure. It is under the servant's storage area floor. But that is still inside the Chicken Palace fortifications, and there was absolutely no sign of him emerging outside.
I am beginning to think he walked in through the open door one day and decided to stay and is actually never leaving the Chicken Palace!
The colored smoke bomb won't work to find the outside burrow because I can't reach any burrow under the floor.
Hmmm.


Rat tax: Calypso is also enjoying the woodchips.

 

[SimpleJenn]

Hectic!
The chicklets scratched THROUGH their brooder, and so they needed to move out fast! I didn't have it set up on a solid surface this time, so it makes sense they would eventually dig through it.

Here's the thing, the integration pen isn't ready yet. So I had to block off the run extension, toss the leggys in, and then pop the chicks into the small coop.

I did cover the roof a bit more, because it’s supposed to storm tonight. Not the most ideal time to move them around...I did just remember my dad has a stack of shipping crate lids next to the garden. I can cover the run halfway with those easy enough...

Comrade came to talk to the chicks, but Breezy loves them. He was smooshed against the wire cooing to them and kept looking at me like "babies! I love babies!" Hopefully that's a sign of how he'll be when we integrate. I'll be so happy if he's one of those natural dads, with his size the babies will only risk being smooshed.
Also Navy has even more fantastic eyebrows.

The chicklets liked their adventure, and other than attempting to use hubby as a junglegym when he was moving them, it went smoothly. Tomorrow they'll find out they also have a run attached to the coop!