Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[rural mouse]

I can't speak for mixes or genetics... that's your specialty. Breed mixing really throws norms out the window... at least the Dom shading is norm for females but not for male chicks. When we were picking out our Dom chicks we ordered from the feed store we were careful to look at leg shanks for shading & ignored head spots as those can be misleading... we aren't zoned for roos & we happily brought home all females. Mixes are pretty but w/ a zone limit of 5 hens/no roos we had to research & be picky about breed choices.

2017 Doms 1st day home. We never set up the heat... we were in the throws of one of our worst heatwave yrs; it was over 100F the whole week! Days & nights were so humid we were afraid we'd lose the chicks but they were hardy little buggers & running around the kitchen in less then a week!
2017
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Often hanging out atop my computer desk ~ as long as I was present they were calm. They only got the zoomies if they were put back in the kitchen.
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Sometimes things get mixed up at the store...and sometimes they get mixed up at the hatchery....and sometimes a sneaky bird gets into the wrong pen... so being aware of those mix ups is still necessary

 

[Ponypoor]

Sometimes things get mixed up at the store...and sometimes they get mixed up at the hatchery....and sometimes a sneaky bird gets into the wrong pen... so being aware of those mix ups is still necessary

My old stallion had a midnight rendezvous with my friends mare… she called the foal Surprise

Haven’t had any mixups with the chooks from Hoovers other than with gender. Having said that Sir Surely was an extremely handsome boy. If he was so big and I didn’t have the others I would have kept him.

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

I saw there was some discussion several pages back about "satin" silkies.

I believe the most common mix to produce satins is to breed a silkie to a bantam cochin. Similar size and body shape underneath all that fluff.

I had my own satins, and I still have 1 left. My satins were silkie x BCM.

Goose who was Branch x Corona

Alex's favorite rooster of mine, Twiggy who was Bubba x Chiquita. I have to ask Alex, was Twig a real chicken?

I still have one left although she looks terrible at the moment. Their daughter Spooky who is a naked hot mess and my first chicken molting this year.

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

As many of you are aware due to issues I no longer free range full time. I have started in the last week letting the ladies out for a hour. During that hour I am right there with them along with CeeCee. To put them back up I am saving feeding them till the very end. Shake that coffee can to get their attention and they all come running and then toss into the coop. Raven and her chicklet are the two that give me trouble and I have to end up chasing them down, but I get them. It sucks but it is our new normal now.

I'm looking heavily into more bantam breeds in the future. Smaller eggs, but breeds that generally do well in confinement. In the future I have narrowed down my 2 new breeds I want to delve into. I've always admired them but thought they would be just to small for my flock. I want Serama's and D'uccles. Fun fact about Serama's, I can get silkied Serama's, or frizzled.

 

[janiedoe]

Two 4 Tuesday
Brothers, Ebenezer Black & PJ White

Julio loves big Evie but I don't think its going to work out

 

[Sylvester017]

Sometimes things get mixed up at the store...and sometimes they get mixed up at the hatchery....and sometimes a sneaky bird gets into the wrong pen... so being aware of those mix ups is still necessary

That is why we researched well before ordering Dom chicks from the local feed store. Not only did we talk w/ Dom owners before deciding on a good temperament breed, we wanted to make sure we chose females correctly from an auto-sexing breed, plus we had the Dominique book by M. Fields beforehand as an additional tool. We left nothing to accident when getting female chicks cuz there are no roo rescue farms in the suburbs.

We were fortunate to get Dom chicks in 2017 since the local feed store dealt w/ common layers only (White Legs, BRs, RIRs, etc ~ some white Silkie chicks w/no sexing of course, & no hybrids either at the time).

As for getting Silkie chicks later on, we found local DNA-sexing breeders before picking up in person.

It sucks to be zone limited to 5 hens & no roos but we're still lucky ~ all other cities surrounding us ban chickens/livestock altogether.

 

[Sylvester017]

Two for Tuesday

Some sweetie pies
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And a mare I want to clobber
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Not sure what I will do with this mare.

As long as she has a good temperament w/ humans & other livestock allow her some senility moments in her older age??

The palm tree pic is precious...

 

[Sylvester017]

As many of you are aware due to issues I no longer free range full time. I have started in the last week letting the ladies out for a hour. During that hour I am right there with them along with CeeCee. To put them back up I am saving feeding them till the very end. Shake that coffee can to get their attention and they all come running and then toss into the coop. Raven and her chicklet are the two that give me trouble and I have to end up chasing them down, but I get them. It sucks but it is our new normal now.

I'm looking heavily into more bantam breeds in the future. Smaller eggs, but breeds that generally do well in confinement. In the future I have narrowed down my 2 new breeds I want to delve into. I've always admired them but thought they would be just to small for my flock. I want Serama's and D'uccles. Fun fact about Serama's, I can get silkied Serama's, or frizzled.

I love the gentle nature of true bantams. There are some beauties in d'Uccles & Seramas! Wish we could've had a variety of them ... but Silkies won out here cuz they don't fly out of our yard, easy to pick up, & have the largest bantam egg size as a bonus. There are different shades of color too ~ these are Silkie eggs from all 5 of our Silkies. Our one old standard Dominique no longer lays.

 

[Ponypoor]

As many of you are aware due to issues I no longer free range full time. I have started in the last week letting the ladies out for a hour. During that hour I am right there with them along with CeeCee. To put them back up I am saving feeding them till the very end. Shake that coffee can to get their attention and they all come running and then toss into the coop. Raven and her chicklet are the two that give me trouble and I have to end up chasing them down, but I get them. It sucks but it is our new normal now.

I'm looking heavily into more bantam breeds in the future. Smaller eggs, but breeds that generally do well in confinement. In the future I have narrowed down my 2 new breeds I want to delve into. I've always admired them but thought they would be just to small for my flock. I want Serama's and D'uccles. Fun fact about Serama's, I can get silkied Serama's, or frizzled.

Oooooo tiny fluffy velociraptors

 

[Sylvester017]

Who is our beekeeper on this thread? Is the following true: that bees see different from humans & that bees don't see reds but see more in the yellow/blue/purple/ultraviolet spectrum?
https://beeculture.com/bees-see-matters/

If that's true... I'm glad I planted Lavender Rosea iceplant to attract bee pollinators for our fruit & vegetable garden.

Most of our food plants have been w/chickens in mind besides ourselves. But bees don't see red which explains why we never saw them buzzing around the red pomegranate blossoms ... however, the hummingbirds loved the Pom blossoms so that was good. Butterflies like our white lemon blossoms. I think we've got the pollination colors covered w/ a variety of pollinators! Interesting that tomatoes do not need pollinators.

Pomegranate blossoms for hummingbirds

Pomegranate tree & raised veggie garden bed

Yellow zucchini blossoms for bees

A teeny tiny fiery butterfly pollinating a fragrant white lemon blossom in the middle of the photo