Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[MrsNorthie]

There's another passage in the Bible where it says "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast..." (Proverbs 12:10a)

We take care of our beasts, the animals we have been given, whether they're considered food or friends, or both.

My "beasts"...

Rahab is growing a big girl comb!
View attachment 3583719

Martha and the boys:
View attachment 3583720

Your beasts are beautiful! My feathered and furry children come before pretty much everything else. (my human children are grown.) Animals give so much to our lives, that they deserve to have everything they need to be happy and healthy.

 

[Perris]

further to https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rescued-chickens-thread.1502267/post-27037569 and the reading done during the day, it occurred to me last night that the two senior hens' relatively belated broodiness (normally I am dealing with it from April, but not this year) may have less to do with the weather and/or their weather forecasting abilities, and more to do with a virile young cock who looks very different from the last dom (who in turn looked very like his dad bar the yellow shanks) taking over as the dominant rooster since 6 weeks ago. Any thoughts or experience on that from anyone reading this thread?

 

[ManueB]

Do please keep us informed as to how the diet change works out. I would love to make the change but the circumstances are just not right at the moment. The allotment chickens get a wide variety of foodstuffs which is great but I'm still feeding commercial feed and it still makes up the bulk of their diet. In fact, since feeding the mash they are eating more of the commercial feed than they were the pellets. My rough estimate is 20% more which is quite a lot.

Dumb language question but I've been confused for a bit of time now : what difference is there between crumble and mash ? Is mash just wet crumble?

Here we have three types of feed for adult chickens : whole grain, milled, and pellets ( though the last are much harder to find).

I'm also one shoe in both world with chicken feed now. They have access all day to typical commercial feed (layer milled feed and starter ) both dry, and mixed in a wet mash, but also to fermented grains with peas twice a day. Three times a week they get a cooked mixture with what we eat, and as we most often don't eat meat or fish I add some eggs or canned fish.

Human cooked food has their preference by far , then starter turned into wet mash, then fermented grains, but they still eat a bit of the layer feed, especially in the evening.

It makes me hesitant to completely stop giving them layer feed, at least as long as my three ex-batts are still alive. Although only one is still laying, they all go to the layer feed before roosting. Maybe from habit ? But maybe they don't find enough calcium just eating the crushed egg shell they have access to. Our soil is limestone so theoretically they should get quite a bit just eating the small pebbles on the ground but that doesn't seem to be sufficient.

Anyway, saw a lot of sheep shit. Sheep shit is pretty much grass, nettles, vetch, wildflowers etc ground up with whatever bugs were on the plants when the sheep ate it.

Sounds to me like the chickens are pretty smart for letting the sheep do the harvest and convenient delivery for them.

Matured sheep manure is the base of our garden fertilizer so we have two big stack year round. The chickens spend quite a lot of time scratching it around for bugs. It works well for us, in the sense that they break out the bigger clotted lumps. But they do tend to spread it around everywhere, so we try to keep the bigger chickens out of it and only let the smaller ones who don't have as much leg power.

further to https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rescued-chickens-thread.1502267/post-27037569 and the reading done during the day, it occurred to me last night that the two senior hens' relatively belated broodiness (normally I am dealing with it from April, but not this year) may have less to do with the weather and/or their weather forecasting abilities, and more to do with a virile young cock who looks very different from the last dom (who in turn looked very like his dad bar the yellow shanks) taking over as the dominant rooster since 6 weeks ago. Any thoughts or experience on that from anyone reading this thread?

Will you be letting Janeka hatch chicks ?

I don't know if weather is really such an important factor in broodiness hormones. Three of my hens are turning broody one after the other even though we have abnormally high temperatures for here that really don't seem to be chick friendly. And they were broody in January as well ! At the time I thought it was because they were very young and their hormones all over the place, but now I think it may be that if they feel they can shelter their chicks from the weather, it's not such an important factor.
One thing I know : if either Léa or Merle is broody, when she snaps out of it I can expect the other to turn broody four or five days after.

Maybe for yours, their mating with a new rooster and hoping to get some new genes for their chicks is determinant ; maybe they feel safer now they have a healthy young dominant, or just because the dynamics of the group is more peaceful. And maybe there is a form of competition/ contagion between them two since they are the two senior hens.

Léa scratching in the manure pile

Max, Aka petit blanc, is beginning to tidbit for Anne and I saw his hatch sibling pied-beau trying to mate the same yesterday. So we may soon be in for a bit of cockerel fight as well.

 

[Perris]

Will you be letting Janeka hatch chicks ?

Yes. She is 4 so should have a good set of antibodies to whatever pathogens live here, and has just one granddaughter as yet. She's got 3 eggs with her genes + 5 of assorted other flock members under her.

I don't know if weather is really such an important factor in broodiness hormones

It is in wild birds, so I think it must play some role with chickens that live in more natural environments. But we meddle a lot and disrupt so many of their behaviours, I'm sure other factors play more or less big parts too.

the dynamics of the group is more peaceful

Sadly it isn't 24/7. None of the hens is in a hurry to come out in the morning because Killay's sex drive is in overdrive then! The mature girls wait till all the fuss has died down before they emerge - age and experience telling there methinx - but it's pretty calm the rest of the day. It was more peaceful when Chirk was in charge; he is such a gent.

maybe there is a form of competition/ contagion between them two since they are the two senior hens

quite possible. Let's hope the two even more seniors don't catch it!

One thing I know : if either Léa or Merle is broody, when she snaps out of it I can expect the other to turn broody four or five days after.

 

[Shadrach]

(hopefully this is tactfull enough to avoid instant rebuttal)

Apparently not.

Allow me to show exactly what the completely unfounded belief in the superiority of the human species for whatever reasons leads to. No other creature on this planet has ever reached this level of depravity and cruelty.

Let me make myself absolutely clear. I do not want passages from any religious writings on my thread. I find it deeply offensive in itself and unbelievably ignorant as justification for the treatment of the other creatures that inhabit this planet.

I had hoped that it would be obvious to those who post here that this is an agnostic thread

Agnostic.
"The belief that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God."

and this would include his/her/its intention of how we treat the other creatures on this planet.

Please bear this in mind and the BYC guidance that discussions about religion are discouraged.

 

[TropicalChickies]

what difference is there between crumble and mash ? Is mash just wet crumble?

I didn't know either and looked it up.

I put oyster shell flakes out for the hens and they eat them. But they were hard to find and expensive, so I'm going to switch to lime chips for calcium.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

I didn't know either and looked it up.
View attachment 3583899

I put oyster shell flakes out for the hens and they eat them. But they were hard to find and expensive, so I'm going to switch to lime chips for calcium.

I'd call that mash "dust" and get a refund. That said, Stilton's group loves that dust mixed with water, whether you want to call it "mash" or "mush."

Our other 2 groups could care less about it, but if Stilty's crew doesn't get their morning mush, they look annoyed. It's a great way to use the dust at the bottom of the crumble feeder, as long as it's not old/stale.

I do always feed that in plastic, as there's some concern about hard well water pulling too much zinc out of galvanized feed pans.

When I spoke to the Fertrell folks a few years back about sourcing grains and nutritional supplements, the rep said "mash" is when you wet whole or lightly cracked grains. Which is why I call their breakfast "mush."

 

[Shadrach]

I did post last night but it seems I was that tired I didn't realise I posted on the wrong thread.

Dry and warmish at 17C. Three hours at the allotments. At least one hour spent talking to my future plot partner.

Henry, Fret and Carbon checking that I hadn't spilt anything interesting when furtling around in the great food dispenser.

Fret is filling out nicely. Less stress, better quality food plus a recent moult has all made a difference to her this year. She's an interesting cross between a Marans and a Crested Cream Legbar. Rather lovely looking in my opinion. That's her fluffy butt following Henry making sure there is nothing edible lurking in the path edges.

Yesterdays swap and harvest. The beans in the containor are from a veg for egg swap.

 

[TropicalChickies]

Apparently not.View attachment 3583883
Allow me to show exactly what the completely unfounded belief in the superiority of the human species for whatever reasons leads to. No other creature on this planet has ever reached this level of depravity and cruelty.
View attachment 3583892

Let me make myself absolutely clear. I do not want passages from any religious writings on my thread. I find it deeply offensive in itself and unbelievably ignorant as justification for the treatment of the other creatures that inhabit this planet.

I had hoped that it would be obvious to those who post here that this is an agnostic thread

Agnostic.
"The belief that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God."

and this would include his/her/its intention of how we treat the other creatures on this planet.

Please bear this in mind and the BYC guidance that discussions about religion are discouraged.

I started it, so I take responsibility and sincerely apologize. I only pointed out the infamous "dominion" passage as an example of a belief system that give people the wiggle room to justify not only horrific treatment of animals, but even the sixth mass extinction humans are causing now --
And still believe in one creator.

Given that I cited this article, I didn't think my response could be taken in support of "dominion"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlsc...ion-event-will-be-worse-than-first-predicted/

And I made my own agnosticism clear

nothing will turn an oddball kid into a black sheep agnostic like nuns grilling you on the ten commandments when you're six years old or a priest hearing you "confess" your "sins" when you're only seven.

I certainly didn't mean to encourage religious prattle. I was trained as an historian and sometimes I forget that the belief systems I see from a detached observer standpoint are actually believed in by others.

Being said, I was at fault and my reference to Biblical dominion was not aligned with the guidelines of this site. I'm sorry and it won't happen again.

 

[saysfaa]

...

When I spoke to the Fertrell folks a few years back about sourcing grains and nutritional supplements, the rep said "mash" is when you wet whole or lightly cracked grains. Which is why I call their breakfast "mush."

That is what it meant historically.

I would add coarsely ground grain-based feed to the whole or lightly cracked grains part of the description.

I also think it matters how wet it is - more than dampened, less than particals freely floating in the liquid. And not fermented.

There may be some regional differences to the meaning. And I think a lot of people don't know the historical meaning and use it for the "dust" picture a few posts - ground fine but not pelletized. And some use it for any feed that was wetted. I consider both to be incorrect but at some point, one or both will be correct because living language shifts.