Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[sourland]

What are they putting in the feed to prevent egg laying?

I had heard the same thing the other day.

"Fake news."

 

[Molpet]

What are they putting in the feed to prevent egg laying?

I had heard the same thing the other day.

I think it's just newbies that don't know about winter and chickens.

 

[bruceha2000]

Oh but they do. I wish they didn't.

I've got three laying with 9 hours of daylight. One so called heritage breed and two Red Sex Links.

I don't think I've ever had a hen lay while moulting.
6 of my 22 have been laying for several weeks. None are "first winter" pullets. This hasn't happened in the 10.5 years I've had laying hens. Very odd. Normally they don't start back up until mid to late February, some not until March.

Janice and Katrientje are about a month earlier into egg laying after winter than last year. Maybe this very mild winter was of influence? Maybe because I let them free range more often? Other feed? Or because the flock dynamics changed? I don’t know. Only the day length hasn’t changed for sure.

Very mild here as well. Most of January hung above and below the freezing line.

One Dec it's cloudy and no eggs from spring pullets or old ladies, next year it's sunny and I get eggs all winter, even old ladies pop out a couple a week.

And mine this year are the opposite! My solar panel data says last January was MUCH sunnier than average. No eggs. This January barely made 50% of the 6 prior year average excluding last year's bounty. 6 girls laying. Can't figure it out.

Sort of chicken tax? Well, bird tax anyway. Based on the size and coloring, this small bird is a Broad Winged Hawk. It was snacking on a small bird it had taken down. I saw (and photographed it) in the front yard just outside the dining room window. Apparently it wasn't told it should have migrated south for the winter.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

I don't think I've ever had a hen lay while moulting.
6 of my 22 have been laying for several weeks. None are "first winter" pullets. This hasn't happened in the 10.5 years I've had laying hens. Very odd. Normally they don't start back up until mid to late February, some not until March.

And mine this year are the opposite! My solar panel data says last January was MUCH sunnier than average. No eggs. This January barely made 50% of the 6 prior year average excluding last year's bounty. 6 girls laying. Can't figure it out.

I have always had chickens laying eggs when moulting.

Not all of the chickens were laying every day.

I have been getting 8 to 10 eggs on one day then I get 4 to 6 eggs on the next day.

 

[Shadrach]

Well, I guess I took this video (this past weekend) at the perfect time for Shad’s thread. A little background… we have a resident red shouldered hawk that I can hear and see most days. It is well aware of the chickens, and sometimes I have to make sure it sees the dog to get it to leave. Recently, I saw it with a possible mate, a second red shouldered hawk. I have also been hearing the occasional red tailed hawk. Then one day I saw two ravens chasing off not only the red shouldered hawk, but the red tailed hawk, as well. This past weekend is the first time that the red shouldered hawk was very much on display. It had been pretty elusive up until now. This is why my poor hens have been so freaked out lately.

The crows are giving the hawk a hard time.

 

[Shadrach]

Watching chickens is certainly preferable to digging! Would pasta for breakfast be considered a good feed for optimal egg laying outcomes?

Well that depends on who cooks it. The couple of pieces I saw looked okay. Pasta is okay for chickens. Sometimes it's the sauces that go with it that are the problem. Pasta has easy burn high carbohydrates, it has, I think, 6 of the essential amino acids need to make a complete protein. Good for energy but not so good for building muscle on it's own. I would prefer they had cooked rice.
Some pastas have "addatives"; rice not so often.

 

[Shadrach]

What are they putting in the feed to prevent egg laying?

I had heard the same thing the other day.

It's just one more conspiracy theory based on zero evidence.
I'm not quite sure why some here are taking it seriously.

 

[Shadrach]

I think it's just newbies that don't know about winter and chickens.

I think you're right for the majority. It seems that despite chickens having been around so long many do not realise that many hens do not lay eggs all year round, and, if they do take a break it's usually during the winter months.
I also think that stress is not included often enough in the responses to why aren't my chickens laying questions. Then hopefully people will consider what causes chickens stress.
There has been some thermo imaging studies done where a hen is subjected to various stressors and her heat/stress levels were recorded. I know someone involved in such studies and they said it was a very strange study because it became apparent that in order to register stress in some of the experiments it was obvious that chickens must have emotions. Always tricky are emotions when it comes to science.

 

[Shadrach]

Interesting day. 7C a light breeze and overcast.
There was a small amount of the pellets I left last night left but they hadn't had any other food, nor had the geese. Everything was exactly as I left it.

I got the cleaning and water done straight away and had them out on the allotment for a couple of hours.

These past couple of weeks with the chickens being on the allotment is much closer to how I think chickens should be kept. I dug, they spread and debugged.
Lima needs keeping an eye on because she dashes off to find something new, or back to the bush she's been excavating. There are tiny worm like bugs living around the roots of the bush and there are lots of them.

This is my new plot. In the rough on the right are a couple of raspberry bushes and a gooseberry bush. There is also a fruit tree of some variety growing. I'm going to plant in the left hand side down to where Henry and the hens are standing in the first picture.

That's Fret rearranging my weed pile. She's just checking.
There were bits of board partially buried along some of the edges. The chickens and me with a spade can keep the edges clean. They shifted quite a lot of soil this afternoon. They weren't interested in the worms I dug up; three different types of worm.
Fret and Ella eat slaters (a type of wood louse), Lima will eat a couple and decide there are tastier things it seems, and Carbon won't touch them. Carbon out of all the hens is the most nervous about being out and often goes back to just inside the allotment run gate and watches the others. She was a bit more confident today.
Lima has decided that standing on the fork edge is the best way to ensure she doesn't miss anything.

Something alarmed Fret and Lima while they were under their favourite bush and they ran/flew back to the allotment run. They were fast enough.

Fret laid went to lay an egg and when she had finished she stood on the coop ramp and called for Henry. Henry was out on the allotment with me. Henry responded and went to collect her. This is the first time I've seen Henry do a proper escort job. It seems that in both the coop run and allotment run are considered safe by Henry and he doesn't bother collecting the hens. On the allotment itself is different even though the distance between him and the hen may be less.
I also saw Henry herd Ella. He doesn't do that in the runs; he hackle flashes them.
A good day was had by all I think.

 

[Shadrach]

I'm rather pleased with this new patch. The rough, the bushes and the bins, which I'll eventually move are on the West side and that is where the prevailing winds come from. Given a little care the bushes and maybe the fruit trees will flourish and I'll have a plot with some interest and some chicken cover. Large gooseberry bushes with some of the bottom branches cut out make good hawk cover and if large enough even prevent a dog from getting in for a chicken.

It's right outside the allotment run and easy to herd them onto and off. I want to get the chickens used foraging at the top of the allotments. The person who has the flower beds next to my new plot are happy to have the chickens on it.