Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

This research is conducted with British commercial layers as wel as different heritage breeds. I presume it is an average, is that right? (The online version only shows 52 pages).

From reading all kind of personal messages from BYC keepers, I concluded it differs for different breeds / different types of chickens.

I also concluded and my own experience confirms this statement : circumstances (like harassment / a mother that teaches her chicks / or a keeper that puts the chicks on a roost at nightfall) do influence their preference.

Those figures were for British commercial laying hens, work by Appleby et.al. in the journal British Poultry Science 1992, 1993. In an experimental context, usage of perches varied (from less than 3% to over 40%) with factors like perch design, height and group size.

 

[Perris]

The kids are 5 weeks old today and Idris has sprouted a mohican!

 

[Iluveggers]

@Shadrach any ideas on the chicks genders yet? Hoping at least 1 pullet, but both would be ideal. My hatch from my broody ended up with 3 pullets, I’m thrilled they all get to stay!

 

[TropicalChickies]

I stop by occasionally just to look at everyone's photos, lately a lot of broodies in these pages, so I got hooked! ❤ But I just had to chime in on the posted video and clarify. I don't have a lot to share in your thread what with my mutt stock, so I will leave the beautiful chicken photos to those with gorgeous birds. Keep posting everyone!

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Here's my mutt mums and their mutt kids!

Lovely long legged Tina Turner and her two chicks. Recently I learned that a "half-naked" neck chicken like Tina (with a collar of feathers) is only half likely to pass on the trait to their offspring. Both of Tina's chicks are fully feathered. This is her second brood in five months. She thrives on motherhood. When she isn't mothering, she's kind of a shrew. But when she has chicks, she is a stately queen.

This is Dusty, a black chirapa (frizzle) mutt and her two mutt chicks. I gave Dusty a mixed clutch because I had doubts her eggs would be fertile. When big Lucio mates with her, it's an awkward affair. The two eggs that hatched are actually from another junior hen named Rusty.

The mutt parents, Lucio and Rusty. Hunkering outside the kitchen in the rain looking for a treat.

Big Daddy Mutt. C'mon Food Lady. I know you have a piece of cheese in there...

 

[MrsNorthie]

In august I had other feed thief’s. When it was raining a lot , I had a slugs and snails invasion. Unfortunately the cats and chickens dont eat slugs.

I have been fighting fire ants. We had a couple of days of heavier rain, and mounds have popped up everywhere. Instead of killing them all (which is impossible), we try to make the environment as hostile as possible for them, to just move them away from living areas, where we walk, where we walk the dogs, and of course away from the chickens. They do have some good benefits, they eat ticks, aphids, and other insects, good a bad and may be why we do not have mites and lice in a wood coop? Blue and Goldie both stepped in a tiny mound and took 'bites' to the feet and were dancing a jig, poor babies.

While working on one large mound in the run, the girls kept coming over to see what I was up to, and I was afraid the swarming ants would go after them, but I could not get them to keep away. I started saying Blue's name, then mimicking his danger alert call and signaling to the area I was working on, and he started calling the girls to him in the far reaches of the run! I love that boy! I do not speak fluent chicken, but he seems to have understood what I was trying to accomplish?? (or he was just trying to get the girls to get away from the crazy lady having a fit in the middle of their run..lol) All but my silly Gracie listened to him.

Today, we are going to spray some vinegar on the grass inside the run to drive them out away from the run, once they are mostly cleared out we will put down a perimeter of rosemary, lavender and vinegar outside the run, to to discourage their return to that area. There will always be some, but I just want to keep them under control so we don't have any swarming attacks. The bites are painful, and then they itch but a swarm attack can cause an anaphylactic reaction so I do not know how this would impact the chickens, and I don't want to find out.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

I haven't posted pictures for a while.

Light being spoiled and happy.
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InkyView attachment 3632921

Crew working very hard in the compost
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Where is your compost pile located?

 

[lightm]

Something I have found interesting and would like to report. I am wondering if others have observed the same.

Light was hatched mid March 2021, a commercial production layer (unfortunately I did not know better about their reproductive issues at the time). She was sick for a little over a month (around July 2023) from impacted crop until she went to see a vet.

Before she was sick, she was laying very big eggs with kinda thin shells. She lays her eggs a lot inside the house so we were able to observe her laying frequently and sometimes she even made a hard push sound. I felt bad for her.

After she got recovered, she started laying again sometime this August. Her eggs have since been smaller, the perfect size, and with stronger shell!! She is laying a bit more frequently than before. It's like she has transformed! I am very happy with the "no more hard push sound" and her stronger egg shell.

 

[TropicalChickies]

Something I have found interesting and would like to report. I am wondering if others have observed the same.

Light was hatched mid March 2021, a commercial production layer (unfortunately I did not know better about their reproductive issues at the time). She was sick for a little over a month (around July 2023) from impacted crop until she went to see a vet.

Before she was sick, she was laying very big eggs with kinda thin shells. She lays her eggs a lot inside the house so we were able to observe her laying frequently and sometimes she even made a hard push sound. I felt bad for her.

After she got recovered, she started laying again sometime this August. Her eggs have since been smaller, the perfect size, and with stronger shell!! She is laying a bit more frequently than before. It's like she has transformed! I am very happy with the "no more hard push sound" and her stronger egg shell.

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That is very interesting. How did the vet treat her crop? Was she on any medication? Did you change her diet or anything else?

 

[fluffycrow]

Not really. All my ISA brown have had their hard laying cycle, and once they stopped they just laid once every two moons. Some birds laid good eggs throughout their lives, some bad. But I don't recall a bird laying good eggs after laying bad eggs all their lives

 

[lightm]

That is very interesting. How did the vet treat her crop? Was she on any medication? Did you change her diet or anything else?

No change in diet or other things at all.

We went to the vet expecting a crop surgery. The vet went with a more conservative treatment and did something called a lavage/crop wash. He said he just wanted a sample of the stuff in the crop. However, after he he got done, he told us that he went ahead and emptied half of her crop with this method.

It seemed like the crop wash made things moving for Light because she made a huge poop after that. I almost cried seeing that poop.

She was then put on three medications. One antibiotics, a gastric stimulator called Metoclopramide, and something called slippery elm (I thought this was for digestion but then maybe it is for parasite).

On the way to vet. You can see her comb is shrunk and sickly looking.

Fully recovered! Big comb again.