Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Ponypoor]

Tilly needs a little trim. But I agree. It's who they are. I can't see cutting it all away like some people do.

But it make the boys look so macho to sport a punkrock Rambo look!

 

[RoyalChick]

Awwww poor Piglet, cockerels are such doorknobs.

Maybe show her an escape route when silly boy comes around. If silly boys come calling with the young pullets I pick them up and put them on a stall door or something. They seem to figure this out fast once shown.

Good idea. I will try. I hope I don’t traumatize her more as she is not one to accept being picked up.
For now I have given her breakfast in the nest box and distracted everyone else with a scattered dinner roll.

 

[Ponypoor]

Mugs Monday

Ruth - she’s just finishing up her moult.

 

[Ponypoor]

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to put your caption in for the caption contest

Thread 'BYC Poultry Caption Contest 11-28-25 Pic by Ponypoor'
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ion-contest-11-28-25-pic-by-ponypoor.1680603/

 

[rural mouse]

Happy Mugshot Monday
Did someone say hormonal idiot?!
View attachment 4259262

I’ll be honest it is a bit stressful here at the moment. Mr. Chips has taken a shine to Piglet. This is definitively not consensual. And no, he does not put his weight on the ground.
To make matters worse, while Piglet was still frozen on the spot - clearly thinking she had been attacked led by a hawk - mean girl, Calypso laid into her.
I don't see how Mr. Chips will learn to be a gentleman if nobody tries to correct him. Piglet is way too meek and scared to peck. Tassels doesn’t seem to care one way or the other (this morning she just kept on eating while he tried to get his balance).
Poor Piglet is traumatized and spent most of her day hiding in a nest box. She doesn’t seem to have mastered that she can escape upwards or onto one of the wobbly logs.

Give it time...

Edit: more thought

Set up a food/water station up on something like a large tree stump/ smallish table. Possibly fasten a 2 foot x 2 foot piece of plywood (or similar) to a stump or spanning the lower parts of the ladder. Should encourage upward motion and help them figure out escape.

@ChicoryBlue idea for you also

 

[RoyalChick]

Give it time...

Edit: more thought

Set up a food/water station up on something like a large tree stump/ smallish table. Possibly fasten a 2 foot x 2 foot piece of plywood (or similar) to a stump or spanning the lower parts of the ladder. Should encourage upward motion and help them figure out escape.

@ChicoryBlue idea for you also

They have the orange table outside that Piglet uses often for water so I could bring that into the run area.

 

[Sylvester017]

What’s your temps there?

Hopefully not cold enough to freeze pipes and such. I find the silkies are good with the cold as long as no wind. The heat really gets to them.

Our Silkies are fine cold or hot. It's the daily fluctuating temps that play havoc on us all. We are way moderate than you Northeners cuz we never get snow. It can get as low or near almost freezing at night but usually low 40F or high 30'sF at dusk & high 60's up to high 70's days. What's really strange is that when it's New Years Day it gets to the mid 80's clear & sunny hot during the famous Pasadena Rose Parade & our house rattles as the parade stealth bomber path flies over us! One year it was overkill when 3 stealth bombers were used!

In our last rains & winds our biggest canopy frame over the chicken sandbox collapsed so a new one is on order arriving next weekend. Hope we have time to put it up before the next rains. Our worst enemy here are the vicious damaging winds that make it feel colder.

These are a couple of our canopies after past rain/wind storms. Can't figure why the very vicious wind has to accompany the rains?! Guess we all have different weather issues to deal with!

 

[Ikslo]

They have the orange table outside that Piglet uses often for water so I could bring that into the run area.
View attachment 4259378

Cute table!

 

[Sylvester017]

View attachment 4259272View attachment 4259273

Now don't tell me Creation doesn't have a sense of humor

I love birds

 

[Sylvester017]

It seems that those of us who have Polish in a mixed flock end up separating them eventually. Mine did great in my mixed flock of 10 because they were older than the 7 pullets I introduced last year. (I raised them in a brooder inside.) Then one went broody in the spring, and when that was over she was viciously attacked when she went back to the sleeping coop. I briefly questioned whether I still loved chickens.
They now have their own Polish palace, even though the other one was still holding her own with the big chickens. I no longer trusted them

It was kinda the same when we 1st had Silkies... a quest to find gentle temperament standard breeds that weren't aggressive. We found that most egg layers were nasty toward Silkies till we got Dominiques who were introduced young & actually defended older Silkies from other aggressive hens. There's always a pecking order but we didn't tolerate a bullying or over-aggressive hen & sadly rehomed those to friends' layer flocks. I categorize gentle Polish temperaments the same as Silkie or Cochin bantam gentle temperaments.

My old Silkie Violet who toodled around w/ our Dominique Dana
BFTP