Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

Which plot is yours?

Bottom left corner with the fruit bushes on one side and the wild patch below the blue water butt.
There is stuff growing I hope in the bare looking plot patches.

 

[TropicalChickies]

I've been fortunate I guess. I've rarely had to resort to any more than confiscating the eggs and destroying the nest. Most did go back to the nest the next day and sit for a while but any that were still sitting at roost time I used to put in the coop, on a roost bar overnight making sure the nest boxes in the coop were empty of bedding. If the other hens in the tribe had to go and lay in a new nest somewhere it didn't last for long.
The few that were stubborn I brought into my house. The floor was a solid slab of concrete and that's where they stayed during the day and at night I used to put them back on the roost bar in their tribes coop.

It just got full dark here. She's on a hard wood floor right now. I'm going to put her on the roost bar now.

 

[TropicalChickies]

I've got 2-3 of those big girls earmarked for dumplings due to weak legs. Most are strong and fit and lay good eggs that will get hatched. It's a work in progress.

Thanks for posting these pics, btw. Now I don't feel like I'm wasting any thing by not eating my petite chickens. I don't think I'd get more than two McNuggets from any of them. Probably I'd burn more calories doing the plucking and butchering than I'd get back from their scant little meat.

 

[MrsNorthie]

Three hours today. Cloudy and cooler. It should have rained but didn't.
Fret's slow moult is causing problems. The sitting, the red mite, the loss of her best friend Lima and the moult in a short period of time all I dare say contribute to what should be a rapid weight gain after sitting. She didn't lose a lot of weight, but then again there isn't a lot of her. She's off the pelleted commercial feed but fortunatley she is eating the mash I've been providing in the afternoons with the extra rooster booster. Ideally I would be there all day and have the mash available all day, plus anything else she'll eat.

Anyway, some good news is the plot holder who is mapping out the plots so we all know exactly whose plot is whose and can provide proof in the event of another one of C's stupid tantrums got a friend with a drone to take some pictures. The plot holder has labled all the plots (Not in this picture) and produced copies for everyone. Next is finding a treasurer who is capable of keeping a record of payments and donations which have mysteriously been spent according to C, but nobody knows on what.

View attachment 3558058View attachment 3558059View attachment 3558060View attachment 3558061View attachment 3558057View attachment 3558055

The plots. Chickens on the left just out of the picture on this shot. Geese at top center. Allotment entrance far right two thirds down not in picture.
View attachment 3558056

Sounds like C has been embezzling funds.. but hopefully she will mind her p's and q's from here on in or risk the wrath of the other allotment holders.

 

[Perris]

The plots. Chickens on the left just out of the picture on this shot. Geese at top center.

that's a great shot! Quite a contrast at 4-5 o'clock between someone maximizing their greenery (the asylum seekers?) and someone else apparently growing plastic sheeting (actually mesh to stop insects?).

Given the state of your plot when you took it over, and its second place to the chickens when you're there, I think you've made excellent progress with it.

We've finally got some proper rain; should be with you in a hour or three

 

[HiEverybirdy]

The plots. Chickens on the left just out of the picture on this shot. Geese at top center. Allotment entrance far right two thirds down not in picture.
View attachment 3558056

Thanks for sharing. Didn't realize before this image how much I'd wondered about the layout of the allotments. Also fun seeing the different gardening styles from above.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

Temperature is in the 70s.

Have a great day!

 

[TropicalChickies]

So apparently, according to "the science", us free range naturalists over here are just a bunch of rank amateurs and our poor birds are wallowing in feces and misery, while caged battery hens are living happily in a Brave New World type of sterile paradise.

check it out:

"Dr Jeff Downing, from the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Sydney, says caged hens may not be any more stressed than free range hens.

Dr Dowling says there is no distinct difference between the stress levels encountered by caged, barn or free range chickens.

"What's happening on the farm itself seems to be more important than actually the production system and the levels of stress the hens are experiencing," he said.

Dr Downing found that environmental factors, such as heat, and social factors are the main causes of stress in chickens.

"In evolutionary terms, hens lived in small group sizes. Once you get into very large group sizes, there is so much social interaction that this can be quite stressful for some hens.

"There is far more potential in these big group sizes for social stress."

"Caged hen production systems are often very clean and tightly monitored and are often very high tech with happy and healthy hens.

"They can control temperature, parasites, to provide a clean delivery of food. These are vastly superior to what you would get in many free range operations.

"With large-scale egg production, you can get chooks walking over other chooks, eating other chooks' faeces. I am not sure if that is what you have in mind with free range."
__________________

"Cage egg farming began about 50 years ago in response to the fast-growing demand for eggs and the need to lower the unacceptably high disease and mortality rates in free range hens. Moving hens indoors not only protected them from the elements and potential predators but also parasites and disease-causing pathogens such as avian influenza."

Ok, sure...sounds logical, BUT THIS?

"The cages that house hens have been upgraded a number of times in the decades since then and the modern cage farming system used today is clean, automated and highly efficient. Modern sheds include automated feeding, watering, climate control kept at 23°C, ventilation, lighting, and manure and egg collection. This highly efficient system enables farmers to optimise conditions for the health of the birds and produce eggs at a relatively low cost.

_____

I was thinking about this when I recalled the fellow I bought my first group of chickens from advise me to pen them so they would lay more eggs. Judging from the poor condition of those birds, they certainly weren't being protected from disease or each other's feces. But he -- and others here I've talked to -- will keep their "ponedoras" (egg layers) at least mostly confined so they lay more.

Since these are super "low tech" circumstances -- the chickens are usually kept under in the crawlspace under an elevated house (shack) behind wire or rusted metal roofing material and tossed a few handfuls of maize now and then, why do people believe this? Do the hens lay out of boredom and not having anything else to do?

Since I knows lot folks here have researched this or made observations from experience, I'm very curious to ask, What is going on here? I think we can dismiss a lot of the propaganda about "happy healthy hens -- mostly pullets probably -- in cages flourishing in their "small social groups." But do confined hens -- inside or outside of batteries -- really produce more eggs, even in the short term? And if we're talking about relatively poor conditions like a small plot in rural Ecuador, why?

"Please help us! We'd be so much happier in a cage!"

Will Paco Segundo fare better than his rockstar father? Only time will tell.

 

[no fly zone]

So apparently, according to "the science", us free range naturalists over here are just a bunch of rank amateurs and our poor birds are wallowing in feces and misery, while caged battery hens are living happily in a Brave New World type of sterile paradise.

check it out:

"Dr Jeff Downing, from the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Sydney, says caged hens may not be any more stressed than free range hens.

Dr Dowling says there is no distinct difference between the stress levels encountered by caged, barn or free range chickens.

"What's happening on the farm itself seems to be more important than actually the production system and the levels of stress the hens are experiencing," he said.

Dr Downing found that environmental factors, such as heat, and social factors are the main causes of stress in chickens.

"In evolutionary terms, hens lived in small group sizes. Once you get into very large group sizes, there is so much social interaction that this can be quite stressful for some hens.

"There is far more potential in these big group sizes for social stress."

"Caged hen production systems are often very clean and tightly monitored and are often very high tech with happy and healthy hens.

"They can control temperature, parasites, to provide a clean delivery of food. These are vastly superior to what you would get in many free range operations.

"With large-scale egg production, you can get chooks walking over other chooks, eating other chooks' faeces. I am not sure if that is what you have in mind with free range."
__________________

"Cage egg farming began about 50 years ago in response to the fast-growing demand for eggs and the need to lower the unacceptably high disease and mortality rates in free range hens. Moving hens indoors not only protected them from the elements and potential predators but also parasites and disease-causing pathogens such as avian influenza."

Ok, sure...sounds logical, BUT THIS?

"The cages that house hens have been upgraded a number of times in the decades since then and the modern cage farming system used today is clean, automated and highly efficient. Modern sheds include automated feeding, watering, climate control kept at 23°C, ventilation, lighting, and manure and egg collection. This highly efficient system enables farmers to optimise conditions for the health of the birds and produce eggs at a relatively low cost.

_____

I was thinking about this when I recalled the fellow I bought my first group of chickens from advise me to pen them so they would lay more eggs. Judging from the poor condition of those birds, they certainly weren't being protected from disease or each other's feces. But he -- and others here I've talked to -- will keep their "ponedoras" (egg layers) at least mostly confined so they lay more.

Since these are super "low tech" circumstances -- the chickens are usually kept under in the crawlspace under an elevated house (shack) behind wire or rusted metal roofing material and tossed a few handfuls of maize now and then, why do people believe this? Do the hens lay out of boredom and not having anything else to do?

Since I knows lot folks here have researched this or made observations from experience, I'm very curious to ask, What is going on here? I think we can dismiss a lot of the propaganda about "happy healthy hens -- mostly pullets probably -- in cages flourishing in their "small social groups." But do confined hens -- inside or outside of batteries -- really produce more eggs, even in the short term? And if we're talking about relatively poor conditions like a small plot in rural Ecuador, why?

View attachment 3558454
"Please help us! We'd be so much happier in a cage!"

View attachment 3558455

Will Paco Segundo fare better than his rockstar father? Only time will tell.

Proof that having advanced degrees does not mean a person is intelligent.

My birds came running out of the coop (which is quite spacious) when i opened the door to let them out and they would follow me over to the oak tree by the back deck so they could peck and scratch or dust bathe or chase bugs.

 

[no fly zone]

Can't do this in a cage:

And i think this is my all time favorite Skeksis video. She was so happy.