Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[TropicalChickies]

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

I've found out there's a few things they don't like:

Ginger. Big turn off. Neither fresh nor dried powder. Which is too bad because it has excellent antifungal, antibacterial and antioxidant properties. Similar to turmeric though, and they are fine with turmeric so I'll stick with that.

Cauliflower. I mixed some chopped cauliflower in with their feed the other day and they left it on the ground.

Too many vegetables in general. I usually mix in a bit of chopped veg of whatever I'm making for lunch into their afternoon meal. They are ok with a carrot, they like sweet potato and cassava -- but not too much. Plantains they devour though, which is good for both their nutrition and my costs as we grow plantains all year. But if the mix is more than, say, 20-25% vegetable (eyeballing it), they don't eat enthusiastically at all, and go off to forage.

They don't eat any raw vegetable except tomato and cucumber. No lettuce, no spinach, no radishes, no chard, no broccoli. Nada.

However, this morning I mixed in a bit of boiled hamburger meat and had to break up two tussles among the cockerels over it.

We have been cutting back a lot of rampant overgrowth and pruning trees lately, so they are hunting bugs galore. Crops are always full at bedtime. They are getting plenty of protein, but meat and fish are still their favorite things that I serve.

I see other people serving up elaborate salads to their chickens and I'm like . That doesn't fly here at all.

Tree pruning. Native trees like this provide shade, habitat, and moisture control for our planted cultivars like banana, citrus, and heirloom cacao. But the lower branches of this tree are infested with parasitic epiphytes which drop onto our cultivars spreading disease. So instead of cutting down the whole tree, we carefully trim the offending branches. All the wood and foliage we loosely organize into debris piles that encourage mycelia colonies in the soil. The chickens, if course, feast on all the insects that come to the pile for food and shelter.

 

[TropicalChickies]

It's surface area, not so much the shape that dictates the heat loss.

Good point!

 

[TropicalChickies]

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.

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

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 .

How about an update on your house chicken ?

Someone is planning something again.
View attachment 3600101

Oooh, that black hen is so pretty. I think that's what Dusty would look like if she weren't frizzled!

 

[RoyalChick]

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.

Me too except I also missed the PAC Man era.
I agree @notabitail - it was a good explanation.

 

[RoyalChick]

I've found out there's a few things they don't like:

Ginger. Big turn off. Neither fresh nor dried powder. Which is too bad because it has excellent antifungal, antibacterial and antioxidant properties. Similar to turmeric though, and they are fine with turmeric so I'll stick with that.

Cauliflower. I mixed some chopped cauliflower in with their feed the other day and they left it on the ground.

Too many vegetables in general. I usually mix in a bit of chopped veg of whatever I'm making for lunch into their afternoon meal. They are ok with a carrot, they like sweet potato and cassava -- but not too much. Plantains they devour though, which is good for both their nutrition and my costs as we grow plantains all year. But if the mix is more than, say, 20-25% vegetable (eyeballing it), they don't eat enthusiastically at all, and go off to forage.

They don't eat any raw vegetable except tomato and cucumber. No lettuce, no spinach, no radishes, no chard, no broccoli. Nada.

However, this morning I mixed in a bit of boiled hamburger meat and had to break up two tussles among the cockerels over it.

We have been cutting back a lot of rampant overgrowth and pruning trees lately, so they are hunting bugs galore. Crops are always full at bedtime. They are getting plenty of protein, but meat and fish are still their favorite things that I serve.

I see other people serving up elaborate salads to their chickens and I'm like . That doesn't fly here at all.

View attachment 3600119
Tree pruning. Native trees like this provide shade, habitat, and moisture control for our planted cultivars like banana, citrus, and heirloom cacao. But the lower branches of this tree are infested with parasitic epiphytes which drop onto our cultivars spreading disease. So instead of cutting down the whole tree, we carefully trim the offending branches. All the wood and foliage we loosely organize into debris piles that encourage mycelia colonies in the soil. The chickens, if course, feast on all the insects that come to the pile for food and shelter.

I am glad you shared this - I was wondering if mine were weird.
With the exception of when I hang up a whole cabbage (I think they like swinging it back and forth), and Babs who inexplicably like cauliflower florets, mine mostly reject vegetables. They eat a lot of ‘greens’ but prefer to harvest themselves.
They love any meat, fruit, rice, bread and yoghurt/kefir that I offer.

Tax: Babs harvesting some artemisia which has been her favorite crop this season (no cauliflower provided that day)

 

[TropicalChickies]

I am glad you shared this - I was wondering if mine were weird.
With the exception of when I hang up a whole cabbage (I think they like swinging it back and forth), and Babs who inexplicably like cauliflower florets, mine mostly reject vegetables. They eat a lot of ‘greens’ but prefer to harvest themselves.
They love any meat, fruit, rice, bread and yoghurt/kefir that I offer.

Tax: Babs harvesting some artemisia which has been her favorite crop this season (no cauliflower provided that day)
View attachment 3600126

Ah, I remember Babs. Perhaps she's making absinthe.

Yes, the chickens here eat plenty of greens -- grass and other groundcover plants, many of which are very nutritious. But they like serving themselves. I had to fence off my garden area, not because they eat the vegetables, but because they dig everything out looking for bugs.

 

[Perris]

How about an update on your house chicken ?

He's much the same. I wondered if he was relapsing a few days ago as the tremors were back (they've never completely gone, but have been much better since about a month ago) but it's stabilized again now. The biggest problem is that his balance is not good enough for him to preen, but he's growing new feathers, so he can't get the waxy covers off them and I think it hurts him a lot if I have to pick him up in this porcupine-like state. I have offered to preen him but he scuttles away as fast as he can; obviously I lack Venka's touch - this was her sorting him out on his birthday in May.

How fast life can change. Carpe diem all!

I've also been doing more reading and I'm convinced he has/had encephalomyelitis, leading to central vestibular ataxia. And if I'm right, the long term outlook is not good.

 

[notabitail]

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?

Generally I listen to the whole thing. On my phone it depends. Sometimes I listen to one track or sometimes the whole thing.
Usually if I don't listen to the whole thing the effect the piece has is lost.

 

[TropicalChickies]

Well, just as I was feeling great about my tribes' overall health and the hens laying good eggs, this happened. These are Patucha's eggs over the past four days.

The two on the right have wrinkles on top and the one she laid this morning is massive.

She seems fine. I checked her out. Clean bum, vent is not swollen, red upright comb. She's walking around, foraging etc.

There are no signs of Infectious Bronchitis in these chickens. I've seen wrinkled eggs before from the hens I had before, but this was over three years ago. All of those hens have died -- and they had other symptoms like diarrhea, rales, sneezing, and very weak eggshells.

Patucha didn't live here until after the affected hens had died. I suppose it's possible that the two survivors (Cleo and Cheri) were still carriers, but unlikely -- I've read obsessively about IB and the the viral load drops to almost nil over one (minimum) and two (maximum) years after infection. I had a tiny closed flock for over two years. And I'm not even 100% they even had IBV. No necropsy. Just the symptoms matched up, so I kept just three hens until it *seemed* safe to bring in some new blood.


Patucha has none of the IBV symptoms, nor does anyone else, and these irregular eggs feel quite strong. I really don't think there's IB at work. But the wrinkles and sheer size of the last one ...sheesh.

I'd appreciate some input from anyone who may have seen this -- could it have something to do with the end of her current laying cycle?

I'm hoping she is at the end and will go broody, or perhaps she is going into a molt soon. She's not losing feathers, though. Patucha always goes broody about a week after Tina, and Tina went broody on July 27, so she's a bit overdue for a brood. She's laid a lot of eggs since weaning Solo (24 in the past 35 days) and I'd like to see her body get a break. She's about about 2.5 years old.

@Perris @Shadrach @MaryJanet @MrsNorthie @TheFatBlueCat or anyone else who's seen something like this -- thank you

Cleo's last eggs before she fell sick and died were also enormous and wrinkled -- but also thin-shelled , so I'm a bit worried.

(Edited to mention that IBV is often cited as a reason for wrinkles in eggs -- but I suppose it could be many factors)

 

[Perris]

I've read that wrinkled eggs indicate infection, but not experienced it yet.

But a general observation is a tendency by some on BYC to treat all illnesses as if they're life or death crises and need aggressive intervention if the bird is to survive. I prefer to provide tlc over drugs, and trust the bird's immune system to fight it off. Sometimes they don't make it of course, but those that do pass on their stronger genes and acquired immunity to the next generation, which is good for the flock.