Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BY Bob]

Most nesting boxes don't facilitate it.

A window facing the nesting box or a camera focused on the nesting box does however. It was one of the first mysteries about chickens I wanted to uncover.

 

[micstrachan]

I saw Matilda make repeated visits to the nest box on the side of the main coop yesterday. She didn't lay an egg before they had all gone to roost and I had left.
Fortunatley I took some coconut oil with me this afternoon just in case.
When I let them out into the allotment run Matilda wasn't in the group and I found her in the nest box straining to lay an egg. I guess this had been going on all day.
I took hher out of the nest box and stood her on the ground in the allotment run.
This was the first time I've picked Matilda up and surprisingly she didn't make any fuss. I felt her abdomen and there was no doubt there was an egg there. Looking at her vent it became apparent from how far the inside of her vent was distended that the egg was stuck.
There aren't any warm bath, clean room, warm environment options at the allotment. Carrying home with what kit I had wasn't an option either due to the risk of breaking the egg inside her during transport.
I've rocked a few eggs out of hens in the past and given Matilda seemed not overly stressed by my attentions so far I decided to give it a go as she stood in the allotment. I oiled her vent right up to the place the egg made contact with her vent wall and the section of the egg I could reach.
By reaching under a hens belly you can feel the egg in most egg bound hens. By rocking the egg up and down and from side to side the oil that was spread inside the vent and on the egg gets sqeezed into the tight spots. It doesn't always work but it's worth trying before trying anything else.
It took a few moments and you can feel thhe egg moving more as you rock it. Eventually I gave a gentle squeeze just behind thhe egg and it slipped out into my waiting hand.
Obviously I couldn't take pictures of the procedure due to needing both hands for the procedure.

Here's the egg.
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Often one finds that there isn't just one egg wating to be delivered so I put Matilada back in the nest box and after a quick massage a near perfect egg, with the white partly cooked due to the heat got delivered.
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If a second egg stays in the hens vagina for along period of time they can cook solid and this causes further complications.
Natually Matilda not wanting anything to go to waste started to eat the second egg.
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Much to Matilda's horror I cleaned up the egg preventing her from eating any more (It had landed in a pile of poop) and deposited her outiside.
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I'm still not happy with how she looks.
Henry came over and shuffled around her giving her gentle pecks. He knew she was having problems it seems.
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Next Matilda set about relacing some of the fluids she lost.
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I'm still not happy. What I need is to see her poop all the waste that hasn't been able to get pooped out because the egg blocks the end of the intestines in many cases.
Matilad came and sat by me for a few minutes and I gave her belly a further massage. She wasn't keen on this and not wanting to stress her further I let her wander off.
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A few moments later she shot this lot out of her vent and a few seconds later delivered yet more.
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She went off to roost with the others. But I'm a bit concerned still because her crop was almost empty when she went to roost.

Wow, well done helping her get the eggs out. I missed all og this and hope to read on to learn she’s eating and pooping normally.

 

[micstrachan]

If i need more, please let me know

These are fabulous.

 

[micstrachan]

Matilda seems none the worse for yesterdays experiences.
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Yay!

 

[micstrachan]

Despite the miserable weather I donned the kit and headed down to the allotments. I wasn't expecting much interest in coming out but I opened up just the same. A couple or three of the Ex Batts ran out and grabbed some beakfulls of grass before the next sleety squall arrived.
I cleaned out the coop as best I could with the chickens under my feet and made sure the roost bars were fixed in the right place.
The run is just a mess. It's hard to stay upright in it.
I feel for the poor chickens in this sort of weather. While it isn't below freezing with the wind and the wet it's just horrid.
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Shad, I have an idea. Might there be a tree crew who would like to get rid of some wood chips? Maybe you could get wood chips for free for the run.

 

[micstrachan]

When I left for the allotments this afternoon it was pissing down, cold and windy.
By the time I got there something that looked remarkably like a sun fell out of a cloud and the wt stuff stopped falling. Needless to say the chickens were delighted and as soon as the gate opened they headed off to the other end of the allotment run to dig and scratch and run around.
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Excellent! Happy birds!!!

Speaking of birds in rain… we recently had a bunch of wild turkeys visit the yard while it was pissing rain. For hours straight. I felt bad for them, as they literally just stood there in the rain. Most of them didn’t even attempt to hide under trees. Hopefully their feathers were well oiled!

 

[micstrachan]

I've been trying for a while to capture the lovely soft intelligent look of Slide.
A shame the second picture is a bit blurry.
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I see it.

 

[micstrachan]

Henry and Matilda.
First time I've seen Matilda groom Henry. Matilda isn't quite over the egg binding yet. I need to see her lay another egg before I'll be happy with her health.View attachment 2952679View attachment 2952680View attachment 2952681View attachment 2952682View attachment 2952683

Henry looks GIANT next to those ex batts! I hope to hear of a well shelled, easily laid egg from Mathilda.

 

[blackacres]

For the love of Pete! No notifs again and I’m a week behind! Here’s some tax while I sort through the 12 pages I’ve missed.

The roos positioned themselves on each end of the run roost. Such good fellas.

 

[Perris]

An idea for you Shad, prompted by my current reading, and noticing fallen fence posts scattered across your site: some use willow wands for fence posts "as they take root instead of rotting and provide shade" - so that's a win-win, and they'd sop up a lot of the surplus water once established, so it all gets less muddy.