Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BDutch]

I do know that my birds will not touch pellets.

As many find. And they get told to make their poor birds eat it or starve. That makes me mad.

6-9 years ago I bought good and tasty organic crumble and pellets (Van Gorp) at the mill in my town. The crumble was more of a nuisance to me because the chickens always picked the tasty bits and left the flower. I kept buying crumble on and off and mixed the residue with water and a little acv or yoghurt to let them finish it.

The factory was bought by a large commercial company (Forfarmers) . The crumble/meal was too fine and these new pellets from the mill obviously were not tasty. The chickens searched harder for their own food and the mixed grains in the evening were tremendously welcome. I know this factory produces for the commercial farms too. It took ‘ages’ to finish the bag. I made a complaint at the mill and I didn’t buy another.

From then I bought my organic feed from the largest gardening/agri/pet shop in NL (Welkoops own brand). More expensive but okay for their taste.

After a couple of years I saw the mill changed the supplier again (because of the complaints). And now they have good layer feed again. But stopped with the chick feed because there was not enough demand. The organic chick feed from Welkoop is sold in 5 kg bags only and ridiculously expensive.

Since last year I buy my organic feed directly from a factory 12 km from here ( AR) together with a ‘neigbour’. This feed is much cheaper than the feed at the Welkoop shop and cheaper than the mill too. The chickens like this food as well as any other. Bc we have to buy a minimum order of 5 bags and I need the chick feed I don’t go to the mill or Welkoop anymore.
When I get a new bag from AR its always superfresh and smells good. After 3 months it’s starting to smell old. Because the bags are so big and my chickens so small it takes a long time to finish. With the chick Tintin they don’t get new layer pellets anymore.

Conclusion: there is only one brand out of 5 they really didn’t like. It was not the price that made the difference.
Btw: All flock is not available in organic in my country.

 

[BDutch]

Shadrach said:
Nutrition is a quite complicated matter.

That's what nutritionists and people who make money in the food/ feed business want us to believe. Remember that chickens have lived for millions of years and commercial feed has been around for a few decades.

The chickens that lived 100 years ago and the old heritage breeds we have nowadays are not the same chickens as new the high production breeds or the hybrids that were developed for factory farming.

Its not so obvious to see because of all the variations in the looks. But in fact with chickens happened about the same as what happened with boars and pigs . Or primeval cattle and milk-cows. There was a discussion and research in the Netherlands about changing the high protein feed for cows to a feed with less protein for the wellbeing of our environment. The amount of proteins increased over the years.

Why not less protein because the NOx levels are way too high in the Netherlands, and this would be a way to address the problem.
Research concluded this was impossible because the Dutch cows would get health problems. The production of milk increased, and the milk production cows had changed too in the last decades.

My conclusion:
A chicken that lays over 300 eggs a year has another feed demand than the old chicken breeds that lay 60 -120 eggs a year.

 

[Shadrach]

The Sandman got me before I could post pictures last night.
https://sleepopolis.com/education/sleep-myths-the-sandman/

Took them out onto the field for the first time in eleven days. The chicks are big enough to just about cope with the vegitation and Fret didn't take them far.

 

[BDutch]

I don't know if there is any truth in it, but some old poultry manuals assert that there will be a preponderance of males in early clutches and of females in later clutches. I have not looked for any proper modern study on why that might be, if it is indeed true.

Hope you are right. The hatch I just started is much later as my usual hatches.

I read the hatch temperature makes a difference.

You could try a poll with all the BYC members? I suppose you have to ask 2 things:

1. the time of the year​

2. the incubators about the machine temp and the natural breeders the outside temp .​

​

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[Shadrach]

 

[Perris]

A chicken that lays over 300 eggs a year has another feed demand

I agree. But I don't think many (any?) people reading BYC have such productive hens with such needs. There is really not so much difference between old and new breeds. The contemporary broiler breeder hen lays about 150 a year. Compare these breeds from 150 years ago: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/how-many-eggs-were-laid-by-hens-150-years-ago.1593024/

 

[BDutch]

I agree. But I don't think many (any?) people reading BYC have such productive hens with such needs. There is really not so much difference between old and new breeds. The contemporary broiler breeder hen lays about 150 a year. Compare these breeds from 150 years ago: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/how-many-eggs-were-laid-by-hens-150-years-ago.1593024/

The info you give in the link is very different from the info they give at the chicken museum in Barneveld.
They deleted the info about history- production at the museum site but I found a little info on the site of legkipjes.nl

The info is written in Dutch- but you can use translate to read it. Its mainly about problems with ex-industry chickens.

 

[Perris]

Its mainly about problems with ex-industry chickens.

exactly. I am trying to keep in mind the difference between modern industrial layers, and backyard chickens. This thread is about ex-industrial layers, and started with some of them, but relatively few posts that I read on BYC are about industrial layers. By accident, ManueB had some that were rescued before facing a year in the unit, instead of once deemed 'spent', so they had the genetics and the pre-placement industrial feed for chicks and growers, and then they ate whatever she gave them from adoption. They could offer a rather rare insight into what difference it might make.

 

[MaryJanet]

It's been years since I've heard this!

What. A. Treat.

 

[BDutch]

@Perris it would be interesting for a lot of backyard chicken keepers if someone writes a good article about the history of chickens and the feeds the different breeds/hybrids need.
The basics to take into account would be

• The number of eggs they lay (old heritage breeds vs average breeds vs high production hybrids)
• The circumstances the chickens live in (free range vs large run with greens vs coop/roof covered run.

maybe upcoming winter?
If you write it I would rate ️️️️️ for sure.