Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good afternoon one and all!

Making your own food is very interesting.

Temperature is in the 70s.

Have a great day!

 

[Shadrach]

Most people who keep backyard chickens don’t or can’t keep them in a natural situation like you have Perris.
Many can’t let their chickens free range because of predators, can’t have roosters because of neighbours, etc.

Imho, there is nothing wrong with birth control. We humans do so too for very good reasons.

Reasons for chicken birth control are often the coop and run size. They all have a max capacity. Or we don’t want to spend more money and receive more eggs than we can eat. Or we just don’t want to clean a load of poop. Or…

If my chickens get broody, I break their broodiness asap unless I have room for more chickens and can buy hatching eggs to give them. I don’t see the benefits of letting a broody sit for three weeks. Cons:
- It’s not healthy for the hen to sit the whole day, for many days,
- they stop laying eggs for quite a period, - there is a higher risk of parasites on the nestbox.

I'm not entirely sure I'm following the reasoning here.
The number of eggs a hen will lay in her life is a fixed quantity. It's fixed by the breed of the hen. It's fixed by her biology.

The rate at which a hen lays those fixed quantity of eggs she can lay is a variable.

It's the rate of laying that makes a hen a high production hen, not the fixed quantity of eggs she is capable of laying.

High production hens have had the rate at which they lay eggs altered.
The rate at which a hen lays the fixed quantity of eggs she is biologically capable of laying has a major impact on her health and longevity.

I don't think many people understand this.

In theory at least, if one can slow down the rate at which a hen lays the fixed quantity of eggs she is capable of laying then the theory is she is likely to be healthier and live longer.

One way of reducing a hens rate of egg laying is to have her broody for as long as possible and preferably hatch and rear chicks. While she is broody and raising her chicks she isn't laying eggs.

Even if I don't want a hen to sit and hatch I let her sit until her egg laying cycle swit
ches off, usually three days. Some hens return to laying faster than others after this cycle break. Those who are primarliy interested in getting eggs rather than the hens health will try and prevent the hens broodiness as early as possible. However, over the lifespan of the hen, they will still get the same number of eggs, just not as quickly.

Of course there are other influencing factors. The longer a hen lives the higher the chances of getting predated, or other health problem unrelated to the rate at which she lays eggs.

However, it is important to understand one can have the hens laying capacity over a short period of time getting a higher quantity of eggs per year, or the same number of eggs over a longer period of time with less eggs per year. At the point the hen dies (all depending on ideal circumstances) you will still end up with the same total number of eggs.

What I take away from your post is you want the maximum yearly output.

 

[Shadrach]

Further to the peas question, I came across this this morning and post it as pertinent, as it includes other things that can sub for maize and soy (though may not be particularly palatable to a lot of chickens, like barley):

"NOTE:
1. Homemade or custom milled feed rations can be supplemented with alfalfa meal or fish meal to achieve higher protein content.
2. Field peas, sunflower seed, oats, barley, and milo all make good scratch grains or alternative feed grains to corn and soy."
https://livestockconservancy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Heritage_Chicken_Feed_Guidelines.pdf

I'm just about to start feeding a new base mix consisting of French maize, red maize, safflower, wheat, red dari, white dari, naked oats, paddy rice, tares, blue peas, white peas, mung beans, hempseed, black rape and 'energy corn' (which I assume is another type of maize, but as last ingredient, there should be relatively little of it). I'll report back in due course. I'm experimenting again because I'm having trouble getting quality wheat at the moment; the growing conditions here were difficult this year, and the best quality is all being kept for human food. (Another advantage of feeding whole grains is that poor quality is immediately apparent to the naked eye.)

While alfalfa in meal or pellet form is okay for chickens it's hardly a protein boost at around 15%.
Fish meal yes.
I can't see anything in the heritage feeding options that is going to give a low fat healthy high protein ration except the fish meal.

 

[no fly zone]

I'm not entirely sure I'm following the reasoning here.
The number of eggs a hen will lay in her life is a fixed quantity. It's fixed by the breed of the hen. It's fixed by her biology.

The rate at which a hen lays those fixed quantity of eggs she can lay is a variable.

It's the rate of laying that makes a hen a high production hen, not the fixed quantity of eggs she is capable of laying.

High production hens have had the rate at which they lay eggs altered.
The rate at which a hen lays the fixed quantity of eggs she is biologically capable of laying has a major impact on her health and longevity.

I don't think many people understand this.

In theory at least, if one can slow down the rate at which a hen lays the fixed quantity of eggs she is capable of laying then the theory is she is likely to be healthier and live longer.

One way of reducing a hens rate of egg laying is to have her broody for as long as possible and preferably hatch and rear chicks. While she is broody and raising her chicks she isn't laying eggs.

Even if I don't want a hen to sit and hatch I let her sit until her egg laying cycle swit
ches off, usually three days. Some hens return to laying faster than others after this cycle break. Those who are primarliy interested in getting eggs rather than the hens health will try and prevent the hens broodiness as early as possible. However, over the lifespan of the hen, they will still get the same number of eggs, just not as quickly.

Of course there are other influencing factors. The longer a hen lives the higher the chances of getting predated, or other health problem unrelated to the rate at which she lays eggs.

However, it is important to understand one can have the hens laying capacity over a short period of time getting a higher quantity of eggs per year, or the same number of eggs over a longer period of time with less eggs per year. At the point the hen dies (all depending on ideal circumstances) you will still end up with the same total number of eggs.

What I take away from your post is you want the maximum yearly output.

My poor Skeksis was an egg laying machine, and I do believe that is what led to her untimely death.

 

[Shadrach]

My poor Skeksis was an egg laying machine, and I do believe that is what led to her untimely death.

It's also what killed the majority of the Ex Battery hens.
I have this theory that if one could get the Ex Battery hens to go broody one might extend their life expectancy a little.

 

[fluffycrow]

It's also what killed the majority of the Ex Battery hens.
I have this theory that if one could get the Ex Battery hens to go broody one might extend their life expectancy a little.

Strictly Ex Batt, or are pseudo Ex Batts allowed. For some reason every Greek but me has managed to have one of their ISA Brown go broody

 

[Shadrach]

Strictly Ex Batt, or are pseudo Ex Batts allowed. For some reason every Greek but me has managed to have one of their ISA Brown go broody

Yup, it does happen, despite what the dogma says.

 

[fluffycrow]

Yup, it does happen, despite what the dogma says.

Not going to lie, I feel kind of betrayed that they didn't want to go broody on me. Had them in my coops for 11 years, yet not one decided to go broody. If only there was a near magical trick for making hens go broody . But I digress. It definitely happens. Most of the doubts come when they start mothering the chicks instead of brooding eggs. In this stage I've heard conflicting opinions

 

[Shadrach]

Intermittent rain most of the day and the chickens stayed out during some of the beif bursts of rain and only headed for the shelter of the coop extension when it started to rain hard. Had a couple of rainbows during the day. Overall we got at least three hours out and about on the field.

 

[Perris]

Good news on H5N1 this morning, esp for UK keepers: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67159294

"Figures released on Friday list 16 new outbreaks since August, compared to nearly 90 in the same period last year.... Scientists also said they have discovered signs of immunity in wild birds previously spreading the virus... The consortium of scientists from eight leading UK laboratories has also discovered the virus can only travel short distances in the air - less than 10m - and is "very unlikely" to travel between farms" [i.e. by routes other than human carelessness and poor biosecurity on the farms in question].