Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Sylvester017]

Wow. Sorry...

Would you like to try this product? https://www.automatictrap.com/

I bought this more than a year ago and it is just sitting in my office. I swear that I will install it on the side of a tree trunk this summer (maybe tomorrow!).

Our crawl space person recommended it to me. I don't know if it's chicken safe but I think on the website there is an accessory that you can buy to block off the entry while you have your chickens out.

Install it higher on the trunk where chickens can't reach but squirrels/rodents can crawl up any heights & get their heads smacked...! Or is this meant to be a chicken waterer too?

Dang...I hate rodents in a yard ~ squirrels, rats, mice, rabbits, gophers, etc. They do so much damage it's no wonder people have farm cats.

My farm Mom always kept a female farm cat for gophers. She also introduced a King & Gopher snake to go after trap door spiders & gophers. So we never had mice or rats around the farm house. Our worst poultry predators were people's loose stray dogs! Stray cats were trustworthy around poultry ok but the stray dogs were not

 

[Sylvester017]

More Pony Sunday

The Grackle’s babies have survived last weeks heat wave amazingly.

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The nest is hidden in the foliage just beneath my wireless bridge there.

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Cute baby birds But I must be the dunce of the decade ~ a wireless bridge ~ camera?

 

[Sylvester017]

Not surprising those chicks wouldn’t mind the heat, it’s the parents that might pose a danger by themselves expiring. The Buckeye chicks here LOVED the heat!

A 95F to100F heatwave is nice for brooding baby chicks. We borrowed our neighbor's heatlamp but never used it for our Dominique chicks. We put them in a netted kiddie pool & they thrived in the warm temps. Ironic that as adults 2 of them suffered heatstrokes while trying to lay their egg in 115F heatwave!

 

[TX Chick Noob]

The main thing is that I took the courage to finally drain Poopy. Poopy has been having water belly for a while, maybe half a year. We can tell that she was definitely suffering. At some point, she started to have a bit labored breathing when sitting (looks normal when she is standing) and I suspect it is due to the extra pressure when sitting. Her poopy butt was getting worse and belly/bum area starts to lose feathers.

On June 16th, a few days after I got back home, I convinced my husband to drain her. In the end, we only used an 18 gauge needle to poke her right side, about 2 inches below the vent. No syringe was attached to the needle as I decided to let the liquid drain out of the needle instead of actively pulling.

It seemed going well except her needle hole kept leaking out fluid after I pulled the needle! We started to read more threads about this and felt like all we could do is to give her water with added electrolyte.

Fortunately the leaking stopped on its own after like 8 hours!! She appeared to be a little into shock, but mostly fine. The next day she was still a little slow and went to roost earlier, but 2 days later she became energetic again and was back to her usual self which we haven't seen for at least half a year.

It's been two weeks since the draining and Poopy is doing great

Don’t worry about it self draining, it’s better it drains this way, it’s less of a shock to their system if it drains slowly this way, and once the pressure is off from the excess fluid it will stop leaking.

I am really glad I drained Buffy several weeks ago. She was really struggling until I did it, and has been much more comfortable since with very little sign of refilling yet. I did use a syringe but pulled it out very slowly over the course of about 30-45 minutes, and was careful to take less than a cupful. She definitely drained for awhile, I put her in my hospital cage that night with a towel over a peepad. It had stopped by morning.

"These chickens are NOT dead"View attachment 4161607

Have you posted that in the “not dead” chicken thread?

Yes Cotton is a laddy He’s lovely.

Gosh the look on those pullets faces when Nestle was crowing was hilarious, so much fun when they are young and first learning to crow.

Will you keep both Roos?

The current plan is to keep both unless we have issues. I’m praying that we don’t. I have a lot of questions and concerns but need to make a separate post about that when I find time. And Cotton started crowing this morning.

I am using the term dominate white because that is what I have heard it referred to. I honestly do not know if there is recessive white in silkies. If there is recessive white then truthfully that is what Calypso should be as there is no white for a couple generations behind her.

If your silkie's came from a hatchery I would say fair chance there is white somewhere in their lineage.

I knew my chicks Grandpa Branch possibly carried the genes. His parents were hatchery birds. I'm not sure which hatchery they got them from. They were black and what I now know to be partridge colored. I was given 6 eggs to test their fertility. 5 hatched all black and 1 died in the shell from pipping into the yolk sack. The one that did not make it was white. When I posted on the silkie forum here asking how did I end up with a white chick from black parents that is when the term "dominate white" was thrown at me. 3 more white chicks to my knowledge were produced from that pen. Maybe more, I have not kept up with them in the last year and a half.

Grandma Poppet is a Partridge, I guess you would call her silver partridge. I do not know what her parents looked like or where they came from. Together she and Branch produced 2 blacks, 2 black partridges and 2 moorehead partridges. All pullets god love them.

With the passing of Branch last summer I brought in 2 new boys in January or early February. They were hatched from Blue, Black, Splash eggs and I have a blue boy and a Black boy with silver leakage on his hackles. They are nice looking boys for not show quality silkies but I do not know where their parents came from or what they looked like.

What I do know with the result of Calypso who is solid white. Branch indeed carried the genes for Dominate white and he passed it down to at least one of his daughters. 1 of my 2 boys also carries the gene's for it.

There have been 3 hatches so far from that pen and Calypso is the only white chick so far. I currently have 33 eggs saved up as of this evening. If they do not sell by Thursday, that night I am setting the incubator with however many I end up with. My turner holds 48 eggs. I would like to get as close to it as possible without waiting too long to set the eggs and decrease fertility. We shall soon see if I get another white chick. I very well could hatch hundreds of chicks from this pen and not get another white. I could get surprised and possible have a couple in this hatch now that I know it is a possibility.

What I need to study up on is Calypso. I wonder if by expressing the white will he/she produce a greater chance of white or if the hidden color will be thrown.

From what I have been reading there is definitely dominant and recessive white in Silkies. It takes dominant white crossed with black to produce a paint, unless you have a paint to breed with. When you have silkies of unknown parentage, there is a big chance they carry recessive white.
I’m really curious about mine because they had some orangish areas when they were chicks, and are almost more ivory than white. But I am too afraid to hatch eggs for fear of more roosters, so unless someone wants hatching eggs I will never know what color they might throw. Of Cotton is dominant white there’s a chance of paint offspring when crossed with Ebony.

 

[Sylvester017]

Mugshots from Sylvie to wish everyone a happy Monday.
I have everyone confined at the moment as there seems to be a hawk convention going on at the top of the trees.
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She takes my breath away... such a pretty Sylvie

 

[Sylvester017]

I have some sad news, sorry to be a downer. Rue took a turn for the worse, by yesterday she was no longer trying to eat or drink. She also seemed to be in quite a bit of pain when she did even small moves. I made the decision to put her down last night. It was very hard as she was so very young but I couldn’t let her be in pain like that.

Fly high beautiful girl:
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So sorry about Rue It sucks to lose a bird but you did all you could .

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

I am really glad I drained Buffy several weeks ago. She was really struggling until I did it, and has been much more comfortable since with very little sign of refilling yet. I did use a syringe but pulled it out very slowly over the course of about 30-45 minutes, and was careful to take less than a cupful. She definitely drained for awhile, I put her in my hospital cage that night with a towel over a peepad. It had stopped by morning.



Have you posted that in the “not dead” chicken thread?


The current plan is to keep both unless we have issues. I’m praying that we don’t. I have a lot of questions and concerns but need to make a separate post about that when I find time. And Cotton started crowing this morning.


From what I have been reading there is definitely dominant and recessive white in Silkies. It takes dominant white crossed with black to produce a paint, unless you have a paint to breed with. When you have silkies of unknown parentage, there is a big chance they carry recessive white.
I’m really curious about mine because they had some orangish areas when they were chicks, and are almost more ivory than white. But I am too afraid to hatch eggs for fear of more roosters, so unless someone wants hatching eggs I will never know what color they might throw. Of Cotton is dominant white there’s a chance of paint offspring when crossed with Ebony.

I admit I have had a hard time keeping up the last few weeks. How old are Cotton and Ebony?

If you are a member on facebook, local livestock and poultry groups can be your best friend. You can use them to guage just how popular silkies are in your area. You can also use them to advertise hatching eggs and chicks.

I am a member to several local to me groups. They are a wealth of knowledge. Silkies are wildly popular and sought after. They are also hard to come by in my area. Colored silkies are even more in demand. A member is currently searching everywhere for paint chicks or hatching eggs with no luck locally right now.

Thanks to these groups I know while hatching eggs can sell, it is way easier to sell chicks. Mine and everyone else's silkie chicks that have been listed this summer have been claimed within minutes to a hour of posting. That is why I'm hoping to fill up the incubator this time around. I'm not hatching for myself or my boss, all chicks would be available at a few days old for $8 each. Thanks to my groups I know I can list a young silkie cockerel for around $15 and he should sell easily. If I were to choose to sell a pullet or hen which at the moment I have no interest in doing, they would be priced no less then $40 each.

 

[RoyalChick]

She takes my breath away... such a pretty Sylvie

I will tell her you said so.

 

[TX Chick Noob]

I admit I have had a hard time keeping up the last few weeks. How old are Cotton and Ebony?

If you are a member on facebook, local livestock and poultry groups can be your best friend. You can use them to guage just how popular silkies are in your area. You can also use them to advertise hatching eggs and chicks.

I am a member to several local to me groups. They are a wealth of knowledge. Silkies are wildly popular and sought after. They are also hard to come by in my area. Colored silkies are even more in demand. A member is currently searching everywhere for paint chicks or hatching eggs with no luck locally right now.

Thanks to these groups I know while hatching eggs can sell, it is way easier to sell chicks. Mine and everyone else's silkie chicks that have been listed this summer have been claimed within minutes to a hour of posting. That is why I'm hoping to fill up the incubator this time around. I'm not hatching for myself or my boss, all chicks would be available at a few days old for $8 each. Thanks to my groups I know I can list a young silkie cockerel for around $15 and he should sell easily. If I were to choose to sell a pullet or hen which at the moment I have no interest in doing, they would be priced no less then $40 each.

They are 11 (Cotton) and 12 weeks (Ebony) old today. Thanks for the ideas!

 

[TX Chick Noob]

To all our Northern friends!