Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[featherhead007]

There are so many things that I could be doing today, I just feel lazy and disinterested in going anywhere. I’m just hanging out with my chooks, and posting on BYC (shame on me)

 

[Shadrach]

Shad, can you gently take Copy off the roost with a towel and pull her aside to offer her coconut oil or mash with coconut oil mixed in? Maybe a little lubrication can help until you are able to work her crop.

Yes I could if there was a roost to take her off, but I won't be doing it. There are others in more need with a quicker and more certain recovery.

 

[micstrachan]

This may be right. I have noticed a lot more hawk activity recently. I think predators get more visible to us in early winter as food supplies get more scarce so I suspect lots of foxes soon too.

Lately I’ve been hearing, but not seeing Red Tail Hawks. It’s the smaller ones I see on a regular basis. I used to know which ones they were based on their calls, but now I forget! Either Sharp Shinned or Red Shouldered.

 

[micstrachan]

What?I don't give them any medicine to protect them from diseases. Medicines are for when they are sick.

I think she meant to have on hand IN CASE they get sick.

 

[Shadrach]

These hens, at least the Red Sex Links come from combi cages. This years and last years are part of a 2000 hen rescue mission done by Pear Tree Animal Sanctuary. I think 6000 were due for slaughter. The rescuers had to pick the hens they rescued. They could only cope with a limited number. So 4000 or so got killed. They are probably in the Cat and Dog food people buy for their pets in some local supermarket or even on the chicken bits shelves.

This is what their lives would have been like.

There are 22 hens left now. Three have died since I have been doing what I do there.
A vet visit costs about £60 minimum where I live. Not all vets are honest caring people. You could spend easily four or five hundred pounds on each hen that got sick following a bad vets advice. For pretty much all these hens, by the time an illness is serious enough to warrant a vet visit the likelihood is that hen is going to die soon and if I and a vet did manage to keep one alive, they would probably be living in a great deal of pain.

Firstly, I can’t afford and neither can the person who took them on £500.00 on each hen that gets sick.
The vast majority of internal health problems with such hens is terminal. Yes, you could drag their lives out for a while longer but that isn’t what I am about.
Much like the people that rescued them in the first place I have to make choices and those choices are about who lives and who dies. But more importantly my choices will be who is likely to live a life of acceptable quality and who is going to be a sick hen dying slowly in what appears to be better conditions.

I have four hours a day to give them atm. I doubt that many people spend more than an hour a day with their chickens. I know of a few here on BYC that spend considerably less time with theirs. Bear in mind they are not just outside my back door. I have to go to the allotments taking what I need with me and if it rains, or snows, or the wind blows then I stand out in it with the chickens, or take shelter in their coop with them.

In addition to those four hours a day I buy them the day to day drugs like de-wormer and mite treatment etc and make them a container of “treat” food, usually fish or meat with something each day.

Most of all, I get them out of the run which incidentally is of adequate size according to BYC.

This is a fair approximation of what the majority of chickens who live in runs live in. You may have noticed that most pictures of chickens that one sees are of the chicken when they have found to be sick and brought inside, or they are posed pictures. One rarely sees the run they came from.
There are exceptions.

Part of my advantage is that I have a range of skills and knowledge that many keepers would need to seek a vets advice or treatment for and that will save a few for a while longer I hope.
However, I have not even examined every chicken there properly yet let alone treated what is approximately a third that need some intensive help. A few of them just do not have the reserves, or the immune system strength to cope with any infection or virus or heavy parasite load. I can’t help a wry smile crossing my face when I read about average weight and keel bone test. Some of these hens while looking okay by judging by feathers and shape are not carrying enough weight to make a decent chicken soup with. You would need to pick a few up to fully appreciate the horror of their condition.

For me, the transition from a cage to a run such as that I’ve shown above isn’t what I would consider to be a massive improvement in living conditions. I want these chickens, even if it’s only for a relatively brief period to experience what it is really like having grass under their feet, plants to forage in, space
to run, places to investigate; to be as much like a feral chicken living free with the advantage of Bucket Boy supervising for the entire time they find out what nature is really like. Ten square feet in a run doesn’t hack it imo, nor does ten square metres.
I want something like this for them.

Given the horror of their earlier lives it doesn’t seem much to ask for and for those who fail to thrive, a swift and painless death.

So, I will treat for the basic health problems but there won’t be any vet visits unless it’s an injury. I will help those in greatest need first and those who have internal problems, even crop problems will have to wait given most crop problems are symptoms of an underlying problem. For those with underlying intenal problems like EYP and other reproductive disorders the moment they act sick that will be the signal to end their lives. They have suffered enough and while 4000 dead out of 6000 seems terrible I feel that for many death was the best option for them.

 

[BY Bob]

That thin looking tree in the front of the picture is an apple tree. There are three more all in need to some attention.

I bet you have some fertilizer handy.

 

[BY Bob]

A certain amount of salt is good for all of us and varying salt .

You are correct of course but I do find that almost everything has an unsalted version these days because a lot is not good. Most things here come sales and unsalted, except crisps of course.

 

[LozzyR]

Good morning. I have to go in early today because I have to get to the printer to do a press check. I just put on my sweater and found this in my pocket… Sunflower seeds… Ruby‘s favorite. I know you can all understand the lump in my throat and cracking in my chest.

View attachment 2880773

 

[BY Bob]

Why are beets bad for soft shells? Does it inhibit calcium absorption?

This is a reference to a situation which occurred a long time ago where @Kris5902 had a hen laying softshelled eggs. She wanted to supplement her calcium so she gave her antacid tablets ground up in her food. Not thinking about it, the antacids were berry flavored and dyed varying shades of purple. The purple dye came out in the eggs shells and thus her eggs were "colored" much like the beet eggs.

 

[BY Bob]

My girls don’t know what to do with the ones with shells. On the odd time they get scratch, they tend to ignore the sunflower seeds.

Mine eat them whole. All the time. They love them.