Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[RoyalChick]

This isn't my experience. Questions are the daily bread and butter of an academic. Getting published in a refereed journal requires one to write something that passes the scrutiny first of the editor, then, if it passes that hurdle, of however many referees s/he sends it to for comment (and those referees are other academics, some of whom will ask very difficult questions about it just to show how much they know and how clever they are ), then back to the editor with the referees' comments, for a final decision after however many revisions have been made, and then it goes through a copy editor who picks up any remaining flaws, faux pas and stylistic infelicities. The best journals have very skilled people doing each and every job on this journey that a paper published in it has to take. Journals are ranked by how hard (or not) it is to get published in them, since there is this quality control (unlike the internet, where any old rubbish can get published - without the platforms actually admitting it is publishing such nonsense to the world).

And getting to be an academic is such a long, hard and expensive journey, nobody gets into it without a passion for their work. That passion may be killed by the journey, or the people met on the journey of course. Few make it to a permanent post, which is rarely achieved before they get to 30.

My Dad was an academic and that sounds more like his life than how @MrsNorthie described it.
After he died I went through endless correspondence much of which was questions about his papers or him questioning other people’s work.
To me a non-academic it all seemed quite adversarial and nit-picking, but here I am now relying on academic work to have really solid foundations in order to trust the findings for decision making.
Maybe it depends on the field.

Here are some chickens sheltering from the downpour (as was I).

 

[Perris]

Maybe it depends on the field.

to a degree (pun unintended!) but academic standards are required in any discipline worthy of the name.

There's a great riposte in Oppenheimer: "I'm just a humble physicist" "Oh really? I've yet to meet one" (or words to that effect) Sheldon exists

 

[Perris]

It was said that Socrates never wrote down his philosophy precisely because he believed the question and answer format was the only way to get to the truth. Hence his student Plato used the dialogue as the genre in which to try to record/preserve/revise/invent/ [insert your preferred verb here] Socrates' views.

 

[kcan2]

Short day today as I'm still under unaviodable (if I want any of my friends and relatives to speak to me again) social pressure.

My heartfelt condolences are yours -
Not infrequently am I left wondering why it is so much easier to hang out with the chickens than some folks. And in saying that, I mean most folks

Obviously, Fret's tolerance level for questionable folks is much higher as she lets you grope her crop area in the PM with nothing more than a dubious look

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

Phew just caught up on the thread. Fret and all the allotment crew look so happy. It's so lovely to see them all.

My cockerel boys have finally decided to grow up. I've got one who has started to crow (badly) and one who has forgone the crowing in order to fly under the radar and just get the job done with the hens . The unfavored (by senior rooster) hens and pullets don't seem perturbed by their attention. The senior hens still beat the crap out of the boys if they look at them the wrong way.

In sad news I found one of my pullets dead in a nestbox this afternoon. Looks like a classic case of heart attack while laying. She was only 11 months old. Such a shame. Looked to be a quick and painless death however. Nothing at all wrong with her until she died. I'm unsure exactly when she died but I'd think only an hour or two before I found her. She was a big hen, I had to dig a very big hole. I planted a tea bush to mark her grave.

I've not had an instance of that happen in years, not since I was a teenager actually. And that was a very long time ago!

 

[Perris]

Many people don't bother reading the conditions or methodology. All studies should have in big bold lettering at the top, this is what we found under the conditions of the study and here are those conditions. The study is only relevant to exactly these conditions and any changes in the stated conditions are likely to yield a different result.

My suspicions about commercial feed were first aroused when I registered that almost all the studies were conducted on chicks, from 1-42 DAYS old, and moreover that a lot of the nutrition ones were done on birds that had had a caecectomy (the caecum removed, because it complicated the results beyond the researchers' capacity to deal with it).

I ceased to see the relevance for my flock of adult free ranging birds of research work that was based on 1. only a portion of the digestive system of 2. chicks, whose 3. genetic background was extremely restricted, and whose 4. keeping conditions were completely sterile.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

My chicks eat what everyone else eats. Approximately 50/50 split between unmedicated chick starter and soaked/fermented unground whole grain/peas mix, plus added meat and bone meal with some seaweed meal currently. I've had excellent results thus far.

 

[MaryJanet]

This isn't my experience. Questions are the daily bread and butter of an academic. Getting published in a refereed journal requires one to write something that passes the scrutiny first of the editor, then, if it passes that hurdle, of however many referees s/he sends it to for comment (and those referees are other academics, some of whom will ask very difficult questions about it just to show how much they know and how clever they are ), then back to the editor with the referees' comments, for a final decision after however many revisions have been made, and then it goes through a copy editor who picks up any remaining flaws, faux pas and stylistic infelicities. The best journals have very skilled people doing each and every job on this journey that a paper published in it has to take. Journals are ranked by how hard (or not) it is to get published in them, since there is this quality control (unlike the internet, where any old rubbish can get published - without the platforms actually admitting it is publishing such nonsense to the world).

And getting to be an academic is such a long, hard and expensive journey, nobody gets into it without a passion for their work. That passion may be killed by the journey, or the people met on the journey of course. Few make it to a permanent post, which is rarely achieved before they get to 30.

My Dad was an academic and that sounds more like his life than how @MrsNorthie described it.
After he died I went through endless correspondence much of which was questions about his papers or him questioning other people’s work.
To me a non-academic it all seemed quite adversarial and nit-picking, but here I am now relying on academic work to have really solid foundations in order to trust the findings for decision making.
Maybe it depends on the field.

Here are some chickens sheltering from the downpour (as was I).

View attachment 3624045

to a degree (pun unintended!) but academic standards are required in any discipline worthy of the name.

There's a great riposte in Oppenheimer: "I'm just a humble physicist" "Oh really? I've yet to meet one" (or words to that effect) Sheldon exists

It was said that Socrates never wrote down his philosophy precisely because he believed the question and answer format was the only way to get to the truth. Hence his student Plato used the dialogue as the genre in which to try to record/preserve/revise/invent/ [insert your preferred verb here] Socrates' views.

Well said Perris & RC.

 

[ManueB]

I'm not expecting a long and affectionate mothering period.

What is the shortest period you have seen a hen wean her chicks under circumstances that were not exceptional?

Those of you who were around may remember I was really worried about this last summer, when Chipie hatched her chicks, because of runt Piou-piou who had a mobility issue, was slow and couldn't fly. You told me then five weeks was the usual but with some great variations. She stayed at it for six weeks.

Piou-piou in the middle of the yellow chicks, was the same size at two weeks as Merle the black bantam chick.

This year seeing Léa wean her chicks at five weeks, I really wondered if weaning time was only determined about hormones. Their nest in the coop's wall had grown too small for six chicks and an adult. She tried for four days to take them on the adults roost. When it was clear it wouldn't work, she left them for the night but stayed with them during the day, for another three days. Then she drove them off completely being quite mean, but I could see she was still watching them from afar for about another week.

I can't help wondering where she finds the energy to cope with the chicks even though there are only two of them. For those of you who have kept puppies, the chicks activity behaviour is markedely similar. Flat out activity for a while and then they fall asleep for a while and the cycle starts all over again.

Still following on Léa, I also got the impression she was depressed after weaning. It was very much like she was quitting cocaine. She had been high for five weeks, jumping around everywhere with uncanny energy to bring her six chicks around. And suddenly it was like she deflated both physically and mentally. She seemed not to know what to do with herself. Whereas she had terrorised the other chickens as a mum, she now was bullied by some of the new chickens and found herself back where she was in the middle of hierarchy, and she seemed very lost.
It lasted until she turned broody again two weeks and a half after.

Is this something common ?
It made me wonder if six chicks was not too many.

Léa with the something three weeks old gang.

I followed Perris's thread on the shortfalls of commercial feed with interest. I have always fed some commercial feed, but also haven't worried about what percentages of what the chickens have eaten. I had some reservations about my ability to provide sufficient quantities of the necessary nutrients for the Ex Battery hens at the allotments. With so many hens at one point it was difficult to monitor any health effects of their diet, or even the basics like egg shell strength given the eggs looked very similar. Since the death of Lima I have fed less and less commercial feed and a much wider variety of seeds, nuts and whole grains. The chickens preference for the alternative foodstuffs is obvious. I intend to move on to a fermented mash similar to Perris's but containing more methionine provided by Brasil nuts and a higher protein nut than the usual peanut butter adding almonds instead. I have given up trying to find a suitable dried fish meal but I may do as someone I know does and that is to get a local fishmonger to save fish trimmings for me.

Are you planning to give it as soon as you get it or will you try freezing ?

People reading and not understanding the limits to studies is an ongoing problem, even with well educated people.
Lab studies in particular have a set of very strict conditions. Many people don't bother reading the conditions or methodology. All studies should have in big bold lettering at the top, this is what we found under the conditions of the study and here are those conditions. The study is only relevant to exactly these conditions and any changes in the stated conditions are likely to yield a different result.

When I worked as a librarian we had a partnership with one of the biology lab that studied bees. They had pedagogic hives on campus on which they had a number of captors and experiments, several teachers were also beekeepers at home or elsewhere, and they were in contact with thousand of other beekeepers through associations. I don't see why research on chickens raised in small structures couldn't develop like this.

 

[Shadrach]

My Dad was an academic and that sounds more like his life than how @MrsNorthie described it.
After he died I went through endless correspondence much of which was questions about his papers or him questioning other people’s work.
To me a non-academic it all seemed quite adversarial and nit-picking, but here I am now relying on academic work to have really solid foundations in order to trust the findings for decision making.
Maybe it depends on the field.

Here are some chickens sheltering from the downpour (as was I).

View attachment 3624045

Yes, I think the field of study has a bearing.