Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[MrsNorthie]

Taxes and update on homemade feed transition. It's been exactly two months since I switched the chickens here to a totally non-commercial feeding routine. Their diet now consists of one meal of fermented grain and flax seed mix in the morning and one meal of a cooked rice, barley, peas, and vegetable mix in the afternoon. I add sunflower oil, turmeric, black pepper, and a small pinch of salt to the afternoon meal. Plus all they can forage free ranging all day. At least once but mostly twice per week, they get some sardines or beef with grains soaked in bone broth. Lime chips and crushed eggshells are available for the hens. Also, anytime I'm around when one of the hens lays, I give her a "calcium treat" when she comes off the nest -- a piece of cheese rolled in a crushed calcium tablet.

No other vitamins or supplements have been given.

So far, so good. No illness, lameness, or lethargy. The 13 week old chicks are growing and putting on weight. All combs and wattles are healthy red. Eyes look clear and bright. All are active, foraging, digging, dust bathing, and ranging quite a bit farther out now that the tribes are separating.

In July, I recorded 74 eggs laid by my four laying hens.
Rusty: 20
Tina: 19
Patucha: 18
Dusty: 17

All eggs were well-formed with good hard shells, dark yellow to orange yolks, no runny albumens. No change in hardness or shape from when they ate layer feed, and I think the yolks are actually richer.

This is great news! Do you use fresh turmeric or dried/ground? I think we can grow it here, year round, as long as we keep it in greenhouse conditions.

 

[Perris]

Taxes and update on homemade feed transition. It's been exactly two months since I switched the chickens here to a totally non-commercial feeding routine. Their diet now consists of one meal of fermented grain and flax seed mix in the morning and one meal of a cooked rice, barley, peas, and vegetable mix in the afternoon. I add sunflower oil, turmeric, black pepper, and a small pinch of salt to the afternoon meal. Plus all they can forage free ranging all day. At least once but mostly twice per week, they get some sardines or beef with grains soaked in bone broth. Lime chips and crushed eggshells are available for the hens. Also, anytime I'm around when one of the hens lays, I give her a "calcium treat" when she comes off the nest -- a piece of cheese rolled in a crushed calcium tablet.

No other vitamins or supplements have been given.

So far, so good. No illness, lameness, or lethargy. The 13 week old chicks are growing and putting on weight. All combs and wattles are healthy red. Eyes look clear and bright. All are active, foraging, digging, dust bathing, and ranging quite a bit farther out now that the tribes are separating.

In July, I recorded 74 eggs laid by my four laying hens.
Rusty: 20
Tina: 19
Patucha: 18
Dusty: 17

All eggs were well-formed with good hard shells, dark yellow to orange yolks, no runny albumens. No change in hardness or shape from when they ate layer feed, and I think the yolks are actually richer.

Yesterday, the 7.5 month old pullets Frida laid her first egg. Small, naturally, but well formed and normal. She has filled out nicely too over the past two months. She was pretty scrawny when I got her.

I'm thinking that if the transition was having any ill effects, something would have showed up by now. But their health really seems quite good.

When I do nightly mite/flea checks, I've noticed they all have very healthy new feathers coming in at regular intervals. The 13 week olds are feathering out beautifully. I read that deficiencies in diet often show up first as feathering problems so I've really been paying attention to that. But looking at them and these pictures, their feathers all look fabulous. Even Butchie, my special needs hen, has a fresh crop of shiny soft plumage.

All in all, I'm pleased to report that at 10 weeks in, the transition to homemade feed is going well.

Cost wise, I'm spending pretty much the same. I was paying .36 per lb for commercial layer or grower feed. Now I'm paying .37 per lb for my homemade mixes, but I also just found a bulk supplier of oats and barley which will reduce my cost to .34 per lb. Beef bones are $1/lb.

Here's the junior tribe -- and Butchie -- in their shiny new duds

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Prima.

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Tobias and Segundo. Gangsta style.

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Captain Solo.

Now all three cockerels are "crowing" at just 13 weeks. It sounds like a chorus of kazoos played by chimpanzees

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Butchie

thanks for this informative update. Love the photos too - your birds look fab!

 

[Perris]

I had hoped to get the coop moved first but with Fret sitting it's probably not a good idea.

With the base and extension it's not going to be as easy as without of course. If you have another pair of hands or three to help, will you be able to move it without disassembling or will the add-ons need to be taken off first?

As someone who moves coops all the time, with broodies at times too, the next good opportunity will be when Fret brings the chicks off the nest. If you can move the coop while they're off, she will adapt and they won't know any different - getting chicks back into the coop for the first couple of days almost always involves herding anyway

 

[Shadrach]

I've actually converted all my CDs into FLAC files. I have them on a NAS that then sends them over to a TV box hooked up to my DAC which is hooked up to my amplifier. It sounds great.
My phone has some kind of audio thing on it that sound decent as well.
The TV box was a $30 device. I saw that it was compatible with LineageOS (Android custom ROM) so I bought it and flashed it for the fun of it.
I'm going to have to pay tax in the form of my rooster cockerel.

So here's a question for you.
Do you create playlists/listen to individual tracks rather than whole albums having converted to file based audio?

 

[Shadrach]

With the base and extension it's not going to be as easy as without of course. If you have another pair of hands or three to help, will you be able to move it without disassembling or will the add-ons need to be taken off first?

As someone who moves coops all the time, with broodies at times too, the next good opportunity will be when Fret brings the chicks off the nest. If you can move the coop while they're off, she will adapt and they won't know any different - getting chicks back into the coop for the first couple of days almost always involves herding anyway

I'll have to seperate the extension and coop; not difficult but takes time due to the connections of the hoop to the curve of the coop roof. Under other circumstances I would take the risk and move it while she's sitting. Given this is a critical sit I dare not risk it.
Lots of problems to work through should she hatch from ensuring the chicks have food available to making sure they can get in and out of the coop and the extension.
So many problems with this coop and run keeping model that I haven't had to deal with before.

 

[Molpet]

I will explain them in the simplest form possible: Stupid memes based off of a stupid multiplayer video game that never needed to exist in the first place.
Now I owe more tax I'm sure, or else Shad might go after me.

Good explanation.
I was another that didn't have a clue.

 

[TropicalChickies]

This is great news! Do you use fresh turmeric or dried/ground? I think we can grow it here, year round, as long as we keep it in greenhouse conditions.

We grow a lot of turmeric here. Warm rainforest is the optimal climate for it. I use it both fresh and dried. When I have a big harvest, I use more fresh (both for the birds and us) by grating the root into whatever I'm cooking. Otherwise I use it dried at about 1/4 tsp per bird.

 

[ManueB]

I was going to say this, too. Wu-tang formed in '92...

In my mid twenties I was convinced years working in a group home for teens had ruined 90's hip hop for me, but even more years working in a library solved that.
I watched Ghost dog five times and I still listen regularly to the sound track.

I do like some ambient music and some Scandinavian pop

Like what ? Likke li ? More indus like the knife ?

YWith the base and extension it's not going to be as easy as without of course. If you have another pair of hands or three to help, will you be able to move it without disassembling or will the add-ons need to be taken off first?

As someone who moves coops all the time, with broodies at times too, the next good opportunity will be when Fret brings the chicks off the nest. If you can move the coop while they're off, she will adapt and they won't know any different - getting chicks back into the coop for the first couple of days almost always involves herding anyway

And Henry.It took him months to adjust to roosting in the new coop and now he's going to have to get used to adopted grand kids..and now you want to move his home .

New development here: Polka stopped responding to Fez's cheeps yesterday; they were quite loud and insistent by teatime. By this morning, no cheeping, and Fez is behaving like any other member of the flock. Smoothest, fastest integration we've ever had. I wonder if being an only chick had something to do with it.

Also, Chirk managed to get out of the trug himself this morning. Having a mobile house chicken is a very different proposition from have an easily contained one. It's gonna be a bit like dealing with the transition from baby to toddler

How about an update on your house chicken ?

Someone is planning something again.

 

[TropicalChickies]

I'll have to pay up tomorrow! Did I explain it well?
(Sits waiting in chair to see if anyone else on BYC goes after me for my statement.).

I haven't played a video game since Pac Man and Super Mario Brothers, so it's sort of like trying to explain the Internet to someone living in the 17th century. But, um, yeah.

 

[Shadrach]

I've been trying to sort out my hard drives and flash drives. The way I have them organized is fine for viewing but for subject retrieval for questions posted on BYC I need some of these pictures easily found.

A few I found on a flash drive I needed to reformat.

"It's that feckin mouse again!"

Conventional wisdom has it the straight combs are better for what people believe are heat tolerant breeds. It's surface area, not so much the shape that dictates the heat loss. Check the ridges and valleys on this chap.

Hackle parade.

Couple in the park.

Proud mum.