Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[HiEverybirdy]

I'd buy a ticket to her show, but I know dozens of people who'd mock her.

She's apparently wearing a chicken costume...I think we all know plenty of chickens who would mock her as well

I find it slightly irritating that she would have people believe it seems she has discovered all these facts about chickens from spending six weeks with them.

I didn't read that she was trying to put herself out there as a behavioral trailblazer but that she simply came to the realization she was wrong about chickens. Which is true for a lot of us who have spent time with chickens, as @no fly zone said:

Indeed. As I have said before, I used to think chickens were dumb. Then after spending actual time around them, I quickly understood I was very wrong.

I had a similar awakening and now see every living thing around us through a vastly different lens. I'm not proud of how long it took me to realize such a basic truth, but most people won't ever realize it. So I like seeing any form of challenge to human-centric thinking, even in a clunky, artist-in-a-chicken-suit kind of way. You never know what opens eyes.

Each time a study on other creature intelligence gets done, it becomes apparent that it isn't the subject's intelligence we are testing but our own lack of it in many cases to devise the experiments and set up the conditions to attempt to measure these creatures intelligence relative to the world they encounter.

And if humans are so smart, shouldn't we already have the ability to say things like a human is "as smart as a 2-week-old chicken"? We've been injecting ourselves into chickens' lives >10,000 years and still have no idea what we're looking at most of the time. Same with honey bees, btw. Humans have been stuffing bees into boxes (or logs or skeps or whatever) for thousands of years but still have very little idea what we're doing. Ask 4 beekeepers, get 5 opinions.

We measure for example their ability to count because some of us can do that.

Haha.

The problem of flight, even at chicken competance level requires a vast amount of calculation which we, humans, cannot manage and cant even get the best computer fight navigation systems to manage to achieve the manouvers many birds can.

It's a fun point, but is this mixing motor skills with intelligence? In that case, we blow chickens out of the water where opening a jar is concerned...only because we have thumbs and they have wings.

Chicken-flight tax: wild child Peck hopping gates during the bobcatting hour. Her/Andre's yard is actually filled with grass, but for some reason Peck must hunt the communal yard at dusk with no concern for the bobcat that visits the woodline. I have so many bugbites from chaperoning this pullet.

 

[RoyalChick]

The problem of flight, even at chicken competance level requires a vast amount of calculation which we, humans, cannot manage and cant even get the best computer fight navigation systems to manage to achieve the manouvers many birds can.

One of the things I really love about watching the chickens, is watching them do their flight calculations.
If you really watch them going up onto a branch or from branch to another they really think it through and assess.
They may not be as elegant in flying as a random songbird, but I do love watching them plan their maneuvers.

 

[Molpet]

One of the things I really love about watching the chickens, is watching them do their flight calculations.
If you really watch them going up onto a branch or from branch to another they really think it through and assess.
They may not be as elegant in flying as a random songbird, but I do love watching them plan their maneuvers.

I have 2 cockerels raised by a turkey hen. They watch the poults get on top of the coop and fly into the tree. They try to follow but they are a couple feet short and miss.

 

[Sally PB]

If you really watch them going up onto a branch or from branch to another they really think it through and assess.

Pip likes to get up on my shoulder. Today I was crouched down, sifting the sand in the dustbathing box. I could see her off to the side, looking at me and doing the "I'm going to fly up there" foot shuffle. Uh, no, not now, Pippy. I stood up straight, and she stopped shuffling and walked away.

 

[RoyalChick]

I have 2 cockerels raised by a turkey hen. They watch the poults get on top of the coop and fly into the tree. They try to follow but they are a couple feet short and miss.

Don't embarrass them by laughing out loud!
My Piglet made the opposite calculation error - she intended (I think) to fly over the fence around the chicken yard, but flew too high and sort of crash landed on a tree branch way above the fence.
Then she shouted at me like it was my fault!

 

[TropicalChickies]

Lucio is tremendously striking, and getting more so in every photo! Probably a silly question, but any idea how much he weighs?

Now I'd put him at about 14lbs. I plucked him off the roost a few evenings ago for a follow up lice treatment. I used to be a fitness trainer and when I held him it crossed my mind that he felt "almost like a 15lb weight" -- of course live weight feels lighter, so he could be more.

 

[TropicalChickies]

There are saddles that protect wings. They can inhibit flying somewhat, not because they physically restrict wings at all but because the birds seem reluctant to flap with something touching their shoulders. Ours don't do much big flying, so it's not been an issue for the few who've worn wing-protecting saddles.

Miss Lorraine is wearing one right now and hasn't forgiven me for it. Unfortunately, Merle's been treading even as they molt, so this is her look for a month or 2. They only grow feathers a few times a year, and I really don't want him ripping off the shiny new ones she's finally growing before winter. She was also visibly in pain when he was jumping on her. The padding on this saddle has addressed that.

This is a last resort for us, though. Particularly with Lorraine who doesn't like handling. I've left her naked-backed several seasons rather than subject her to clothing.

Miss Hazel, on the other hand, is pleased as punch to be important enough to have a saddle. I wish I'd tried one on her earlier. She needs wing protection more than Lorraine but is too little to wear the other wing-protector saddle we have, with detachable plastic wing protectors that snap to it.

All our aprons were purchased several years ago on the giant, destructive online shopping juggernaut which shall not be named.

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Ah, I see. This is Lorraine on the right, I assume. I'll ask my partner if he can make something like that. I'm an absolutely wretched seamstress.

 

[TropicalChickies]

I wouldn't mock her but I find it slightly irritating that she would have people believe it seems she has discovered all these facts about chickens from spending six weeks with them.

I enjoyed the article but balked at where she said how expressionless (she thinks) chickens are. They absolutely are not. But perhaps one has to live with them through many different experiences to see the more subtle reflections of mood in their faces, especially when one enters into a more caregiving relationship with a chicken who has been sick or injured. With Butchie, when I would clean her messy butt, she would look very annoyed, but when I cleaned and applied cortisone cream to her flaky skin, I could see annoyance change to relief and gratitude.

Cleo was remarkably expressive and inordinately intelligent. Her absolute favorite thing was to "get a ride" -- for me to carry her -- over to the coop during a rainstorm under an umbrella. The first time I did this, she darted her head side to side as though trying to dodge the big raindrops. When she realized we were out in a full downpour and she wasn't getting wet, she just radiated an expression of amazed delight.

Then, any time it would rain close to roost time, she would come to the kitchen gate and wait for me. If I let her in, she walked right over to the umbrella and started chattering and pointing at it (this also shows some pretty high level association). As soon as I would tuck her under my arm and open the umbrella, she would get that expression: not as amazed as the first time, but of a pure and unmistakable delight.

I think they get more expressive -- in ways that a perceptive human can see and relate to -- the longer they live and the more time they spend in human company. They are probably in part mirroring and emulating our own expressions in their own way.

I've shared this picture before, but I took this one of Cleo when she came over to the kitchen gate and saw a few chickens inside. How can you not see the jealous wrath in that little face?

 

[fluffycrow]

I enjoyed the article but balked at where she said how expressionless (she thinks) chickens are. They absolutely are not. But perhaps one has to live with them through many different experiences to see the more subtle reflections of mood in their faces, especially when one enters into a more caregiving relationship with a chicken who has been sick or injured. With Butchie, when I would clean her messy butt, she would look very annoyed, but when I cleaned and applied cortisone cream to her flaky skin, I could see annoyance change to relief and gratitude.

Cleo was remarkably expressive and inordinately intelligent. Her absolute favorite thing was to "get a ride" -- for me to carry her -- over to the coop during a rainstorm under an umbrella. The first time I did this, she darted her head side to side as though trying to dodge the big raindrops. When she realized we were out in a full downpour and she wasn't getting wet, she just radiated an expression of amazed delight.

Then, any time it would rain close to roost time, she would come to the kitchen gate and wait for me. If I let her in, she walked right over to the umbrella and started chattering and pointing at it (this also shows some pretty high level association). As soon as I would tuck her under my arm and open the umbrella, she would get that expression: not as amazed as the first time, but of a pure and unmistakable delight.

I think they get more expressive -- in ways that a perceptive human can see and relate to -- the longer they live and the more time they spend in human company. They are probably in part mirroring and emulating our own expressions in their own way.

I've shared this picture before, but I took this one of Cleo when she came over to the kitchen gate and saw a few chickens inside. How can you not see the jealous wrath in that little face?
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I agree. I do not think it's experience/living with them that makes you understand that chickens are so expressive, however. Case in point, my grandfather. He spent pretty much all his life around chickens, feeding, caring, protecting them. When I'd tell him that "hey, look at this hen, she looks super grumpy right now" the answer would be something along the lines of "what the f are you talking about, did we drop you as a baby or something?" (OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a little). You have to want to u derstand them to be able to see it. One of the most funny looks is the "are you going to do something about this problem you useless bipedal?" I've usually gotten it when one of the dogs gets too close to their coops, or when one of the boys isn't happy but doesn't know the solution. Or more recently, when the tiny waterer i have for the chicks and Cruella gets clogged up. Of course she still gives me pecks afterwards

 

[Shadrach]

5 hours, split shift. Warm and sticky.