Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[MrsNorthie]

I haven't felt Mow's crop enough yet to make a judgement on how well she's eaten.

Judging by the pictures, they all look well and Mow looks to be well developed and well nourished.

 

[Perris]

Dig has decided part of his job is to chase crows and doves away. He's waitng for the crow on top of the cage to come down.

I saw this and thought of Dig

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/a-crow-assaulted-by-farmyard-fowl-132424

 

[fluffycrow]

I saw this and thought of Dig
View attachment 3742629
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/a-crow-assaulted-by-farmyard-fowl-132424

What a gorgeous painting. Noticed that the duck in the painting is crested, I would have thought that the Crested duck came much later than the 17th century, but apparently not

 

[L-plate chicken mum]

I saw this and thought of Dig
View attachment 3742629
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/a-crow-assaulted-by-farmyard-fowl-132424

Interestingly the crow appears to be wearing a natty feather hat which the rooster is tearing into, the duck appears to be egging him on and the pheasant appears to be smoking a small cigar
Weird but fun

 

[Shadrach]

It stayed dry and felt cold a 4C.
Dig did something realy stupid this afternoon and tried to mate Carbon right in front of Henry.

I had a look and disinfected the cut. He'll be fine. Being mostly white a little blood shows a long way.
Mow laid a shell less egg. The egg was fine, still held in the membrane, just no shell on it.

 

[MrsNorthie]

Dig did something realy stupid this afternoon and tried to mate Carbon right in front of Henry.

Another learning experience for young Dig. I bet he is not quick to do that again, too soon.

 

[Shadrach]

Another learning experience for young Dig. I bet he is not quick to do that again, too soon.

I heard Carbon shouting and turned to see Dig on top of her. Henry took two steps and pecked him pretty hard. Lots of blood. Comb and wattle wounds bleed profusely and Dig looked like he had beeen murdered in seconds partly because he kept shaking his head to get the blood out of his eye.
He was realy good. He didn't help, but he didn't fuss when I caught him. Q quick look for a tear. A bit of a mop up with a damp tissue. A smear of antiseptic cream and he has sorted. Put him back on the floor and off he went. As long as he or other don't pick the scab off with looked dryish when I left that should be it.

 

[fuzzi]

I don't think they do completely, at least not always; periodically in poop you will see tiny smooth stones that have escaped the gizzard and passed on with the material being digested. Once upon a time such stones could sell for large sums, if old handbooks are to be believed.

Like the expression "Scarce as hen's teeth"?

 

[Perris]

Like the expression "Scarce as hen's teeth"?

what's like that expression? not the purging of gizzard stones, because the saying refers to something non-existent whereas the purging is occasional. I'll try to remember to get a photo of them next time I see them. It's easier to see them if there is no bedding on the floor of course, which I do sometimes in summer but usually keep a layer as insulation in winter.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

Getting the message that chickens do not automatically send all ingested feed to their crop is quite difficult to get accross. Most people assume that all feed enters the crop.
Getting people to understand that it is the way one feeds chickens that determines what get sent to the crop is even more difficult; a constant supply of feed is likely to give minimum crop use. Meal time feeding tends to promote crop use.

These points and the time taken to digest various feed types have implications for the crop full at night, empty in the morning test advice.

For me the most interesting aspect of the stuff in the article is that chickens can make a choice on how they digest/store their food.

As a backyard chicken keeper who keeps "ranging chickens...fed daily treats, low egg production heritage breeds, chickens older than two years, males," I'm your audience and appreciate so much when people wade into research from the health & welfare perspective vs from a profit-maximizing one.

On my 3rd pass, I'm finally processing enough of the article's points to articulate a few questions, if you'll entertain them.

1. Are you saying it's voluntary on the chicken's part whether they send food to the crop or not, e.g., do you think Fret consciously decided to fill her crop because she was thinking about feed availability this morning, or were complex internal signals telling reflexes to unconsciously manuever food to the crop? Contractions are usually involuntary, but the word "choice" keeps coming up ("It’s peristaltic contractions plus the chickens ability to adjust the orientation of the crop that feeds the contents of the crop into the proventriculus...It’s the feeding regime and the crop capacity used that dictates whether the feed is stored in the crop or passes directly to the proventriculus and onto the gizzard.")

2. How did you measure crops? Was it during autopsy? ("I’ve measured a number of crops and the range I’ve found is roughly from 40 grams to 60 grams when full.")

3. What do you mean by "treatment" of feed? ("Given the efficiency of a chickens digestive system feed treatment before consumption is quite unnecessary")

I haven't reviewed the source articles yet, so maybe some answers are there. And I'm a humanities (not sciences) person, so have patience with me.