Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BDutch]

.. I have been wortied since observing her, if giving her a diet of whole grains, seeds and forage will suffice, based on the hypothesis that they need the commercial feed.

If a chicken has acces to a field with grasses, herbs and insects you don’t need to feed layer pellets, crumble or all flock feed. A grain mix added to the things the chickens finds for herself is enough.
Of course this doesn’t work if you keep your chickens confined in a coop/run combination. Unless the run is tremendously large.
During winter periods many chickens can’t find enough greens and insects. I dont think its a good idea to feed only grains if you don’t give other food (sprouts/mealworms etc.) or no other food can be found.

 

[MrsNorthie]

LOL I have never been accused of that before. ;-)

 

[16 and me]

Some chickens chase, catch and eat mice.
The researcher/writer mentioned someone entered 36 yo in the survey.
View attachment 3732446

Haven't seen mine catch mice yet, but they sure love finding and eating newts!

 

[16 and me]

If a chicken has acces to a field with grasses, herbs and insects you don’t need to feed layer pellets, crumble or all flock feed. A grain mix added to the things the chickens finds for herself is enough.
Of course this doesn’t work if you keep your chickens confined in a coop/run combination. Unless the run is tremendously large.
During winter periods many chickens can’t find enough greens and insects. I dont think its a good idea to feed only grains if you don’t give other food (sprouts/mealworms etc.) or no other food can be found.

Thanks! So in my situation, I've probably been doing okay with my feeding. But I'm open to correction. 4 days a week (weather permitting) they're free ranging on grasses, garden & the edge of the woods for a few hours a day. The remainder of the day they are in a large outdoor pen (about 600 sq ft) where nothing's growing. The other 3 days a week they have most of the day to free range as they see fit.
I leave out 2 feeders of 22% crumble (chicks are about 17 weeks now) and 2 feeders of 18% layer pellets. For 20 birds I toss about 2-3 cups of a mix of grains into the pen (usually to round them up) I scatter it everywhere so they keep busy. It varies but usually whole wheat, oats, barley, corn, BOSS & mealworms. I've included when I have it, millet, flax, sesame.They get a lot of garden veggies, greens & berries in season. I feed them back a dish of crushed eggshells & always leave oyster shells for them as well.
I have been reading that the "snacks" dilute the ratios from the commercial which is ideal in meeting their needs. I have been skeptical, as I watch them alot. They seem to know what they want & need, and it's not always the same. One heads for the kale, the other for the chickweed, some right for where the good bugs hide out & some where the young grass is coming up, and the chicks seem to love heading back to the long dried grasses where all the seeds hang out. I wonder if we over-think things and micro-manage a little too much?

 

[L-plate chicken mum]

I translated the pdf about oldest chickens with Open AI:
https://www.levendehave.nl/sites/default/files/bestanden/Onderzoek Hoe oud wordt een kip.pdf

remarcable: The old chickens often don't get commercial feed other than grains.

Spoiler: Results Poll Levende have and old chickens

Text: Monique Bestman
And the oldest is...
Research on the age of chickens conducted by the Livestock Study
According to a survey conducted through the Livestock Study website, it appears that chickens can live to be quite old. One of the survey participants shares that her oldest chicken is an 18-year-old hen. This 'mixed breed' is thus the oldest among all the chickens enrolled in the study.

In my role as a researcher at the Louis Bolk Institute, I mostly deal with laying hens from poultry farms. They leave the farm before they are one and a half years old and are then referred to as 'old hens,' mainly because they lay fewer and lower-quality eggs. But how old can a chicken really get, I wondered for a long time. I had once read about a hobby chicken that lived to be 16 years old, but how exceptional is that? And does the chicken's breed matter? Do some breeds live longer than others? And how old can laying hens really get?

TOP 3:
Mixed breed
18-year-old hen
'In the last few weeks, she hasn't been feeling well,' according to her owner. Along with more than forty other chickens, she roams freely in the woods, meadow, and garden. In addition to layer pellets, mixed grains, and bread, she can forage unlimited greens, worms, and insects.

Mixed breed hen of 16 years
'She was still very lively. She just didn't lay eggs anymore.' The information about her living conditions is not further filled in, so we don't know.

Antwerp bearded bantam hen of 16 years
'She has a pale comb, and she laid her last egg at 9 years old.' With two other chickens, she has unrestricted space (2000m2). They live on a grain mixture and whatever they can forage together
.
Who participated?
Visitors to the Livestock Study website, especially hobby poultry keepers, participated in a survey. They could indicate the age of their oldest chicken. They were also asked about the breed, the size of the flock they were kept in, the amount of space they had, and what they were fed.
A total of 112 chickens were registered for the study. Of the 109 submissions, the information proved to be usable. We apologize for the error in the survey form that stated it was wrong. If there is indeed a 36-year-old chicken, the owner should come forward because we need to correct that. This chicken will then receive an honorable mention on the website and in the magazine.

Tables
In Table 1, the submissions are categorized by age groups. The age category 6-10 years is the most represented, accounting for 51% of the chickens, but there are still many chickens in the 11-15 years category, 26%. I have the impression that some of the reported chickens are still alive. So, they might become even older than the category they are currently placed in. According to the Guinness World Records, there was a 22-year-old chicken in North America named Muffy in 2011.
Table 2 shows, for the breeds with the most submissions, the ages those breeds reached. The oldest chickens are all mixed-breed chickens. Ten to thirteen years seems achievable for most breeds. Laying hens, bred for high egg production, appear to live less long.

Oldest rooster
Most submissions are hens that are 1-18 years old, but there are also 8 roosters 'submitted,' with an age of 4-12 years. Do roosters live less long than hens, or does it just seem that way because there are far fewer roosters mentioned?
Some submitters mentioned signs of aging in their one-year-old chickens. To distinguish signs of aging from signs of illness, I have considered only the symptoms in the 36 chickens aged 10 and older as signs of aging. Table 3 shows which signs of aging were mentioned and how often.

However, there are also very lively older hens. A 14-year-old mixed-breed hen is still in charge of the seven other chickens. Also, an 11-year-old Drentse hoen is still in charge, despite getting 'slower and going to roost earlier.' An 11-year-old Welsumer is not only still in charge but also raised a chick. The 16-year-old mixed-breed hen from the top 5 oldest chickens was described as 'very lively.' The signs of aging mentioned in roosters aged ten and older include crowing and mating less, more lying down, no longer being in charge, and being somewhat less adventurous.

Egg laying
Among the signs of aging, it was mentioned that fewer or no eggs were laid, but until what age does a hen lay eggs? The oldest hen reported to still lay eggs was a Dutch bearded crested hen. She is now 13 but laid eggs until last year. From around the age of 8, hens lay fewer or no eggs, as indicated by most submissions that mention something about eggs. One laying hen at 9 years 'occasionally lays an egg, although she can no longer get on the nest.'

Although it has nothing to do with age, we were also curious about how many chickens people have. In Table 4, the submissions are categorized by the number of chickens in the flock. Twelve flocks were kept in a run of a maximum of 10m2, with the largest occupancy being 23 Seramas on 5 m2. Eight flocks were kept in a run of 11-20 m2, with the largest occupancy being 12 animals on 20 m2. Forty-one flocks were kept in runs of 21 to 400 m2. Twenty-nine flocks had unrestricted space, more than 400 m2.
Finally, we asked what the chickens are fed. Almost all flocks eat mixed grain (82 out of 109), followed by layer meal or pellets (73 flocks), raw vegetables, fruit, and garden waste (62 flocks), self-foraged insects, worms, and greens (59 flocks), and cooked leftovers (38 flocks). Finally, there were chickens that received compost, boiled egg, ready-made meals, mealworms, yogurt, mice, or cake.

The tables were impossible to put into text in a proper way. Look in the pdf for the lay out.
.
Table 1: Number of chickens per age category
Age in years
0-5 6-10 11-15 >15 Total

Table 2: Age per breed
Breed
Mixed breed
Wyandotte
Wyandotte bantam
Laying hen North Holland blue Cochin bantam
Australorp
Number of animals with this age
22 (20%) 56 (51%)
28 (26%)
3 (3%)
109 (100%)
----
Total 63

Table 3: Signs of aging in hens
Number Age of animals
of this
breed
28 3-18
8 3-11
7 6 -13
7 1-9
5 4-10
4 4.5-10 4 7-10
Sign of aging
No or fewer eggs laid
Difficulty walking/jumping
Poorer feather condition
More tired and/or more sleeping
Slower
Poor eyesight
Comb color fades
More solitary
Lower in the pecking order
More susceptible to bumblefoot, rough feet, and lice

Table 4: Number of chickens in the submissions
How often mentioned
17 7 4 3 2 2 2 2 1 3

Number of chickens
1-5
6 -10
11-20
21-50
>50
Unknown
Total
Number of submissions
34 (31%)
31 (28%)
26 (24%)
13 (12%)
1 (1%)
4 (4%)
109 (100%)

Livestock Study & Everything about chickens magazine for hobby animal keepers.

Thank you translating, I managed to work out some of it but as my Dutch is pretty much non-existent….
May not be scientific however it seems to me there is an association between being able to range over a large area and the older hens.
I wonder if they will follow up. It would need long term observation - not sure they would bother for backyard chickens though.
Maybe they should repeat the questionnaire via BYC, lots of us here!

 

[BDutch]

Haven't seen mine catch mice yet, but they sure love finding and eating newts!

I have seen it on video.
BBC broadcast on a 60 minute video:

The private life of chickens.

And this is the part where a chicken hunts:

 

[Perris]

That's a great clip @BDutch - thanks for posting. Sometimes mine grab it by the back end and whack its head against the ground to knock it out before swallowing it whole.

 

[BDutch]

Thanks! So in my situation, I've probably been doing okay with my feeding. But I'm open to correction. 4 days a week (weather permitting) they're free ranging on grasses, garden & the edge of the woods for a few hours a day. The remainder of the day they are in a large outdoor pen (about 600 sq ft) where nothing's growing. The other 3 days a week they have most of the day to free range as they see fit.
I leave out 2 feeders of 22% crumble (chicks are about 17 weeks now) and 2 feeders of 18% layer pellets. For 20 birds I toss about 2-3 cups of a mix of grains into the pen (usually to round them up) I scatter it everywhere so they keep busy. It varies but usually whole wheat, oats, barley, corn, BOSS & mealworms. I've included when I have it, millet, flax, sesame.They get a lot of garden veggies, greens & berries in season. I feed them back a dish of crushed eggshells & always leave oyster shells for them as well.
I have been reading that the "snacks" dilute the ratios from the commercial which is ideal in meeting their needs. I have been skeptical, as I watch them alot. They seem to know what they want & need, and it's not always the same. One heads for the kale, the other for the chickweed, some right for where the good bugs hide out & some where the young grass is coming up, and the chicks seem to love heading back to the long dried grasses where all the seeds hang out. I wonder if we over-think things and micro-manage a little too much?

I cant find anything wrong in the way you feed them. There is not a one fits all solution. What chickens eat can and may vary. Especially if you don’t try to gain a maximum number of eggs in the shortest possible time, as in commercial egg factories.
Most layer feed you can buy in the shop is designed for the commercial factory farmers. And is not what we really need for our back yard chickens. I do believe the organic layer feed is a very good choice for laying hybrids /breeds who lay 200 eggs a year or more.

The cheap layer with GMO soy and corn still contains some of the poison they use in Brazil * to kill the field weeds. The amount of poison doesn't kill a chicken who is going to be soup or cat feed anyway after a life of 18-22 months in factory farming.

* speaking of the feed we can buy in NL.

 

[BDutch]

Thank you translating, I managed to work out some of it but as my Dutch is pretty much non-existent….
May not be scientific however it seems to me there is an association between being able to range over a large area and the older hens.
I wonder if they will follow up. It would need long term observation - not sure they would bother for backyard chickens though.
Maybe they should repeat the questionnaire via BYC, lots of us here!

Welcome. The survey was an initiative of Levende have, an association for small scale and hobby livestock keepers. Including chickens. The Louis Bolk Institute is the knowledge institute for sustainable agriculture, nutrition and health in NL. They conducted this survey in collaboration.

Maybe you have a similar association or institute in the UK? You can always ask them of course.

Maybe it’s even a possibility within BYC?

 

[RoyalChick]

I have seen it on video.
BBC broadcast on a 60 minute video:

The private life of chickens.

And this is the part where a chicken hunts:

Thanks for sharing that.
Mine catch mice and usually try to swallow them whole after bashing them on the ground a few times. However their flock sisters do a good job at grabbing bits so often the mouse is torn limb from limb.
I have some video of the great chase - but mine is definitely not up to BBC production value!