Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

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.

are often very high tech with happy and healthy hens.

The same arguement is put forward in debates about penal conditions, The elephant stomping all over this is there is no measurement of happiness.
An lot of what he writes is absolutely true in well run commercial enterprises. I dare say most backyard chickens don't get close to the overall health and hygiene standards
The acid test is to ask Dr Jeff Downing if he would like to move into an establishment he's describing and promoting the benefits of.
I'm pretty sure he'll decline the offer.

 

[Perris]

I think the key issue here is scale.

"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."

All the systems he's talking about involve large/massive scale, and therefore they're all more or less stressful for hens, and therefore if you did measure their stress levels (which is possible but not really viable in this circumstance) it wouldn't vary much between systems. Cages just pile them on top and beside each other with metal bars in between so that they can't physically stand on one another, and are designed so their poo disappears off on a conveyor belt to stop them pooing on one another or eating one another's poo (to be dumped on a field somewhere and pollute the local water with excess nitrogen and phosphorus), whereas in big barns (which the industry is moving towards) the same number of birds will trample one another etc.

Backyard chickens living in small groups need not endure stress of this sort.

 

[Iluveggers]

I think the key issue here is scale.

All the systems he's talking about involve large/massive scale, and therefore they're all more or less stressful for hens, and therefore if you did measure their stress levels (which is possible but not really viable in this circumstance) it wouldn't vary much between systems. Cages just pile them on top and beside each other with metal bars in between so that they can't physically stand on one another, and are designed so their poo disappears off on a conveyor belt to stop them pooing on one another or eating one another's poo (to be dumped on a field somewhere and pollute the local water with excess nitrogen and phosphorus), whereas in big barns (which the industry is moving towards) the same number of birds will trample one another etc.

Backyard chickens living in small groups need not endure stress of this sort.

Agree. I don’t think he is thinking of small to medium flocks with ample space to roam.

 

[Perris]

some good news on Avian flu at last - good for people at any rate
https://www.theguardian.com/science...events-most-bird-flu-viruses-moving-to-people

 

[HiEverybirdy]

Can't do this in a cage:

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

He made that look so good I’m thinking about sitting in a hole myself! Very nice video!

I could watch chickens dustbathe all day. They're so blissful.

If you go searching for it on YouTube, there's a subsection of ASMR videos focused on chickens. People are posting hour-long dustbathing videos

 

[TropicalChickies]

The same arguement is put forward in debates about penal conditions, The elephant stomping all over this is there is no measurement of happiness.
An lot of what he writes is absolutely true in well run commercial enterprises. I dare say most backyard chickens don't get close to the overall health and hygiene standards
The acid test is to ask Dr Jeff Downing if he would like to move into an establishment he's describing and promoting the benefits of.
I'm pretty sure he'll decline the offer.

In this link it's possible to take a virtual tour of one of these miracles of technology

https://www.australianeggs.org.au/farming/cage-eggs

Absolutely, it is remarkably clean and efficient. Nary a mite or flea or roundworm infested pile of poo to be seen.

Are the hens happy? Who knows, really since we can't ask them or comprehend their answer.

Does living close to nature make people happier? Some people, I would say. I can also tell when people who visit our farm see it as some grand courageous adventure to walk on unpaved surfaces for a spell, and are quite relieved to get back to big box stores, parking lots, cappuccinos, vegan restaurants, and twenty minute hot showers. And they accept their routine fifty or sixty hours per week sitting in front of a computer screen as the price of their version of security and luxury.

But what would a chicken choose?

I suppose... That as domesticated animals they end up with whatever version of happiness the keeper (or corporation) wants for them. I live close to nature. I take risks unpalatable to many -- parasites, snakebite, weather extremes. So that's how my chickens live. Other people or groups of people desire a more domesticated, cleaner, and more predictable life. So that's what gets projected onto the chickens. They have no say in the matter.

It would really be great to be able to converse with them about it.

But, to your point, there are those like Dr Jeff Downing who project a reality onto animals that they themselves would not find acceptable. Like living in a cage. There's a kind of sociopathy going on here, in my opinion.

 

[TropicalChickies]

I think the key issue here is scale.

All the systems he's talking about involve large/massive scale, and therefore they're all more or less stressful for hens, and therefore if you did measure their stress levels (which is possible but not really viable in this circumstance) it wouldn't vary much between systems. Cages just pile them on top and beside each other with metal bars in between so that they can't physically stand on one another, and are designed so their poo disappears off on a conveyor belt to stop them pooing on one another or eating one another's poo (to be dumped on a field somewhere and pollute the local water with excess nitrogen and phosphorus), whereas in big barns (which the industry is moving towards) the same number of birds will trample one another etc.

Backyard chickens living in small groups need not endure stress of this sort.

Using the presence cortisone as a measurement of stress does not really give any information about the emotional state or well being of a chicken. Short term bursts of cortisone are absolutely necessary to all animals, including humans. That's what triggers a fight or flight response to a predator or any danger. If it didn't happen, a person would stand in front of a car speeding directly towards them, not reacting while the brain took its sweet time processing the situation. A chicken would just walk into the jaws of a wolf without cortisone. Adrenaline is a critical stress response that many people in their domesticated lives don't experience enough of.

When cortisone becomes harmful both emotionally and physically is when it is a chronic, low level, constant thing. Like being subjected to endless power point presentations because you can't pay the mortgage or your kids tuition without a salary. Like working in a plastics factory on an assembly line. Like soldiers who become hyper vigilant from being on a base in a hostile place for months on alert but never see hot combat. Your body is saying, "run! fight!" But you can't. Like a chicken in a cage.

 

[Perris]

I take your point about cortisone, but I think these two statements

When cortisone becomes harmful both emotionally and physically is when it is a chronic, low level, constant thing.

Like a chicken in a cage

surrounded by thousands or tens of thousands of other hens in close proximity 24/7 basically provide the answer to the question about their cortisone levels and how they are the harmful type rather than the life saving and life affirming type.

 

[bruceha2000]

But what would a chicken choose?

My chickens could choose to stay in the coop all day, they never do. In fact, unless they go in to lay an egg or hit the feeder after I fill it, they never go in until they decide it is roost time. If the weather is good (and no snow) they range around the fenced acre, most spend a lot of time under a tree between the barns. If the weather is bad they hang in the barn alley and the "feed room" which is adjacent to the stall coop though smaller and no roosts. The "feed room" is especially popular in the winter so I have spread hay on the floor. Even mid winter the barn door is opened morning enough that the hens can go out if they so choose.

 

[bruceha2000]

Chicken tax. This is Angel, an 8 year old White Rock. She is still laying but the shells are thin and often break.