Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

It wasn't your fault. Freedom comes with risks attached.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

I still get asked if I miss Catalonia. I miss the tribes but the thing external to the smallholding i miss most is the other chicken keepers I was slowly getting to know. I got told all sorts of stuff which even then after over a decade of chicken minding just didn't make a lot of sense to me.
Don't feed the birds wheat was one very strongly made point by the game fowl keepers.
Pick a call, mine is close to buk buk. Make the call every time you get within a couple of metres of the birds. The chickens do this. The game fowl keepers said it wasn't about letting them know you were there, they often know long before you can see them that it's you. It's to let them know you know who you are and your position in the tribe.
One I tried a few times with some success I might add is if you've got chicks gone to cover at roost time; sometimes the going to roost for chicks is like running the gaunlet of beaks, wait until the adults have settled and then take the senior rooster off his perch and place him on the ground between the chicks and the coop. The chicks will run to the rooster and hide under him much as they would their mother. At a certain stage the mothers don't want the chicks under her and she'll peck at them along with the others. The tribe senior rooster doesn't peck the chicks and he won't peck you while you remove the chicks from under him and put them in the coop.
Lots and lots of information about what and when to feed but even after all my asking I didn't manage to get the keepers to part with an exact recipe of what they fed. Family secret apparently.

These are fascinating tidbits that can take years to pick up on one's own. Having people like this to brainpick would be a luxury. Did they see you as a hippie, letting chickens roost in trees and lay eggs in your living room?

They are the only person so far that has shown they want to do the job, rather than, I suppose I should help out kind of attitude.

They have no idea how lucky they are to learn a new topic from someone so experienced and intentional in their approach.

Not to mention they get to spend time with world-famous chickens. How many views does this thread have now?

 

[notabitail]

These are fascinating tidbits that can take years to pick up on one's own. Having people like this to brainpick would be a luxury. Did they see you as a hippie, letting chickens roost in trees and lay eggs in your living room?


They have no idea how lucky they are to learn a new topic from someone so experienced and intentional in their approach.

Not to mention they get to spend time with world-famous chickens. How many views does this thread have now?

Over a million.

 

[Shadrach]

It is consolation, and it's true. Not only did Peck stop flying over the fence a few days after Starla's disappearance; all the chickens have been quicker to find cover lately.

DH always said Peck and Starla would be eaten if I didn't clip their wings. I made a conscious decision to let them have the joy, agency, and predator defense of flight. I don't think that was wrong. Just wish I'd been more diligent in making sure their joy didn't lead to so much sorrow.

We, chicken keepers and I think people in general, have lost touch with the purpose of death through predation and maybe death in general. It's all fallen out of balance.
In our attempts to make life safe for the creatures we keep we often not only make matters worse but upset what should be a natural balance.
It's a complicated topic on which people, depending on their culture and their own sensibilities, often with no logic or rationality, have vastly different views.
As an example, I could not have managed attempting to keep free range chickens in Catalonia, with all my views of freedom to reproduce and freedom of movement without the aid of predators. It wouldn't have taken many hatchings before the population became completely unmanageable.
A further problem is the view that we own the lives of the creatures we keep and a threat to those lives, or the taking of those lives by others becomes a personal affront. There is nothing personal in natural predation. It's just other creatures trying to eat and survive much as we do.
Sometimes it's the view that we own lives and are responsible for them that compounds the problem. Lock creatures up in a prison for their own safety and our own peace of mind and have a predator break into that prison is often more devastating than having a predator pick off one or two free rangers.
It is a complicated topic which I try not to over simplify but predation is necessary if any sort of natural balance is to be maintained.
The above is part of the reason I don't do the sorry for your loss type posts.
The poster may in a few cases have lost a friend but mostly they've lost a possession. It's the dead creature that's lost something, their life and my empathy goes to their relatives.
Not very well expressed I'm sorry to write and not a view shared by most here.

 

[Shadrach]

 

[Shadrach]

 

[Molpet]

a predator pick off one or two free rangers.

I am ok with a couple once in awhile. When it's half a dz at a time and half a neck is eaten on one.... I have to reevaluate

 

[Canadian Wind]

Agreed. I do not blame the fox that attacked my birds, it was only doing what it needed to to survive.

And it IS true, and has been through history. They ARE considered possessions, even by law. That doesn't mean we can't get attached to them. I raise mine as a source of (meagre) income as well as to feed myself. Thus I wish to protect my investments. Doesn't mean I don't care about them, or that certain ones don't become favourites.

Their lives and well-being depend on me. Same as does my cats and dog, and my own children until they were old enough to fend for themselves (and even now when they are all over 30, I *still* help them out).

Offering condolences to someone who has lost a bird (or dog, or who's car got wrecked) is natural empathy.

 

[RoyalChick]

Agreed. I do not blame the fox that attacked my birds, it was only doing what it needed to to survive.

And it IS true, and has been through history. They ARE considered possessions, even by law. That doesn't mean we can't get attached to them. I raise mine as a source of (meagre) income as well as to feed myself. Thus I wish to protect my investments. Doesn't mean I don't care about them, or that certain ones don't become favourites.

Their lives and well-being depend on me. Same as does my cats and dog, and my own children until they were old enough to fend for themselves (and even now when they are all over 30, I *still* help them out).

Offering condolences to someone who has lost a bird (or dog, or who's car got wrecked) is natural empathy.

I agree.
It is fine to mourn the loss of a friend even if that loss is natural, expected, or even a release.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

Thanks! He seems to pass it on to most of his childrenView attachment 3974478. You might remember this problematic cockerel from earlier in the year.

It's a trait I really like about him. I've argued with a few people on whether or not the surface area of the comb plays a role in keeping them cool in the summer heat. I will only say that in the almost four years I've had him, I've seen him pant once, when it was over 42°C. My pea combed birds on the other hand pant as soon as we get into the high 20's to low 30's

Such handsome boys.