Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Ponypoor]

Eggceptional Endeavors

So the chickens did all they could to confuse me today regarding who was laying in the cluckle hut. Until today only the rare chicken has ever laid in the Cluckle Hut. I armed the cameras this morning and what do I see......

View attachment 4215679

Aster, the only other chicken who lays a white egg is now in the nest box.


Why is she in the box? She has never used it before.

Aster does her business, lays her egg and leaves. Who comes trundling in next? A very ungracious hen. Watch her kick the eggs around.

I had put the small egg back into the nest box to encourage whomever was laying to return. Watch in this video as Aurora breaks it. You can hear it break too.

After all this does Aurora lay an egg, nope. She breaks the egg, eats some of it, sits on the other 2 eggs for a bit, and departs.

Aurora just had to try out the new spot. Lady Featherington laid her egg in the main coop alone today. She was probably quite happy about it.

One nest box, no waiting.
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After all this nonsense, I discovered who was laying.

That is Nimue. Here she is with the first egg which she laid yesterday.

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Nimue is 24 weeks old. Phyllis was 23 weeks old when she laid her first egg. I have seen no sign that Niamh is ready to lay yet.

Ewww yuck - nothing like egg all over the nest box and any eggs in there. It's my usual daily struggle as I have a couple that are laying soft/brittle eggs. Raven whom I suspect has stopped laying, she is moulting was one who laid brittle eggs which usually broke all over the other eggs.

I have a blue layer who has been laying eggs with one end brittle, I am usually able to get hold of those eggs and remove them before anyone can break them. And Tippy has been laying soft eggs when she is roosting on the door in the evenings. She is getting ready to moult.

It's actually the one sign that they are getting ready to moult that I have noted - soft or brittle eggs being laid, then they stop laying and go into a moult. Poor hens - rough life we humans have created for them!

As for stepping on eggs, I have noted that some hens are very good at stepping around the eggs, and then there are the stompers, the ones that just tromp around and throw themselves down on the eggs with no care taken. Surprisingly, the Azure are gentle with the eggs, but have never shown any signs of wanting to go broody. And then there is Dorothy who tromps on them and is regularly broody! So I guess showing how gentle one is with the eggs is not a guarantee of broody endeavours!

 

[BY Bob]

Hey, you are too close, get away from me; Mom! Cookie is touching me! ; Hey, why did you run away and leave me alone? (while siblings are only 3' away, not 3"); Mommy where are you? Mommy, get away, I'm a big girl now, you don't need to hover! Yikes, Mom, help - mean Auntie is coming! Wow, look what I found....hey, it is mine, leave it! Geronimo...come quick, look what Chippy has!

This feels very realistic to me.

 

[Ponypoor]

Awwww poor Athens, you will remember poor Mr P is also bald on his head and just low growing back his feathers. I have had to lock him away from the main flock as some of those bad youngsters have taken to picking a his pin feathers making them bleed like crazy. But his head feathers are growing back and look like Athens at the moment.

I have a bunch losing feathers, tis the time of year. And I have a few hens in need of hen aprons from Mr Little Chicken and Clyde over breeding them. Maybe you and your mum can make up some aprons for the girls of yours that need them.

Ok now on to the serious stuff.

First I am sorry for the loss of your hen, and don’t beat yourself up over not bawling your eyes out over her passing. The older you get and the more life experience you have you will find that you will handle things differently than when when you were younger.

And sad to say but the more experience you have with your pets passing, the more different your emotions will be each time. I would not think of your feelings as being indifferent, think of it as accepting the inevitable.

We all miss you and your chooks here also, if I can make a suggestion. Maybe you can downsize a bit to something more manageable for this point in time. Soon you will likely be going off the college or university, who will care for your flock? I am thinking your parents. Our parents do a lot for us to help us. Maybe you can downsize a bit, that will give you more time with your chooks and also help your parents.

You can explain to you dad that you wish to get back into the chooks more, discuss their care with those only BYC. If you present a mature well organized case for your wanting to become more involved with the chooks maybe he will allow you to get back online.

Mr P the wee bald leprechaun - this was a few weeks ago.
As you can see he is slowly growing his lovely topknot backView attachment 4215699View attachment 4215700View attachment 4215702

The feathers have grown in even more now, I give him a scrooch nightly, with his feathers, to help loosen the casings around his feathers.

Oh and FYI those black specks on his feathers are dried blood from the savage wild beasts (aka Laverne) who attack him when they get a chance. That beast Laverne can zoom in, and pluck out a beakful of pin feathers in 3 seconds flat! And then the poor old man is back to bleeding all over the place.

And yet he just won't give her a good smack-down. Clyde also just puts up with it. Though being dark, doesn't show the blood like on Mr P, so the others aren't so prone to then zooming in and feasting on him. Mr Little Chicken hasn't moulted enough for me to know how he would act towards any of the ladies picking at him.

And Poor Mr P's feet are getting more crooked, I am sure they hurt his sometimes. If he looks like he is hobbling around I pop some tylenol into him, which helps. I daren't give aspirin to the poor old man, can't risk him bleeding too much if someone picks a pin feather!

Who knew chickens were do much stress to deal with at times!

 

[drstratton]

Oh and FYI those black specks on his feathers are dried blood from the savage wild beasts (aka Laverne) who attack him when they get a chance. That beast Laverne can zoom in, and pluck out a beakful of pin feathers in 3 seconds flat! And then the poor old man is back to bleeding all over the place.

And yet he just won't give her a good smack-down. Clyde also just puts up with it. Though being dark, doesn't show the blood like on Mr P, so the others aren't so prone to then zooming in and feasting on him. Mr Little Chicken hasn't moulted enough for me to know how he would act towards any of the ladies picking at him.

And Poor Mr P's feet are getting more crooked, I am sure they hurt his sometimes. If he looks like he is hobbling around I pop some tylenol into him, which helps. I daren't give aspirin to the poor old man, can't risk him bleeding too much if someone picks a pin feather!

Who knew chickens were do much stress to deal with at times!

Poor guy! Chickens can be very ruthless. Maybe that girl needs a timeout.

 

[Ponypoor]

That is so wonderful. She is such a great mum. They will be better for listening to her. Freedom will come soon enough.

It is interesting to note how the other hens allow the littles to eat from their bowl. This does not happen at my place. But I have never had my alpha hen hatch and raise young.

Most of the chooks here are tolerant of the chicks - even grumpy old Raven! I guess she doesn't feel threatened by them so they are allowed to eat with her.

Some of the hens will steal food from the babies but I have never seen them harass or peck them/chase them. The babies for intents are allowed to run amok pretty much. The bigger issue I have is the mama hens fighting with some of the others. Whiskers makes it her mission to beat the crap out of anyone she sees as a threat - poor Cash was on the receiving end last night for daring the dust bathe where Whiskers wanted to go. Both are evenly matched so I stepped in as the babies were in danger of getting hurt. The mums are the biggest issue I find.

Georgie and Holly were good and just ignored the other hens, but Fluffy and Curly were bonkers! Fluffy esp picked fighted with everyone!

Sophia went about her business with her babies calmly, never a problem. Henny Penny also - no problems. I guess it's all what the mums risk tolerance is and what they perceive as a threat.

It has been a few days so here's a photo. I haven't gotten any photos today. I'm thinking the older chickens are getting along with the younger chickens. It doesn't seem like they are attacking them anymore.
View attachment 4215745

Tis the way of the chicken to ensure that the youngsters know their place in society. Everything must be orderly (until bedtime chaos!), and it's every chooks for themselves where food it concerned!

 

[Ponypoor]

Poor guy! Chickens can be very ruthless. Maybe that girl needs a timeout.

She is not allowed anywhere near him, but she is very quick for a lavender orpington! and flies well. She gets into his pen if I am not careful and runs up to him and yanks out a beakful of pin feathers. Sheesh!

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Hello FBA! It’s been a while, and I miss all of you greatly.
Don’t worry, my mother knows I am on here right now. I have a few questions and statements to make. Also, I am aware that this message is EXTREMELY long, so my apologies. If there are any typos or grammatical errors, I’m sorry.

First, I hope you are all well and that all of your precious chooks are doing amazing. I miss seeing daily pictures of chickens.

Second, I’m debating asking my dad if I can get back on here… I am much more mature than I was two(?) years ago—although I argue that I was mature even then—and I know that I will not give out personal information, although I hardly did, and the info I did give out was very vague.
I want to get back on here for many reasons, but the biggest one is something I recently realized, and it shocked me.
I am actually losing interest in chickens. It’s something that just gradually happened, and I didn’t realize it until a month ago or so. I realized that I have spent less time with them, I don’t look forward to feeding them, I don’t hold them or socialize with them often anymore, and I don’t even talk to them. I hardly take pictures of them anymore, whereas when I was still on BYC, my phone was filled with chook pictures.
I think it’s happened because I have no one to talk about chickens to. None of my friends care that Splotch found a huge roach and ate it yesterday… they think it’s gross. I’ll occasionally mention something about chickens, especially if something major happened to one of mine (like one of my free rangers getting run over by Mom’s car on Monday…), but no one actually cares. And I don’t really care either. I’ve found other things to talk about with people, but I miss talking about chickens almost every day. Even once a week would be nice. I want to have an interest in other people’s chickens and my own. I just noticed today that Bolt’s neck feathers have grown back but now her tail feathers are all missing (I don’t know when or how it happened… which will be a conversation in a moment.)
I don’t notice things anymore. I didn’t notice that Athens had a scratch on his leg until Mom pointed it out while I was holding him (to show her that he has no long tail feathers anymore.).

I am but am not attached to my chooks anymore. I have a few special ones (Bolt, Athens, Willow, and a few others.) but most are just chickens. Some have personalities and some don’t. I care if some die and I don’t care for others. The one that got hit by a car, I liked. I didn’t truly care though. I thought she was sweet and I named her Maddison, but I didn’t cry when she died. I felt slightly disappointed, but after about an hour I felt nothing towards it.
When BBQ was sick, I cried when she was suffering and because I knew that I didn’t have the guts to cull her, but I didn’t cry when she died.
As I’ve said, I just don’t feel anything towards my chooks anymore. I have about 42, I believe. 7-ish of them don’t have names. I have told my mom all of this, but not my dad. Dad would make me get rid of every single one of my chickens if he found out that I have lost interest. It’s not like I am going to stop taking care of them, I just see it as a chore now.
I don’t want to get rid of any of them though. I can’t. I still feel attached but at the same time I think I could move on easily if I got rid of even my favorites. Athens is probably the chook closest to my heart, and while I can’t see myself ever getting rid of him, I think that as long as he found a good home, I would be fine. Same with Bolt.

I think I need chicken conversations in order to make me interested in them. I don’t know how emotionally intelligent chickens are (although I have seen first hand that mine are hurt that I have been “ignoring” them), but Athens flies up into a perch that is level with my face and does his wing dance for me and gently pecks my hand. I think that he thinks I’m a hen, but it’s endearing either way. He especially does this on a day where I just want to dump the food and get out. If I ignore him, he will make cute noises to get my attention and force me to pet him.
If I ignore Bolt, she attacks my feet and if I try to pet her, she fluffs her feathers up at my hand. On days where I don’t ignore her, she is a sweet baby.

Anyways, that’s that conversation. I just don’t think Dad would let me in here, and if I told him why I want to get back on here, he would tell me to get rid of all but five chooks. Also, I know that I have sent pictures of my coops before and they are quite small… don’t worry, not all chooks are in one pen. I have 11 in one, 7 in one, 4 in one, 7 in one, and 14-ish in a whole different part of my property but those all free range. And I have no idea if that matches up. All I’m sure about is the 7, 7, and 4… not sure about the others.

Okay, next topic. Molting.
My chickens are ugly. I’ve noticed this much.
I have a handful with perfect feathers. Lemme try to name them… just for fun.
Splotch, Brisket, Crystal, Juno, Iris, Aurora, Minerva, Venus, Tara, Khione, Circe, Aphrodite, Demeter, Ming-Ming, Blue, Red, Syracuse, Pretty Girl, and P2.
Everyone else has some time of missing feathers that I find hideous.
The worst are 5 of my Wyandottes, 3 unnamed Polish, Hera, Bolt, Athens, Ruby, and maybe Boston.
I did get some pictures today, and I will likely take a video of all my chooks tomorrow to show how good some look and how awful others look (cough, Bolt.).

Now, it is molting season, right? Because I looked at Ruby (whose entire back is bare) and I saw no lice. Nothing. So it is either picking or molting. While I have had lice issues in the past, and saw a few on Bolt today, I can’t imagine that they will make a bunch of chickens look amazing (literally I have one coop of perfect chickens) and a bunch of chickens look half dead.
Here are some pictures of the chooks, and my apologies if they are not great pictures.

Here’s the big girls eating. Ruby, Bolt, and Opal look the worst in this picture.
View attachment 4215639
Here is Athens with his bald head and short “hen” tail feathers. I noticed his feathers and head two days ago, and they were not like that a few days before. Also, notice the piles of feathers laying around. Molting or picking?… I’ve never had an issue with picking in my Polish coop and I have never seen them peck one another.
View attachment 4215640
My free ranging coop. The Wyandottes look like crap and the all black rooster is missing most of his tail feathers. The two black hens look great and the red rooster looks good. There were three chickens that didn’t go in, two of which are awful looking, one of which is great looking.
View attachment 4215644
Polish Hera has a bare back, and the hen behind her, Calypso, does too.
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That’s all the main pictures I have. I’ll try to grab a video tomorrow and post it here.
I miss all of you greatly, and I am sorry for the long post.

Molting here too. I see a few spots in your pics where it's completely bare in a circle, that might be feathers taken off while breeding.

You keep coming back to concern about your apparent lack of feelings for your chickens. My advice is that there is no "ought" with feelings. They may or may not be directly related to what you focus on at first. Feelings tend to be a conglomeration of multiple ingredients, like a stew. In the Northeast that's exactly the word: "stewing" about something. Sometimes it means they're plainly upset. It also often means someone is working on sorting things out. Feelings can be guideposts leading you to insights about yourself and your life. It takes time to understand & get the flavors isolated and the whole understood. So go easy on yourself in this regard.

Today was rough. Part of it was my fault. Time got away from me this morning and I did not take my medicine until I got in the car to leave. Normally it's had about a hour and half to work, this morning only 20 minutes. Totally my fault and lesson learned.

They started me out with the stretches this morning. My therapist commented after about a minute my muscles were tight this morning. I was thinking to myself no kidding as it felt like everything was being ripped apart. I tried to relax and let her stretch me all the while having to hold my breath. 2/3rds of the way through them my shoulder popped, loudly. Instant relief there and my muscles loosened up tremendously after that. Once that was over the real work began.

Every exercise weight was added. Either with a 5lb weight in my hand or a 5lb weight strapped around my wrist. 8 new ones added as well and about halfway through them I was sweating and everything on fire.

I was originally told these sessions would be a hour long, HAH! They have always been a hour and a half. Today, today my appointment was at 9:30. I did not walk out of that building until 11:30. The first 15 minute's was the stretching and the last 15 minutes was with the tense unit on my shoulder and Ice.

Some of those exercises look so simple and easy when they demonstrate them to you, yet they can make me want to break down and cry 2 or 3 repetitions in and everything is at least 20 repetitions now. I've cursed like a sailor in my head during the sessions, and out loud here at the house while doing the "homework". I have not cried during the sessions either. Tears have been shed in the car on the way home though after just about every session. I will not give my terrorists the pleasure of letting them see me cry.

and a question - how well are you sleeping these days? Getting enough protein? Fluids? Still letting naps happen when they want? Early to bed when you feel tired? Remember the healing / rehab is demanding a lot from both your body and mind.

 

[knoturavggrl]

More names, older pics
View attachment 4214049Hawthorne (Thorne)

View attachment 4214051Tundra

View attachment 4214052and the splash in the middle is Arabel, to go with Mortimer the little black cockerel....of whom I can find NO good pics at the moment. Joan Aiken wrote a series of stories, illustrated by Quentin Blake about a large black Raven and his little girl,Arabel. I always enjoyed those stories and as she's frequently snuggled down with him, it seems fitting. He's also small enough to get himself into trouble....like Matilda....View attachment 4214060found one of him.



Will be getting fresh pics tomorrow

They are beautiful I love the names!

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Molting here too. I see a few spots in your pics where it's completely bare in a circle, that might be feathers taken off while breeding.

You keep coming back to concern about your apparent lack of feelings for your chickens. My advice is that there is no "ought" with feelings. They may or may not be directly related to what you focus on at first. Feelings tend to be a conglomeration of multiple ingredients, like a stew. In the Northeast that's exactly the word: "stewing" about something. Sometimes it means they're plainly upset. It also often means someone is working on sorting things out. Feelings can be guideposts leading you to insights about yourself and your life. It takes time to understand & get the flavors isolated and the whole understood. So go easy on yourself in this regard.


and a question - how well are you sleeping these days? Getting enough protein? Fluids? Still letting naps happen when they want? Early to bed when you feel tired? Remember the healing / rehab is demanding a lot from both your body and mind.

Tax!

 

[knoturavggrl]

The Littles are over 5 weeks old now and Tassels is still ruling over them with an iron beak. She summoned them to teach them about corn on the cob. They were very diligent at their lesson!
They are growing some really pretty patterns. And meanwhile Sylvie lost her tail overnight and somehow still manages to look elegant!
View attachment 4214225View attachment 4214226View attachment 4214227View attachment 4214228View attachment 4214229View attachment 4214230View attachment 4214231View attachment 4214232

They just gorgeous and growing up fast.