Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[fluffycrow]

Shad is a daddy!!
View attachment 3595809
I heard the chicks this morning. When I went to check on them, I promptly got flogged by mom, lol, bless her heart.
She was trying to call them down from the roof and they were beeping away. View attachment 3595805View attachment 3595807
As it would lead to death or severe injury for the hours or day old chicks, I gave them a food and water station and promptly got flogged again for my efforts but momster settled after she got a few bites in her. View attachment 3595808
Checking on her this eve when I got home I was met with only a small growl. Looks like we are friends-ish again.View attachment 3595810
My littles were curious to know what all the excitement is about. I'm sure she will also flog them in the near future. Not tonight though.View attachment 3595819

Congratulations! Adorable ! Mom seems to be an awesome protector

 

[MaryJanet]

Shad is a daddy!!
View attachment 3595809
I heard the chicks this morning. When I went to check on them, I promptly got flogged by mom, lol, bless her heart.
She was trying to call them down from the roof and they were beeping away. View attachment 3595805View attachment 3595807
As it would lead to death or severe injury for the hours or day old chicks, I gave them a food and water station and promptly got flogged again for my efforts but momster settled after she got a few bites in her. View attachment 3595808
Checking on her this eve when I got home I was met with only a small growl. Looks like we are friends-ish again.View attachment 3595810
My littles were curious to know what all the excitement is about. I'm sure she will also flog them in the near future. Not tonight though.View attachment 3595819

Cute babies!

Photo 5 is delightful

 

[Shadrach]

My nearest neighbors also have roosters, so they crow, my cockerels crow and some cockerel about a quarter of a mile away chimes in. I love it, it makes living in a place that I don't love, feel much better.

Where would you like to live?

 

[MrsNorthie]

I totally get where you are coming from, and many of your reasons are the reasons that
I am gardening, keeping the chickens, trying to help in my community etc etc. I don't expect a government retirement by the time I get there either!

Please be aware that kunekune pigs (We have them everywhere here, it's their country of origin) are lard pigs. While they make perfectly fine pork and all the rest, they will not at all be what you're used to from other breeds in terms of taste and texture. I recommend sausages. Of course you may already know this so forgive me I do not mean to be condescending. They also take a long time to mature. I am going to get some in the future, specifically because they ARE lard pigs and that makes them one of the best ways to get a steady supply of fat without having to keep a milk cow. They are also lovely pigs, don't need 'pig food' to grow and be healthy, and they're easy to handle.

I am still researching the best way to go about this. I grew up on a dairy farm, I know milk cows..lol I am a fledgling learner on raising other animals, so I appreciate the input. That is interesting about the taste and texture, I suppose that I assumed that there would be differences due to the fact that they are primarily grazers, but I wonder if the difference would be disappointing? The one big thing that my English husband is looking forward to is proper bacon and sausages.

We have a few options, Berkshires, Durocs, someone is raising Berkshire/Tamworth crosses. Every site that I read, talks about how lean the meat is, in comparison, "The Prime Rib" of pork, so I would have never thought of them being lard pigs. (that is apparently not something they advertise here.)

 

[MrsNorthie]

Where would you like to live?

Ideally, North Yorkshire, near enough to Whitby to go on a semi-regular basis, but out far enough to have a small farm. (even my London husband fell in love with it there.) I am from Vermont originally, so I am just not cut out for hot climates, and I am used to being surrounded by woodland that I could explore. You can't walk in the woods here, because

1. Someone owns the land and aren't keen to share. (and I do understand, it likely due to the fact that some people have no respect and would trash their land.)
2. Copperheads, cottonmouths and an array of venomous snakes, fire ants, Ground nesting wasps.
3. The heat, it is just not pleasant. At 53, I still like to make snow angels and splash in puddles.(I have also lived in Arizona which is definitely hotter than here.)

I think my husband is homesick for England's Green and Pleasant Land too, but we do have obligations now that my parents are getting old and frail (mentally and physically and not that we are not aging, ourselves..lol).

 

[Shadrach]

I am never lonely when I am outside, because I am absolutely surrounded by living beings.

I've been a solitary person most of my life; less so now I'm living in a city in the UK but I'm working on that.
For the ten years I lived in Catalonia I spoke less in a year than some do in a day to members of my species at least. We had an appartment there plus spare rooms in the main house and we used to have people come to enjoy the countryside etc on a regular basis, mostly well educated reasonably affluent city people.
I often got asked what I did out there on the land day after day. Didn't I get bored, or lonely or want to go out to the numerous dinners and social events in the area, were common questions.
Some of these guest would eventually find their way around the back of the main house and come accross my house buried in the mountainside. The door was always open from dawn to dark and I caught a few peeking in through the windows and door.
Sometimes I would be coming along the track from being out on the land and one of these guest would come rushing up to me saying some chickens had gone into my house but they didn't know how to stop them.
I would bring these people into the house and show them a scene like this.

For most, that was quite enough and I immediately got dropped into the he's a nutter bag.
Many of these people would wax lyrical about how they loved the countryside and they would head off to run in the mountains with their music players and ear buds and hi tech training gear, or rent a quad or a track bike and tear around the place disturbing the peace and seeing nothing.
Occasionally someone would rent the appartment who was different and they would ask to spend a day with me out on the small holding. I even had a couple working.

I like nice things. I even enjoy the occasional night out. Given the choice I would rather look at scenes like these and have just enough to survive, rather than lots of money and be out being entertained by and with people.

Apart from what tend to be quite expensive clothing that actually works at keeping the cold and wet out in the UK I have one luxury and that's my stereo system. I listen to it most days and would struggle if I had to do without it. I suppose I should include my computers, although they are cheap low powered fanless units.
My technology regret is I didn't have a camera for many years and only have my memories of the chickens that have come and gone in my life prior to getting the camera I have.

 

[TropicalChickies]

but I find that they lay 14 eggs or so and then go broody,

Same here. I'm trying to let them brood and control the population the same way you are, by only letting them sit on 3-4 eggs at a time. Btw, who is the "Kowalski" your rooster is named after? As soon as I read that name, a booming voice in my head screamed.... STELLLAAAAA!!!!

 

[Molpet]

often got asked what I did out there on the land day after day. Didn't I get bored, or lonely or want to go out to the numerous dinners and social events in the area, were common questions.

I get the same. People don't understand me when I say there's nothing to do in the city or on a cruise ship.

 

[TropicalChickies]

Not everyone that gets chickens from a hatchery is like the twats that have to have designer clothes made in sweat shops.

Of course not. Thank you for speaking up. Many of us do the best we can with limited choices. I have broody-raised farmyard mixes because that's pretty much what's available here. I couldn't find a proper breed in back of the beyond Ecuador to save my life, unless I wanted a fighting cock. What folks call "razas" (breeds, or "races") are really just recurrent genetic traits like short legs (a "Patucha"), a featherless neck ("carrioca") or "chirapa" (frizzle). As far as the locals care, there are two kinds of "razas" -- "ponedoras" which are good egg layers and everyone else, "por la sopita" -- for the soup. An exceptionally plump bird is called a "caldito" or "stewpot." That's basically it. When a broody hatches, you get whatever comes out. So given my keeping circumstances, naturally I find the shopping for labels at the chicken outlet mall craze a bit strange.

Lots to mull over in the rest of your post, but all I can say right now, is the reasons you cogently give for moving towards self sufficiency are many of the same for why I left the States altogether. I'm 49, had been working since I was 16, and saw no future for myself as the cost of living continued to escalate and my income stayed pretty much the same. I had no kids, and am mostly estranged from my mostly bonkers family. Now I live here. It's a ton of work, and in many ways also precarious as "living in nature" and being at the mercy of the elements are really the same thing. But right now the birds are trilling, the chickens chattering, and the sun is burning off the morning mist. There are worse things, and I'm grateful for this.

Found this interesting mushroom this morning. They spring up outside the kitchen. In about fifteen minutes, it will dissolve.

 

[MrsNorthie]

For the ten years I lived in Catalonia I spoke less in a year than some do in a day to members of my species at least.

LOL That is why my marriage works so well, we don't have to be constantly talking at each other, we can be content in silence, together..lol I do talk to the dogs and chickens like they are my children though. I am just not a social butterfly.