Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[TropicalChickies]

I have a close up of it, currently in the broodies and their babies photo contest here
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/broodies-their-babies-photo-contest.1576958/post-26795782

Chirk remains motionless until he's eyeballed each and every chick, but thereafter he has little to do with them - he leaves broody and baby daycare to a subordinate roo!

Thank you @Perris. Im pretty sure Lucio has done this. But now in the future I'll know exactly what to look for.

 

[TropicalChickies]

It looks like this.
View attachment 3513236
This is a very protective Ruffles (mother) allowing Cillin (father) to imprint their chicks.

The rooster lowers his head to line his eye up with theirs and he stays in this position for a few seconds. He may even give the chick a gentle tap on the head once the imprinting is over.
As you can imagine, this sends some of the wannabe chicken momas into hysterics and high drama if they see it and the next thing you know there are a spat of kill the rooster posts.

Whether the rooster knows if they are his chicks or not is an interesting question. I believe they do but have no way of proving it.

There is as larger range of fathering behaviour as there is mothering behaviour.
Some roosters are baby gaga and others don't want much to do with them. Some will feed the chicks, others won't.



What I can write is I have never had a rooster harm any chicks be they his own, from his tribe, or from another tribe. I can't say it never happens but from my observations and from some of the more reliable members of BYC and of course the people I know who keep chickens, it's so rare it isn't worth worrying about.
Mothers and other hens however are a different story. I've had mother kill their chicks and attack another mothers chicks. Not often, but it happens.

Tribal conflict between mother hens who free range is pretty common ime. If one has plenty of room it's rarely an issue and the mothers either avoid each other or fight. Occasionally one gets an auntie hen in a tribe who thinks mum isn't looking after the chicks properly. I've had a couple of these. Mum may be tucking into some food and auntie will barge in and take the food and give it to the chicks. If you see this then auntie is your next favourite broody hen and you should let her sit and hatch should she go broody.


Don't interfere at all. We (humans) do not understand enough about chicken politics and chicken behaviour in general to make the right decisions.
Chicks are a dime a dozen in the chicken world. Most mothers don't seem to even notice if they lose a chick here and there. As long as they have one chick to mother they carry on with the job.
Roughly one third of the chicks I've known hatch didn't make it to adulthood.
Not a major issue for you I suspect but in places with a hight predator load it's the mothers and fathers you need to protect, not the chicks. This isn't a view that goes down well for those South of the Mason/Dixon line in the USA where the chicks life is viewed as most important by the wannabe mums.
The logic is however, a good broody mum will go broody again and have another go at hatching and rearing chicks. They tend to get better with practice. Lose a few chicks here and there is not pleasant but they can quickly be replaced. A good broody mum is worth her weight in gold as are good fathers

Ok, thank you, now I know what to look for regarding rooster imprinting.

I'm not concerned about Lucio attacking or harming the chicks. He's already shown that he's not inclined to do so. It's the two mothers who are baying for each other's blood. They aren't from different tribes. Actually they were hatchmates on my neighbors farm and I bought them both as six months old pullets a year ago. They came here together and integrated together. Tina had a slight edge over Patucha in the order to start but they levelled up when when the cockerels joined the tribe. Now that they have chicks, they are like Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots.

A problem is that Tina and Patucha are used to occupying the same territories and the same coop. Right now they each have apartment wings with nests on opposite sides of the coop, but they're only about 2m apart, they can see and hear each other perfectly well. When they come into contact in the area immediately outside the coop, they fight. I haven't seen either of them actually attack a chick though, come to think of it, they are more intent on each other.

When their mothering instinct shuts off in a few weeks, I predict they will want to resume their previous positions in the coop for sleeping.

So what I'm saying is I don't think it's worth trying to separate them permanently.

I understand what you're saying about chicks. Butchie had a weak hatchmate who didn't live long and the mom carried on without a hiccup. That was Cherie, my only broody until Tina and Patucha arrived, and it was Cherie who brooded Paco and Lucio. And I'm really glad to have a rooster who was hatched and reared here, so I see the value in the broody.

Thing is, I wouldn't want to see Patucha's solo chick get killed because he is... Solo. I imagine it would have more of an effect on a hen to lose her only chick.

Given there's ample space here, I'm going to follow your advice. stand back and see what happens. If anything, I'm going to keep Patucha and Solo in their big mobile enclosure for another week or so until Solo is a little bigger (he's only 12 days old) and can navigate all the jungly vegetation and can make a dash for it if he needs to.

Thanks very much for your thorough response.

 

[TropicalChickies]

A life is a unit thing. One unit is worth exactly the same as the next. An elephant doesn't have more life than a chicken, or a human.
If one is going to take the view you've described then logic dictates that one would apply this to humans as well. It's not a view I would take just because it happens to be an Ex Battery hen and therefore worthless.

Agree. And to clarify my feelings of sadness and desolation when I see the big truck rumbling by filled with chickens going to be slaughtered, it's not their deaths I'm grieving over. Everything dies. It's the manner of the death and much more so, the hellish quality of the life that preceded it. No creature deserves that.

In more natural circumstances, every animal has its place in the circle of predator and prey. I say circle because even the mightiest predator like the lion or shark eventually becomes the prey of the soil microbe or plankton. The human who hunts and kills the wildebeest can just as easily be killed by the crocodile.

I'm not a vegan, or even a vegetarian. I also dislike much of the animal rights movement. But the way that humans have turned their protein consumption into a causal 3x per day affair with absolutely no thought to the lives that inhabited that flesh is preposterous and speaks of a desensitization that I believe will be the downfall of our civilization, if not our species.

I will house and care for these rescues and Ex Battery hens as best I can and that will include treating those illnesses and pathogen/pest problems to the best of my ability.

Also agree. We do not have vets that will see or treat chickens here. A healthy pullet costs about $10. A milk cow costs $500. Vets here treat cows and horses. Even finding a vet who knows how to treat a dog is very difficult (dogs are a dime a dozen here).

The pathogens and pests I mostly treat are parasites, internal and external. This is the tropics, the home of dengue, malaria, leishmaniasis, sticktight fleas, bot flies, and a especially lethal variety of hookworm that causes a persistent and deadly pneumonia of the lungs. In January, our 18 month old puppy died from pneumonia transmitted by this hookworm. I had dewormed her in her first year, but should have continued until she was three. The vet we did take her to was in the capital city, in a dry climate in the mountains, and did not even test for this parasite until it was too late. I still feel terrible about it.

As a result of these circumstances, I've been left to do my own researches.

I do add herbs and spices to the chickens feed to aid digestion and boost immunity. We grow both tumeric and ginger on the farm and I've read promising studies about the effects of both. But when I see the signs of parasites, I use Flucozonale or something like it. I rely a lot on sulphur soap for lice or small mites, but for red mites or sticktight fleas, I'll use permethrin. I lost a 2 yr old hen named Joanie to sticktight flea infestation two years ago (before I knew what they were and what to do). She was a lovely hen and probably would have lived much longer had I known.

I invite anyone who feels that antiparasitic treatments are unhealthy for chickens to walk in my shoes for a season. If I didn't deworm or treat external parasites, I would lose all my chickens in one year. They wouldn't get stronger, they would die horrible but easily preventable deaths. Capillaria in the lungs is a big threat to chickens health in our climate. To me, it seems an act of cruelty to stand there with a perfectly effective antiparasitic at my disposal and watch a chicken slowly choke to death because "oh, woe, exactly how much of that ends up in the egg?"

I also find the discussions on the forums about how much antiparasitic or antibiotic ends up in eggs hilarious. These are people who have probably ingested more eggs from antibiotic treated chickens -- along with vegetables and grains drenched in Roundup and dicamba -- than they can even imagine who suddenly turn into paragons of bodily virtue because they have hens in a box in their yard.

With antibiotics, it's a tougher call. Because viruses can be mistaken for bacterias and antibiotics do have more knock on effects for the chickens re their gut and crop flora. But if it's an external injury that is getting infected, I don't hesitate. We botched Cleo's first bumblefoot surgery and she got a secondary infection. I gave her three injections of oxytetracycline and she recovered completely. That was three years ago. She's gone on to lay countless eggs and become my most valuable hen in terms of personality and leadership.

I am also thinking of my own time and energy. The whole brooding and hatching thing, while I think it's important, is a time consuming way to replace chickens. I've been fortunate with integrating new pullets smoothly, but it's still an time and money investment. Sure, there's billions upon billions of chickens on the planet, but the ones I keep are valuable to me. I find it worthwhile to save a chicken that is already part of the tribe if I can.

I also have to acknowledge within myself that by not letting "nature take it's course" that I am interfering with the cycle, especially where parasites are involved. Parasites are here to control populations of birds and mammals, including us. But if I were dying of a parasite (and I have been extremely sick from leishmaniasis) I wouldn't and didn't hesitate to seek treatment to preserve my own life unit. Why are chickens lives worth less?

It's quite the mindthing to grapple. Everyone can only make his or own choice, but that's mine.

Long post tax. Homage to Cheri, who was not a nice hen, but a very good mother. Auntie Cleo in the foreground.

 

[Perris]

He is a good delegator - will go far in management!

He has! He had to take over the role when barely 1, when his dad was laid low by a fox attack, and he'll be 4 tomorrow!

 

[Perris]

What a great picture. That's exactly what I wrote about. Not many pictures of this around. Can I make a copy please?

of course.

 

[GregnLety]

Some of our bantam roosters

we lost this beautiful boy this week but the previous picture is his offspring

 

[Perris]

sorry for your loss @GregnLety he was indeed beautiful

 

[no fly zone]

Some of our bantam roostersView attachment 3513604

Looks a lot like Pinecone

 

[TropicalChickies]

I started with rescues so I know I don't have the stomach for it. I am more & more inclined towards bantams. The big hens are getting too hard for me to handle as I age & while I would always want Campines they are on the smaller side for a standard.

Of the 9 hens I have remaining, 6 are bantams & even they will forage the entire 1/2 acre we are presently on. They seem to be far healthier overall & any meddling with their genetics has been for looks rather than egg production.

For me it's simple. As a vegetarian I do need good quality eggs for protein but that aside any animal I've interacted with bonds in some way. That bonding means I do my best to give the animals in my care the best life possible. While they forage all day they are still reliant on me for dinner, to look after them if they get sick, to provide water & shelter because they are not wild birds. They follow me round the yard ~ in case I unearth witchety grubs They call for me in the morning & come when I call them to bed in the evenings. Our shared interaction is a mutual agreement. I meddle in their societal arrangements as little as possible & debate over who gets to eat the silverbeet I planted. The reality is neither animal nor humans life is ever going to be perfect but we can agree to share resources & muddle along together.

On the other hand the possums have to go! I suspect them of eating all the grapes...

The notion of "Muddling through together" is really the key -- and I think what is missing for most humans when they think of their place among other living beings.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Morning X Batts, Having the two cockerel here for a time I realized I had a great rooster in Blue copper marans.
He is very patient with two golden comets. The 3 in the same brooder,
he acted as care giver to them including teaching them to drink from nipples
and lifting his wings for them to hide.