Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[drstratton]

Thirsty Thursday!
Maybelline!

 

[Ponypoor]

I would absolutely love to chain link fence my entire yard. Sadly after being here for 23 years I can tell you 100% chain-link fencing is not a option. At some point each year, many times several times in the spring there is flash flooding and my entire back yard turns into a lake. We are fortunate and blessed that while the yard floods, and 3 times the horse stalls the house itself has never flooded. My next door neighbor has a chain link fence and I will use her as a example. The floods wreck her fence and she has to redo it about every 2 years. A few years ago she had to redo the back section twice as flooding just ripped it out. I'm looking at options right now. I'm exploring moveable electric fencing as a option. I also would ideally like to turn Russ's empty stall into another closed off coop. Dad is halfway on board but he also has a plan for that stall. He wants to turn it into a hay shed and fill it up with hay. Right now is the prime time to do it and if he does Dirt would be solid until up into April. Seeing as how hard it can be to find good hay December through April that is a hard one to argue with. Last year and this spring was horrible to find hay. Mom panics when we get below 5 bales. This march we were down to 1 before he could find some and then it was not the best but what we had to use until the first cutting came in. Dad also made a good point to me. As far as predators go, if I am dealing with a coyote, my troubles always seem to fall in July through September. Normally when the young males are kicked out of the packs. I've never had a coyote issue the rest of the year. Right now, with everyone locked up maybe said nasty critter will move on. This has just been a hard year, one of the hardest for me. The supervised turnout, even for just a hour has helped the girls who until now have never been locked up 24/7.

So here are my thoughts:

Hay storage - YES use that stall for hay storage. There is nothing worse than not being able to get hay.

Temporary electric fencing - YES you know I love electric fencing of any kind. I like my temp poultry netting fence. I have never electrified it, and have had the rabbits chew through it. Little flockers! But I have no plans on powering it up, I don’t run my flock outside unless I am home.

I would go even further and I would use those plastic electric fence posts along with electric twine for the perimeter - zap those predators!

Possibly? I think I always just think of them as buff because they have these pretty buff fluffy butts compared to my reds.

I don’t think they really look like the ones you linked though. I got better matches when I pulled up French black tail buff Marans pics.

They have also developed more patterning in the last month or so. And we all know there’s variation amongst birds. I’m really curious to figure out which it is exactly, but Marans!

And black breasted males. Do you know if that’s a dominant trait? Can I expect it from their offspring, even if crossed with my RIR?

Buff/wheaten in question: upper left
Naming her and her sis Laverne and Shirley
View attachment 4210911

I had a Laverne and Shirley

Shirley turned out to be a Sir Surely

He was a very handsome Roo and very quiet. I do miss him but he has his own Harem now.

But he was very big boy well over 10 lbs way too heavy to have around my petite hens.

——————————-

Lavern - she a sweetie pie, but holy Dinah if she doesn’t stop escaping….

 

[Ponypoor]

Just sitting waiting…. Heading home in a bit to play with chickies.

 

[rural mouse]

Chippy the chicken. No wattles right?
View attachment 4210900

She's looking normal pullet at this age

 

[rural mouse]

Possibly? I think I always just think of them as buff because they have these pretty buff fluffy butts compared to my reds.

I don’t think they really look like the ones you linked though. I got better matches when I pulled up French black tail buff Marans pics.

They have also developed more patterning in the last month or so. And we all know there’s variation amongst birds. I’m really curious to figure out which it is exactly, but Marans!

And black breasted males. Do you know if that’s a dominant trait? Can I expect it from their offspring, even if crossed with my RIR?

Buff/wheaten in question: upper left
Naming her and her sis Laverne and Shirley
View attachment 4210911

Not sure on that. Rhodies aren't black breasted are they? My experience with BBR involves gold penciled (roo) vs brown leghorn (hen)....and the leghorn colors carried through consistently with that combo...we did see some gold leakage in the black breast with the grand chick (1/4 leghorn). Try running through the kippenjungle calculator and see what pops. You may have to play with it a bit to figure out how to get the specific info you're looking for.

http://kippenjungle.nl/chickencalculator.html

 

[kattabelly]

She is a lovely little lady. Very pretty.

She's a hefty lump of hormonal teenage grump now! Expecting eggs around the end of the month, I think.

 

[kattabelly]

There's a couple of complicated and I think confusingly translated pages about wheaten and black tailed buff marans on the French marans club page, in case those are any use to someone who can be bothered to decipher them:
Black tailed buff
Wheaten

 

[bgmathteach]

I also would ideally like to turn Russ's empty stall into another closed off coop. Dad is halfway on board but he also has a plan for that stall. He wants to turn it into a hay shed and fill it up with hay.

If you do use the stall for hay, given that it has flooded, and that I suspect weather will get worse not better over time (in general), I would encourage you to build a double pallet floor before putting hay in there. That would give you an extra 7-8" of lift off the floor should there be some flooding before the hay would get wet (you wouldn't want it to even get close, as the dampness would ruin it alone - but this would again, give some lift AND would allow good air circulation under it so no moisture build-up from the ground to ruin the bottom bales.). Just my humble opinion.....hay would get ruined if it got just damp. Hopefully it would be an unnecessary measure - but my motto is 'better safe than sorry'

Well, foiled again. My tree climber decided to go into the coop tonight

I have one of those. Apache, my Exchequer Leghorn, disappears at night - (sometimes she roosts in the pine - maybe once every 3 or 4 evenings - so I can put her in the coop). I can not for the life of me figure out where she is hiding! I have looked all over for her...and in the morning, if it is even a hint of dawn, she is in the run just walking about with a 'what, what is the matter, mom, I'm here' look. So, I can not catch her leaving at night, nor coming int eh morning. And, given that I have 2 HUGE pine trees in the run, there is really no way to close off the top so she can't escape. I am so afraid that one morning I cam going to come out to find white with black speckled feathers strewn about!

and, she is NOT cuddly by any means - a no-touch chicken...but she is such an imp and has a great personality - I would just so miss her.....

 

[Sylvester017]

French Black Tail Buff Marans, maybe?

 

[Sylvester017]

If they are like here you’re seeing them adjusting to the new routine…not necessarily whether they will ultimately “take” confinement well. But do you offer any protected yard space at all, and enough square footage where they are?

I don’t offer supervised free ranging now much at all which is a big change. But having given them an alternative of net covered, electric-fenced space with two different foliage environments, and not offering the free ranging option for some time, they've adapted and seem to be pretty happy making the rounds in there through the day and aren’t asking or trying to go out anymore. They have a good routine of woodsy rhododendron time, fieldsy-wildflower-whatnot time, resting & eating & drinking in and near the covered run on litter time. Rinse, repeat! It will get much smaller for winter, but I’m also adding to the covered run litter space.

You should post your covered field space again... & anyone else who has a large covered or netted space for their foraging birds like SimpleJenn or TX Chick Noob or drstratton or whoever else has a very roomy protected foraging space where the birds are getting some foliage foraging or large pen space w/ tree stumps/branches, chairs, ladders, swings, stimulating toys, etc. The ideas are very helpful how to keep confined birds from boredom.

In our suburb cottage yard renovation we managed to keep our birds out to forage. A moveable rabbit fence was all we needed to keep them confined while workers were on the property & they enjoyed watching our chickens too (chickens are a fun rarity in the suburbs!).