Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

I did see my hen work really hard to find bugs for their chicks. Even if they have plenty of chick feed from the shop the mama’s prefer to give the chicks natural food (too).

I am currently reading on this. It seems beetles are tops!

 

[Shadrach]

You know, I never read about this before, and it's actually happening to a broody here. Would you take these eggs off every day when she leaves the nest or just leave them to their fate ?

I mark the eggs the broody hen has laid as soon as she sits. One usually has 24 hours in which to do this between one egg and the next. From then on any unmarked eggs are either what she lays or from visitors.
I tried very hard to only let a hen sit and hatch the eggs she laid. I know this isn't common practice and there are reasons to do with trying to ensure the couple who will raise the chicks are raising their own offspring and being able to follow genetic markers in the tribe.
I would remove any eggs that your hen hasn't laid and any she lays after setting the clutch she sits on. Having seen some of the problems a hen has with large clutches both during incubation and once the chicks are hatched and mobile I restricted the boody hen to six eggs maximum.

 

[Shadrach]

Any chance we could get Shadrach to conduct the interviews and host the story contests? Pretty please!

Shadrach has enough to do as it is thank you

 

[Shadrach]

I haven't yet observed behaviour within the chicken run, it's only been when they're out roaming the fights occur. If they can settle down enough in the garden, I'll try putting them all together in the run.

It hasn't helped that Janet's bacterial problem surfaced. She needed respite from violence, so the two tribes mingle only every other day at present. If I see a week without violence, they can escalate to two days mingling, one day separated.

Love to read about a bit of tribalism showing. I realise it's most inconvenient for those who have to deal with it.

 

[Shadrach]

Belated tax payment of neighbor ladies hanging out drinking and pooping, ironically by the human's septic tank (upper left). I usually refer to the golden one as Crazy Eye. She especially enjoys assisting with back porch stink bug management/eradication come autumn. The added attraction of the bird feeder makes my backyard a popular hangout.
View attachment 3488459

Girls day out checking out the talent and of course, the food opportunities.
Does your neighbour have a rooster?

 

[Shadrach]

The stable junglefowl population has to remain constant. If there are too many then the resource base will be depleted and nobody will get enough to eat. So, an adult has to die or be taken by predators before there is room in the habitat for a new addition. These are mid-term averages because the effects of over-population and the availability of food resources vary due to climate and happenstance.

So, the reproductive potential of even the most primative chickens seems unrealistically high. The average hen can ony have one offspring survive and start reliably reproducing over her lifetime. That's nature's way so it's senseless to question why they make so many chicks.

You've more or less answered why they have more chicks than it would seem their environment would support. Between hatch failures, chick predation and that often horrifying stage where the mother no longer raises the chicks and the chicks wander off trying to survive (I lost most chicks at this stage) the hen needs to hatch excess capacity in order for any to survive to the point where they reproduce.

My earlier point was the hen who lays say 150 eggs a year is not naturally equiped both physically and mentally to cope with the large clutches modern chickens can attempt to incubate.

 

[Shadrach]

You did not understand. The point was that the population cannot keep expanding indefinitely and cannot keep contracting indefinitely. So, in the mid-term (decades) the AVERAGE hen will only produce one offspring with long term viability. Humans are loth to understand this principle.

One successful offspring during a lifetime is a pretty low bar for something as fecund as a chicken, highlighting the importance of disease and predators in their world.

I don't think this is quite right.
Populations do contract to extinction all the time.
In a natural (a feral or land race population for examples) two or more surviving into adulthood seems to be the norm.

 

[Shadrach]

I did mention “ simply mark the hatching eggs with a circle or a cross . That way you can recognise new laid eggs you want to take away.”
Good to explain why it is important to take out new laid eggs. A staggered hatch certainly applies for people who have a rooster. I wouldn’t like embryos to develop without a chance to hatch. Having no rooster and having bought hatching eggs there are other reasons to take the eggs out. I don’t like to waist eggs and the broody could get too many eggs to keep the hatching eggs warm.

I did see my hen work really hard to find bugs for their chicks. Even if they have plenty of chick feed from the shop the mama’s prefer to give the chicks natural food (too).

Is it true that the hens work harder with more chicks? I never had more than 3 chicks hatch with one broody or 6 with two broodies. Seems my Dutch are clever wanting to share a nest.

There is of course a natural limit as to just how long a hen can keep foraging feeding herself and her chicks without dying from malnutrition and exhaustion.
What has happend in my experience is the chicks die rather than the hen. It is an interesting experience to watch which chicks survive and which don't and a hard lesson for those who do not really understand what survival of the fittest means in reality.
I've seen quite a few early hatchers who should in theory be the best equiped, being stronger and more mobile die off and a more timid later hatcher who didn't seem competitive enough to survive and live on to reproduce.

Is it true that hens with more chicks work harder? I don't know. What I've seen is mothers giving up with large clutches much earlier than those with two or three chicks, so that might be the hens best option in such case.

 

[Perris]

There is of course a natural limit as to just how long a hen can keep foraging feeding herself and her chicks without dying from malnutrition and exhaustion.
What has happend in my experience is the chicks die rather than the hen. It is an interesting experience to watch which chicks survive and which don't and a hard lesson for those who do not really understand what survival of the fittest means in reality.
I've seen quite a few early hatchers who should in theory be the best equiped, being stronger and more mobile die off and a more timid later hatcher who didn't seem competitive enough to survive and live on to reproduce.

I've seen the same here.

 

[Shadrach]