Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[notabitail]

Mugs Monday.
Old photo. Agathae says to be on time.

 

[Ponypoor]

Yes, one of the Light Sussex pullets went broody and I gave her a few old eggs to sit on for a bit so I could keep collecting new eggs every day. Failed to take into account that some of the old eggs were laid by my bomb-proof murderbird, so of course they were still fertilised a few weeks after I ate her boyfriends and of course they developed and hatched fine even though they'd sat around indoors for several weeks without turning after they were laid Stupid time of year for chicks but she's doing a good job with them.

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My silkie pullet last year was broody wouldn’t quit so after 6 weeks I was scrambling to find chicks for her.

Christmas time is a hard time to find chicks!

Meet Holly and Jolly

Holly is still here,

Jolly was rehomed as he was cockerel. He is now known as Elvis.

 

[Sylvester017]

Oh no, he didn't have the slightest bit of instinct or sense in his lovely thick skull He liked to chew on rocks and happily ran around with eight foot long "sticks" but otherwise had a soft mouth, and being given something to carry was his absolute favourite thing. Imagine a bull terrier cross that'd been given the brain of a retriever, only it was installed upside-down so he had to spend most of his time like this to compensate
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Rotties are lovely dogs! I've never kept them but had a few rottie "friends" and one neighbour at a previous address who used to very enthusiastically guard my cabbages from the local wood pigeons

Bullies are such a funny mix... they can be total marshmallows or hate every other dog on the planet, they can adore humans or charge at one wearing a wrong article of clothing like a hat, they can be very smart or otherwise ignore any training, etc. My DD has had 3 of them rescued as pups & trained at great expense & each one has been so incredibly different. One consistent thing can be said... they are incredibly loyal (possessive?) of their human.

DD's Pit-mix is very socialized w/other animals & people & though smaller she can knock a visitor over w/ her happy waggy hips

TWO-FER BFTP ~ 2015 Taffy a Blue Wheaten Ameraucana & Violet a Gold/Blue Partridge Silkie surveying the area where the old little coop used to stand

 

[SimpleJenn]

Twofer


Two calico birdies (and a friend that is a mix of two breeds so she counts as her own twofer)

 

[Ponypoor]

Twofer
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Two calico birdies (and a friend that is a mix of two breeds so she counts as her own twofer)

Nice try

But she sure is lovely, you know me and spots!

 

[Sylvester017]

Hey FBA, sorry I was gone for so long. The semester is almost over and I’ve been pushing myself to my limit to bring my grades up to all A’s. It’s not worked. I have a 100, 96, 89 (so close), and a 79 in my AP Government class. I need my 89 in English to go up to an A, and I need to bring my stupid AP class up to at LEAST and 80. I’m taking the final either way in two weeks, but when I fail it, I want to still end the class with a B.

Some chicken drama has happened. So, I posted (or I think Notabitail posted it for me) about how my friend and I bought four show chickens from Meyer Hatchery. They grew up great! The two d’Uccles are AMAZING, and the two Polish were great. Well, my FFA advisor has been ticking me off with the chickens, because she doesn’t give a crap about them.
She made us move the chicks outside when they were three weeks old, and now that they are three months old, they are still in the tiny coop we moved them into because we have no where else to put them. Now, my friend and I know very well that the space they are in is too small, and we’ve been talking about buying or building a new coop for a while, we just haven’t done it yet.
I might want to mention that their tiny coop is in a much larger run that has another small coop for three adult chickens, but the three chooks have free roam of the run, while my four chicks are stuck in a tiny coop that one full grown chicken would be crammed into.
So, there’s a RIR rooster, a RIR hen, and then what I think is an EE hen, but I’m not sure. The rooster is a jerk, but the two hens are somewhat sweet.
Well, the doors on the small coop are flimsy and don’t lock very well, so there’s been times where our chicks have gotten out, but we’ve always been able to get them back in their coop with no deaths.

Well, Thanksgiving, my friend texted me and said that her polish pullet got out and was killed and eaten by the big chickens. Obviously I was furious and sad, and I can’t even imagine what she felt.
Well, we talked for a while and decided that we were going to actually build a new coop and make sure that we get our chicks away from our ag teachers chickens. My friend texted our teacher, by the way, told her what happened, and got no response.

The big chickens are at school to lay eggs (which they have never laid eggs, and are full grown, so there’s no point in them being there), so my friend and I decided to buy some new chicks that will lay a good amount of eggs a year, and we were planning on asking our ag teacher to bring her cannibalistic chickens back to her house.

So, come today, we are back at school. We talk to a different ag teacher (who is a huge animal person) and she agrees with us completely and says that she will ask the other ag teacher to remove her chickens. The ag teacher immediately shuts her down and says “it’s just a chicken, why does it matter?”
That obviously rubbed my friend and I the wrong way, and also the animal lover ag teacher, so she’s helping us with a few things. She said that she is going to talk to someone in charge of school programs and see if they will buy us a little coop to keep our three remaining chicks in, until we can build a big chicken coop that will hold 12 chickens. If the school won’t buy us a coop, she said that she’ll bring her old duck coop over to the school for us, but I don’t really want her to.

So, this is why I am posting… does anyone have any plans or any tips for how to build a chicken coop (with an attached run) that can hold 12 chickens… I think it should be around 98 square feet, from what I’ve seen for proper space for each chicken, but I might be wrong.
I’ve found a few designs that I like, but I’ll honestly go with anything secure that’ll keep them safe and happy. We have a space picked out for the coop, but we just need the materials and we need to build it. So any plans, tips, or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Hope everyone is doing well.

So sorry about your dilemnas ~ schools today are the pits compared to the compassionate caring instructors/administrators of my 1940's~1950's era! Don't get compromised away from your decent values & push on past the jerks in life. Life is an increasing series of challenges that never ends.

As for coop ideas, here are some pics of our 1st little coop (2011) that was a feed store customer-built homemade coop in a design that worked well other than it should have had a slightly slanted roof for rain runoff ~ but otherwise it was a great design. It was 4 ft wide 6 ft long & after 4 yrs outdoors went to a neighbor who really wanted it. It was made out of 2x4 lumber frame & OSB plywood board walls. We have no architect plans since we didn't build it but hope our design helps you guys a little. A handyman or architect student might be enlisted? Too many costly mistakes in measuring happens in DIY projects if you have no building experience. Materials cost too much to employ mistakes.

Our little coop base was placed on top of paver stones for stability but we kept the center w/no stones so the hens had dirt for baths or scratching. Yes, it was a mess but we only had 2 birds when we started ~ it was comfortable up to 4 hens (2 Silkies & 2 standard-size) & our birds only used the coop for roosting or laying eggs ~ we yard-ranged them daily. If you don't free-range than an electrified netted or wired run will have to surround the coop.

The door to let the chickens in-n-out of the coop would not stay open in wind so we used bungie cord hooks to keep it open during the day. The tarp covered the coop at night from our vicious Santa Ana Winds or rain.

Our coop was only 4 ft tall but enough room that we could reach inside for maintenance. There was a crossbar perch low to the ground to the left of the walk-in door but the bantams never used it... but the standard hens liked it for roosting at night.

I highly recommend a stable platform in front of nestboxes if you have bantams that jump up ~ even the standard hens jumped to the platform ~ made no less than 10 inches wide by 4 ft. The platform was just an extension of the nestbox floor. The ramp ladder was cleated w/rungs but the front nestbox platform was so low (12 inches) above the ground the bantams never used the ladder ~ they just jumped up to the platform ~ so we removed the ladder.

This coop had flimsy chicken wire which is not predator safe but it's better than no wire at all ~ the best wire is 1/2 inch hardware wire but costly!

Rear hinged OSB board-door behind the 3 spacious nestboxes will drop down for egg access, cleaning, or inspecting sleeping birds. I have no pic of the door latches/locks at the top.

The bantams roosted/slept in the 3 spacious nestboxes. Each nestbox had a round hole entrance at front & the coop's back door dropped to reveal a full view of divided boxes. Since the nestbox floor was OSB plywood board we lined the nest floors w/ individually cut plexiglass pieces for easy cleaning & to keep hens from scratching wood splinters into their toes! Views of nestboxes when back door is open. The box spaces were about 14"x14" & very spacious~ we once found 2 Silkies & one standard hen all huddled in one cubicle!

Years ago we had no $$$ so we made DIY benches out of leftover paver stones & leftover plywood pieces to make day shelters for the hens plus added recycled old doghouses too. The more shelters the more they use them.

A popup canopy w/ legs buried in ground to keep from parasailing was added as shelter/shade w/more "junk" (potted plants, broken wheelbarrow, old plastic furniture shelves, stools, etc) in yard for the hens to hide/use.

Well, no coop is ever 100% perfect but we do whatever we all can. Experience w/ a flock will dictate what we need to do for them & what the environment conditions are.

 

[Sylvester017]

Twofer
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Two calico birdies (and a friend that is a mix of two breeds so she counts as her own twofer)

Great that you keep those gentles away from standard breeds. We learned it the hard way. Even our independent mind-their-own business Leghorns eventually ~ in their older yrs ~ got testy toward our Silkies so we rehomed the two Legs to a neighbor's layer flock.

One White & one Buff Leghorn

 

[Sylvester017]

After rehoming two Leghorns the two Silkies & gentle Blue Wheaten Ameraucana were at peace together

 

[bgmathteach]

School tax: (as if we aren’t taxed enough already):View attachment 4259745

Hmmm, I think I'll just climb on this warm feather bed!

Ahhh, so comfy!!

 

[Sylvester017]

Advanced Placement courses taken in high school which are more like a college curriculum and have a standardized test at the end of the year which is graded on a scale (1-5 iirc) and depending on your score, can translate into college credit depending on the college/university you attend and how they weigh the scores. I took AP classes and was two credits shy of being a sophomore when I matriculated at uni. The next semester they changed their system and I would have gotten only half of the credits I did if I had started later!

From what I can tell many now just take college classes instead of AP if available as an option. Depends on the high school.

Curriculums are so capricious these days! I got so tired of the changing rules every semester! & as you say, all depends... my nephew has a BA ~ working only as mgmt asst in the food industry & nepotsm seems more important for advancement than education or talent! My neighbor is doing better as his own plumbing van than trying to get work w/a degree in a company.

Rant tx ~ BFTP 2014 sweet Taffy~ Ameraucana