Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[RoyalChick]

I don’t have a tomboy, but 2 mama’s who titbit for their chick.
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And I have a sort of lesbian hen (Kraai, behind Ini mini on the photo) who mates other hens without being nice to them. Stopped giving eggs, because she is broody.
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My hen Bernie ‘mates’ with her favorite hens. Her technique is improving. The hens seem fine with it.
She sometimes escorts her favorite hen when she wants to lay and paces about outside the nest. But not always.
She has attacked a hawk that had one of the pullets pinned to the ground.
But she has never, ever shared food!
Bernie lays an egg maybe 1-2 times a week.

 

[LaurenRitz]

I'll read the article but I think the move was out of the house and into a coop/nest box. I can't remember what I wrote. The purpose was to have the chicks hatch where they will live, on the ground. The nest box in my house was about three feet off the ground. I had a few hens nest and hatch there, mainly because I was trying to find out things like how often they turn their eggs, at what stage do the mums talk to the eggs and what sounds she makes and because I rather liked having chickens in the house. These, I moved out to a broody coop and run as soon as mum made it obvious she had finished hatching.

I just reread it. I think it's confusion between the broody coop and the isolation coop in the same paragraph. My brain read them as the same thing.

 

[BDutch]

Yes, I need to do some work to divert the water. One more project to add to my list.

I have clay ground too and had a muddy run too after lots of rain.
My solution: I dug several of deep holes in the run. With a special tool to add poles in the ground.

Added pebbles in the holes and the mud problem vanished like snow for the sun. It still works after 8 years.

 

[Shadrach]

Thanks for updating me.

You are right EPDM is a good kind of rubber without toxics like in PVC. The best you can buy as underlayment for a green roof (sedum). Seems I used it on the lid of the nestboxes to repair the leaking at the hinges. We had saved the remainder after the construction of our (bicycle) shed.
I didn’t realise you can use it as isolation against cold too.

To make the EPDM an effective insulator one needs to glue a section of space blanket (it's like a flexible aluminium foil) on the back of the EPDM.
I think you may not have understood this bit.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

I like how you have the feeder in a basin.

Setting these chick feeders in basins has been a great way reduce waste and mess. Feed they shovel out gets poured back into the feeders.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

Tea is ready.

Temperature is in the 70s sunny.

Have a great day!

 

[no fly zone]

On welding now

 

[Molpet]

On welding nowView attachment 3815761View attachment 3815759

My dad was a welder at caterpillar for years. I took a class in welding. Didn't use it, always someone else at work that was an experienced welder. I would rather have it done right.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

What a great marriage guidance video.
Videos like these are fantastic for demonstrating the behaviour of chickens.
Many many chicken keepers have never seen a couple like this go nest choosing. Unfortunately it's the case for many of the natural behaviours that are rarely discussed in keeping conditions topics. Some of these couples will walk from one place to another for hours, often a discussion taking place until they hit a no cover spot and make a dash across it. I could swear I've seen a rooster tapping his foot while waitng for a hen to stop wiggling in the nest which she had rejected earlier.

Seriously, videos like these are important. If I could persuade you to write a short article explaning what is going on and the video, we would both have done chickens a service.

I'd be happy to write an article about this.

What do you envision as a subject, specifically? A description of the behavior? A commentary on the merits of keeping roosters and/or the ills of traditional confinement? The fact that Stilton evidently learned these behaviors from some kind of genetic code, since he's a hatchery rooster raised in a box by humans?

Could be a topic to co-author, if you're inclined. I could write background, and you could offer expert perspective of the behavior.

Tax: Stilton providing escort to Raisin. She's far more serene than Donna, so it's a less dramatic escort. Less squawking, more snoozing. They eventually ended up napping together in the nest box.

They have a sweet relationship. This is the hen Stilton roosts under, Fret/Henry style, if she'll let him, especially after Pinkie and Ashley died last month.

 

[no fly zone]

My dad was a welder at caterpillar for years. I took a class in welding. Didn't use it, always someone else at work that was an experienced welder. I would rather have it done right.

I need to work on maintaining a more consistent arc length.