Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[TropicalChickies]

The wider regulatory context is missing from the discussion.

In the comments and photos people have shared on this topic, I see that everyone has a different definition of "free range." So if I were a policy person (and thank gods I'm not), I would be breaking my head over trying to regulate such an amorphous definition. What would constitute free range under the law? How many square meters? How much time outside? How many birds per square meter? From what I've read about the free range sector, it can be as little as a few square feet per bird. That sounds more like an overcrowded prison yard to me.

I tend to look at things like this from the perspective of humans interacting with animals and nature. Is the interaction harmonious, or even trying, or does it show a clear motive of dominion and profit? A more philosophical standpoint. I can't even imagine trying to wrangle with it from a regulatory angle.

Finally got the compost and mulch in this garden bed is ready to plant in and now the chickens have taken over.

 

[Iluveggers]

In my opinion, it probably just makes the eggs easier to find while the chickens running loose in the villages probably lay wherever they feel like it.

That was my thought also. Egg hunts aren’t efficient or economical. Lol

That perhaps a foraging hen is a busy hen, less inclined to lay, where a confined hen is a bored hen and really has nothing else to do?

I wonder how breed and broodiness would play into this as well? Since most confined caged birds are leghorns or othet production breeds, if other breeds were confined would they produce more? Go broody less? And how many less eggs do production breed lay when they aren’t confined to cages and can forage?

 

[fuzzi]

Free range is not an option for me due to the predators we have here: feral cats, loose dogs, opossums, raccoons, foxes, coyotes, Cooper's and Sharp-shinned hawks, and possibly snakes.

So my flock is in a large hoop coop, 16'x8'x6' tall, entirely covered with hardware cloth, and a heavyweight tarp and shade cloth covering most of it. They seem healthy and happy, with 14 sq ft per bantam at this time. I sit in there in the late afternoon, with no complaints about smell, only about the mosquitoes that find me.

(second picture was taken prior to me rehoming 7 cockerels!)

I'd hate to have the government dictating to me how to house and range my birds!

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

Temperature is in the 70s.

Have a Great day!

 

[Perris]

@Perris, you've said in a comment on your homemade feed article that you can't "have both" -- maximize egg production with foraging and homemade food. That the way to maximize production is "the commercial way." Do you think that confinement could also have something to do with that? That perhaps a foraging hen is a busy hen, less inclined to lay, where a confined hen is a bored hen and really has nothing else to do?

my understanding of the commercial way is that it is about the quantity of food a bird can be trained to eat as much as genes. The Dutch company whose management guide I've cited a few times in various threads even supposes it can control the size of the eggs laid via the diet (more or less veg oil in that case). Confinement does stop losses via laying away as well of course.

 

[TropicalChickies]

my understanding of the commercial way is that it is about the quantity of food a bird can be trained to eat as much as genes. The Dutch company whose management guide I've cited a few times in various threads even supposes it can control the size of the eggs laid via the diet (more or less veg oil in that case). Confinement does stop losses via laying away as well of course.

Is that the "feed conversion ratio"? I always see this phrase and didn't really get what it meant.

It's all so mechanistic and reductionist. The whole damn thing. The language invented around these living beings. Feed conversion ratio. Units per square meter. The distancing from a creature with a complex social order, an inner life, a unique intelligence we are privileged to observe. Even feel. Same thing with plants and trees talked about only in terms of crop output or lumber.

I get that humans need resources to live. I use resources too. But it's the reduction of complex orders to simplified production units that really makes people look dumb.

 

[Perris]

Is that the "feed conversion ratio"? I always see this phrase and didn't really get what it meant.

It's all so mechanistic and reductionist. The whole damn thing. The language invented around these living beings. Feed conversion ratio. Units per square meter. The distancing from a creature with a complex social order, an inner life, a unique intelligence we are privileged to observe. Even feel. Same thing with plants and trees talked about only in terms of crop output or lumber.

I get that humans need resources to live. I use resources too. But it's the reduction of complex orders to simplified production units that really makes people look dumb.

I agree; it's industrial food production not farming. Some firms seem to take the same attitude with their staff / labour (what an awful abstraction that is, from a whole person to just the work they can do) - I hazard a guess that they're the ones that will convert to AI most easily.

 

[Sally PB]

Some firms seem to take the same attitude with their staff / labour

Yeah, at one point, I was an FTE: Full Time Equivalent.

Tax:

Button (left) and Sunny.

 

[TropicalChickies]

I wonder how breed and broodiness would play into this as well? Since most confined caged birds are leghorns or othet production breeds, if other breeds were confined would they produce more? Go broody less? And how many less eggs do production breed lay when they aren’t confined to cages and can forage?

Me too, they are good questions

 

[RoyalChick]

the rain yesterday invigorated the grass and the seed heads are standing up this morning; the birds are seizing the moment. This is Zimmet harvesting some seed; her technique involves grabbing the seed or stalk, pulling it down and towards her feet, and then rapid side-to-side head movement (as if saying no in body language) as she lifts her head. I think she's stripping the stem by so doing, but I don't have slo-mo to check that.
View attachment 3559782

A supposedly stressed little chicken also harvesting grass seeds. This is Sylvie she is just shy of three months old.
Technically mine don’t free range as they are enclosed within an electric fence. But they have a lot of space and don’t use all of it. They love this area with tall weeds and there are only a few bare patches.