Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Marie2020]

I was shocked by the sharing of the feeder too. Everything before that was more what I usually see.

Flight capability: another type of flying machine would be based upon bees and their flight capabilities vs cargo hauling vs distance for their size. Only down side: they can't fly in rain.

Taxes
View attachment 4174122the usual type of hummer interaction

View attachment 4174123and a baby butt...and a few more...

Love that cute little baby butt.

@BY Bob will love this too

 

[Ikslo]

Mugshot Monday
This is Walnut. She’s always the first to come running if she hears me cracking fallen walnuts under my boot. Sometimes if I see her following me I just start looking around for any unearthed nuts just for her. She’s a sweet girl.

 

[rural mouse]

PITA surprised me yesterday. She let me have a photo shoot

 

[TOMTE]

Mugshot Monday
This is Walnut. She’s always the first to come running if she hears me cracking fallen walnuts under my boot. Sometimes if I see her following me I just start looking around for any unearthed nuts just for her. She’s a sweet girl.
View attachment 4174353

Aww, she could be Sybil's sister, this is her probably around the same age going by comb and wattles:

Look-alikes!

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Sounds like good organizational planning! Love that you are helping to preserve Buckeyes! With a big run or free ranging chickens only use coops for laying or roosting so they don't need to be huge. We got a tall coop only cuz we have hot hot hot SoCalif weather & heat rises in tall coops.

We looked into Omelet cubes decade ago cuz of easy maintenance but their styles, sizes, wire runs, & accessories were flimsy IMO for the cost. Now they've listened to customer complaints & made some great improvements yet still not the kind we needed. But as w/ any pre-fab coop, they will never be 100% perfect.

We wanted our run to be sturdy kennel wire, have a coop much higher off the ground w/ a tall roof w/wall vents for heat escape, windows, & actual perches rather than the plastic perch floor the Omelet has. I loved so much about the Omelet except for the features we particularly needed. & as w/ any pre-fab coop, the mfrs always claim it holds more chickens than it should!!! That gripes my goat about ANY pre-fab mfr... but I digress...

Anyway, our old Chicken Condos Barn Coop met just about every need we had 11 yrs ago & still does today for the same equivalent cost of the premium Omelet at that time. Our coop's mfr came out w/ a plastic barn design in the same size yrs later & that is the only part I wish was available 11 yrs ago but not enough of an improvement to switch out our current Barn Coop which still has better features for us than their newest barn model.

Old Chicken Condos

New plastic Chicken Condos ~ has a fun video on the site main page to watch for all the newer stuff
https://chickencondos.com/

Our old customized 4'x4' Chicken Condo Barn Coop came w/ solid floor tray for winter, kennel wire floor for summer, 2 windows, 5 variable height perch slots, cleated ramp, large air vents both ends, dog kennel wire run, tractor wheels ~ we keep it on a slab patio w/ patio roof overhead. Perfect for our half dozen birds but certainly not for the mfr's recommended 15-20 birds!!! (Never believe a mfr's recommended capacity when buying pre-fab!)
View attachment 4172852View attachment 4172853View attachment 4172854
View attachment 4172868

Organizational planning? Aspirational planning at this point, lol! I have to figure out how and where to attach the coops. Thinking it would good to have them next to each other. Protection from the northwest wind was a new goal last winter, but I have both a slope and a drainage swale to deal with if I go where I was thinking, and now two coops to go there….

The chicken-run stuff looks interesting. I want a run that I can stand in, though. One of the pictures on their website looked like the run had a covered peaked roof making it higher but I couldn’t find how they did that, except maybe extend the coop design and use mesh panels instead.

 

[Sylvester017]

I love the idea of a concrete block wall/fence. I would love to do that here to stop Reenie from trashing my board fence. And the keep the chooks safe of course!

In the wild ~ horses roam & run for miles. I can't imagine what boredom domesticated horses experience when confined in fenced pastures or stalls. Sometimes I wonder how bored my hens must be in the same yard day after day. Yesterday, bored Ginny tried to reach a ripe tomato thru the protected bird netting over the raised garden bed. DH rescued a couple tomatoes before she could reach them or get herself tangled in the netting. Watching pets is like watching out for human toddlers

 

[Sylvester017]

Late Sunday video

BFTP Jan 2012

Fascinating creatues W/ our Pomegranates & Guavas in bloom every season I haven't needed to put out our hummie feeders. It's fun watching them flit around ~ & they don't bother the chickens!

What amazes me is North America's tiniest hummie... Calliope... isn't it the cutest?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calliope_hummingbird

Even smaller is the Bee Hummie & about the size of a Bumble bee too!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_hummingbird

 

[RoyalChick]

I love hummingbirds. I used to stand at my grandmother's feeder with my finger under it. They became so used to me, that they would actually perch. That was close to 50 years ago. Crazy how time flies.
Bees can move their wings 200-300 times per second.
I was watching mine jet out and fly back into their hive and was so mesmerized that I decided to take a slow motion video of them.

Aww, I love fluffy baby butts...

That is a seriously cool video. Thanks for sharing!

 

[drstratton]

That is a seriously cool video. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you and you're welcome! I thought it was too. Such amazing little creatures.

 

[notabitail]

Mugs Monday.
It's Monday. I checked the calendar.