Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[fuzzi]

I have some sardines in oil and some in water.

The tuna is in water.

Does it make a difference?

I don't know, never tried it.

I was wondering if adding fish to a hen's diet would make her eggs taste fishy?

 

[Molpet]

I don't know, never tried it.

I was wondering if adding fish to a hen's diet would make her eggs taste fishy?

Too much will, at least that's what people have reported.

I think fish in oil would be too much fat.
Unless it was Olive oil with good omega

 

[fuzzi]

Too much will, at least that's what people have reported.

I think fish in oil would be too much fat.
Unless it was Olive oil with good omega

I would avoid fish packed in soybean oil anyway, it's probably GMO. Olive oil should be safe.

 

[RoyalChick]

I've heard this about kefir: if you want some grains, just find someone who already has them, because they'll have more than they know what to do with and will be happy to give some away

Yup. They actually taste good so now I just eat half of them or give them to the chickens. But in the right conditions they multiply like crazy.

 

[Perris]

I have some sardines in oil and some in water.

The tuna is in water.

Does it make a difference?

very little. Your chickens need some oil (look on a commercial feed bag label and typically it lists around 10% veg oil - and that'll usually be a lower quality oil than any that fish for human consumption are packed in).

The type of fish is much more important than what it's packed in. The ZOE team top 7 are, in order, farmed rainbow trout, oysters, sardines, anchovies, herring, wild Alaskan pollock, and mussels. They would avoid farmed salmon and large, long-lived species like tuna and halibut.
https://zoe.com/learn/fish-for-health-7-best-to-eat-and-what-to-avoid

 

[RoyalChick]

I can't speak for others, but my posts on foodstuffs are motivated by a desire to find or make good food for chickens. (I might eat it as well of course, since it's real food, but that's not why I'm posting about it here )

Sorry if people feel I have distracted the post. Like @Perris my kefir is mainly about the chickens. They eat 80% of what I make.
I wanted to give them protein, calcium and good bacteria.
They love it!

 

[no fly zone]

I may have stuck one or two on the roost bar over the years but that would work out as less than 1%.
Apart from the above they've all roosted, some quicker than others.
I thought Mow might not roost, but I was wrong.
I don't really care if any of them want to sleep in a nest box and I've had injured in body and/or pride chickens take refuge in a nest box for a while.

Sky was sleeping in the nesting box with her 3 babies. After she died, the babies were on the roost bars with the rest of the flock for a night or two; then they started sleeping on the far side of the coop when they discovered they could perch on the pallet slats there.

 

[Shadrach]

Mostly dry this afternoon with bouts of hazy sunshine. Cool at 9C.

I've asked people to bring bags of leaves. First bag today. I kept thinking of @TheFatBlueCat 's run and their composting leaves top cover. There are some more coming tomorrow hopefully.

Carbons droppings when out and about.
Not too bad. It was a bit runny in the coop this morning but given I had been pouring water into her and giving crop massages I'm not surprised. I thin her crop is clearing properly now. There was twice as much poop on the floor compared to the last few days. It also means she is eating okay.

Out and about.

 

[Shadrach]

I don't know, never tried it.

I was wondering if adding fish to a hen's diet would make her eggs taste fishy?

It's not something I've noticed and I feed quite a lot of fish.

 

[Somewhere_In_The_Clouds]

It's interesting; not the chicken roosting part, but the human reaction to it.
We seem to believe that chickens should roost off the ground on whatever we can faishon as a substitute for a branch. That's fair enough given the evidence.

But, we still can't fully grasp that chickens need a lot less help from humans at least, than we are comfortable in believing.

I've never cared how/where my chickens sleep and was a little surprised when I found out there were so many people who did.
Now I try to offer at least a roosting option but don't actually expect them all to use them.