Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[ChicoryBlue]

Roosting tonight was chaos
Pure, unmitigated chaos!
I tried not to watch but I could hear Cookie's distress calls from inside the house so out I went. I think I can safely say that Cookie is 'directionally challenged'. She can see just fine since I took the scissors to her - and all day she has been fluttering around up at the top of the butterfly bush and having attacks of the zoomies. She can see, she can jump, she can run and she can fly and land in a sensible place.
What she cannot do is remember where the door to the Chicken Palace is located. So while everyone else was milling around in the run and coop and considering roosting - she was 'stuck' outside. Tassels came out twice to call her in, but she couldn't figure out how to get to Tassels. In the end I herded her in with a broom.
But that was simply the start of the night's fun.
Cookie managed to find the blue stairs and go into the coop just fine once I had 'swept' her into the run. There she proceeded to roost on the main roost. Geronimo joined her. Then so did the other two.
Tassels came in and took her favorite spot and for a while it looked like the little family would all roost together on the main roost.
But then Calypso arrived and all hell broke out.
The end result is Tassels in her favorite spot without her babies.
Calypso in the number two spot - she tried to unseat Tassels but that didn't go so well.
Pooh and Sylvie have retreated to another, more peaceful roost.
Piglet is next to Calypso on the main roost.
Where are the babies? Why, in the cardboard box of course! Tassels did not encourage it - in fact she was very happy having them roost next to her. I think it was Mr. Chips or maybe Geronimo who led the little group into the box after Calypso attacked them.
And no, I did not remove the box. I couldn't think why I would do so if they like it. I am sure they will roost eventually. I did remove the half of it that the big girls were using to lay eggs, but I left the part that the Littles sleep in.

I am emotionally drained by all the drama, but in the middle of it all I was told a name.
Meet Nutmeg. I have no idea why she is called Nutmeg, but she assures me that is her name. Like Mr. Chips she is accomplished with the rat proof feeder.
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Hello, Nutmeg!

Could Cookie be anticipating the roosting difficulties and dreading going in?

 

[featherhead007]

Lord, may she turn up safe and sound.

I hope so too. I remember when canna disappeared and came back with seven little baby EE’s in tow. But she returned. It would be such a personal loss to me if I never see Dakota again.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

I had those two visitors today. Two of the three original pullets from Nachos first hatch. Remember queso, jalapeño, and Frijole? Queso and the barred Jalapeño were here from next door. That neighbor must have let them out of that cage.
No Dakota at lock up time

This is a lot of loss in a few days! Poor Dakota, I hope you find out what’s going on and find her too.



I don’t know why the emojis are not in a line. When I choose it, it does a Return…

 

[Marie2020]

I get my share of peanuts, but I like them covered in this:View attachment 4233240

I'm chocolate crazy but you can leave the sugar coated chocolate out of the equation.

 

[Marie2020]

Would moving the smaller coops away from the big run keep them from using the small coops as a springboard for flying up there?

I sympathize w/ your neck issues. My MRI shows my neck disks have compressed into my spinal cord & my fingers are numb on both hands not to mention the neck aches ~ along w/the scoliosis & compressed neck I've lost 3 inches in my height! So many health issues one right after another. Typing takes me a long time w/ only one or two fingers ~ then re-read to correct errors.

Do take care of those neck issues ~ while you're still young enough

Neck tx ~ these little necks can really stretch! Almost looks like a baby Emu...
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[Marie2020]

Poor baby... so glad you know what to do. Yrs ago in 2012 our Mini wheezed thru the night as DH & I sat up w/her thru the night fully expecting she was dying. We rushed her to the vet 1st thing in the morning ~ a shot of Baytril in those days & Metcam & she bounced around the house like nothing happened while DH & I were exhausted thinking she was dying. Yet no one else got sick. Mini was our problem child from the day we got her ~ the vet saved her from so many health issues till nearly 7 yrs later he regretfully euthanized her from bleeding ovarian tumor or she would have bled to death anyway.

Mini ~ she was always running everywhere.
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She was so lucky to have you and your DH

 

[Marie2020]

Lovely lovely. First time chicken owner?

This lady is a natural animals whisperer.
Sadly we won't see much of her because of all she has to do

 

[kattabelly]

Mine mix it up on which roost where. I gave up on groups and simply count them all....then go hunting when I keep coming up short....only to have that one in the coop the next morning....How do they manage to hide INSIDE the coop with a count repeated 4 times?

Oh I don't count them at night, I don't have a walk-in coop and there's no way I'm trying to climb far enough into the spaces they do use to get a proper look at them unless I have to. I did notice most places were empty the other night and I eventually found a load of them piled right into the very back of the Nestera coop (think they were unsettled by the Barred Rock cockerels not being there) - there were four of them in one nest box!

The ability to teleport is yet another thing chickens have in common with cats. One of those rock boys excelled himself by disappearing from a secure pen the day after I dropped him off and turning up in a neighbouring pen with a load of Buff Orpington pullets he'd apparently taken a shine to. He looked very pleased with himself in the video I was sent

 

[RoyalChick]

Hello, Nutmeg!

Could Cookie be anticipating the roosting difficulties and dreading going in?

I am pretty sure that isn't the issue.
She has an extreme version of what many of my chickens have had, which is a firm belief that the only route to get from A to B is in a straight line regardless of the presence of obstacles (like the hardware cloth wall of the Chicken Palace) in between.
The coop, and all her chicken frenemies were to the North of where she was. But to get there she had to go 10' to the South, hang a left and go in the door. Only then could she head due North to get to bed.
She paced back and forth looking in through the hardware cloth separating her and the coop to the North.
Hopefully she will learn with practice - though honestly they all hang out in that spot and she has made that exact journey many times before!
Maybe when I snipped her head feathers I accidentally removed some of her brains.

 

[kattabelly]

I hope the visitors and vanishers all show up back where they're supposed to be @featherhead007

Maybe when I snipped her head feathers I accidentally removed some of her brains

Isn't "smart cookie" an idiom for someone clever in US English?

I really like Nutmeg for a name. Much more dignified than the darker of my two 8-week-old RIR pullets, who's called Glue after I dropped the incubator lid on her egg about a week in and had to patch the dent with some Gorilla Glue silicone sealant. They were actually meant to be going to live with someone else but apparently I'm more sentimental about rehoming named animals than I am about sometimes eating them.