Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[HiEverybirdy]

It's not for the faint of heart. I have troubles harvesting hens and retired roosters/toms. Snotty boys causing problems make it easier or anybody injured, but still sad. I think about how the birds at the store are raised and rationalize that mine have a longer/better life.

The fact that you're practical enough to push past the difficulty is something I really respect. Because it takes a great deal of rationalizing to continue to eat meat if I have to outsource the slaughtering part.

ummm I think I should have harvested then anyway... I have one on one interaction and this isn't good for wacking him.

Sorry Thank you for sharing, though. This is helpful to hear.

Most of our current chickens were raised during the height of the pandemic, when our typical social connections were cut off, and we were home all the time. I sat with the chicks for hours a day. We bonded.

I can see a future where I may be open to harvesting birds I'm not so close with, particularly problem cockerels who won't find better lives elsewhere.

However, as it stands, our "culling" of problem boys entails building a new coop and expanding the electrified yard by several thousand square feet.

Exhibit Andre:

 

[Perris]

this
https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.1996.0137
seems to be the source of Nicol's assertion that natural flock size of RJF in an unconstrained environment is typically from 4 up to 30 individuals.

 

[no fly zone]

I am hoping to get a fertile egg from my Ha'penny & the frizzled bantam rooster. Should be a pretty chick & hopefully the rooster's calmness will rub off somewhat.

Hope you get a frizzled chickie

 

[HiEverybirdy]

On the topic of old-keeper ways, we arrived in Appalachia 2 decades too late to learn from old-school chicken keepers. Employment called new generations elsewhere, and land has been sold to outsiders like us, sigh.

Speaking of which, neighbors gave us an opportunity to expand this summer, accepting our offer on a treasured parcel of family land they no longer have the desire to keep up.

Whereas our first parcel of their family land was for cattle grazing and hay (and ended up covered in kudzu; if you know about the US South, kudzu is part of our history), this parcel was for chickens, and chestnut and walnut trees, and walking, and a pleasant place to complete sundry tasks.

There's a barn for milling cattle corn and drying milled lumber and tobacco. It's still in great shape.

The chicken house is less cherry. They were going to tear it down before the sale, but we asked them to leave it. So, here is an example of 20th-century Appalachian chicken accommodations:

There's still a pile of crushed seashells outside the coop.

 

[Molpet]

The fact that you're practical enough to push past the difficulty is something I really respect. Because it takes a great deal of rationalizing to continue to eat meat if I have to outsource the slaughtering part.


Sorry Thank you for sharing, though. This is helpful to hear.

Most of our current chickens were raised during the height of the pandemic, when our typical social connections were cut off, and we were home all the time. I sat with the chicks for hours a day. We bonded.

I can see a future where I may be open to harvesting birds I'm not so close with, particularly problem cockerels who won't find better lives elsewhere.

However, as it stands, our "culling" of problem boys entails building a new coop and expanding the electrified yard by several thousand square feet.

Exhibit Andre:
View attachment 3976568

Sad today, I finally harvested the rooster I should have 2 yrs ago and the jake that was beat up a couple weeks ago. Last nice day for a week and it was 67f at dawn.
The rooster had been having troubles mating a couple springs ago. But he was not one that took it out on the hens. He let his son do the mating and he kept gard. However this late spring the son tangled with the turkeys. Another spare rooster had been trying to take over and running the retired rooster off. The problem with my meat mutts is they are prone to build up of cartilage. He had end up having troubles walking and yesterday he was wobbly standing to eat. So It definitely was time. He did have some fat but not much. The jake didn't have hardly any fat. There was about the same amount of meat on each bird. Big rooster and small 24 wk old jake.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good afternoon one and all!

Tea is ready.

Temperature is in the 70s sunny.

Have a great day!

I am in the process of making a new coop and the articles on building a roost will be very helpful.

 

[Perris]

There's a barn for milling cattle corn and drying milled lumber and tobacco. It's still in great shape.

that scene looks really pretty in its autumn colours. And what a useful building!

 

[Perris]

I found another good paper by Collias et.al. about the reproductive success (or otherwise) of descendants of a flock of 37 RJF living wild within a Californian zoo since 1942 (so relatively easy to observe), followed for 7 years. The same researchers have observed RFJ in the wild in India and assert that the behaviour and social structure of the birds were essentially the same, bar the degree of dispersion over space.

Abstract: "The evolutionary success of individuals must ultimately be evaluated in terms of their lifetime contribution of mature young to the breeding population. The greater lifetime breeding success of the more dominant hens in an unconfined flock of Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus) gave crucial evidence why female dominance hierarchies have evolved in this species. The number of chicks reared to independence by 28 hens of one flock from 1982 to 1988 was significantly associated with a hen's dominance, life-span, and year of hatching... The top 3 hens in the peck order added more offspring of breeding age to the population than did the remaining 25 adult hens of the flock. Eleven of the 28 hens reared no young successfully."

Fwiw, the statistics for my flock building to about the same size over the same time frame would not mirror this, but my flock get fed, and a lot of the survival rate for those RJF is probably explained by their access, or not, to adequate nutrition; a low position in the pecking order can be fatal where all food has to be foraged.

On broodies and their offspring, this para is particularly interesting I think: "We compared the dominance status of 20 Red Junglefowl hens in the central flock with the dominance status of their mothers. There was no significant correlation (r = 0.09). However, the different generations were intermingled as they occurred naturally. Most hens were daughters or granddaughters of the three top hens in the flock. [So obviously those offspring were not driven off] The more senior hens of the older age classes tended to dominate hens of younger generations regardless of relationship. Figure 3 shows the yearling descendants of the three top hens. These three hens and some of their yearling offspring comprised two-thirds (6 males and 6 females) of the 18 emigrants from the central flock roost to other flock roosts from 1982 to 1988 [so some 18 birds left this flock to join a different flock within the zoo]."

There was no further discussion of why and how some birds left the flock being studied and joined one of the other feral RJF flocks within the zoo.

But I did think it interesting that daughters did not inherit the status of their mothers. That older mothers were much more successful broodies than younger ones fits with Shad's experience/ instincts/ reading, and it's what I've done for the past few years. But as I let youngsters brood this year - even 1 who was still a pullet when they hatched - and they've done relatively well, my jury is still out on that one. My oldest hen has only 1 surviving daughter, who has no offspring, but her son is the current dom, so her genes are being passed on widely through him.

Open access, so if you want to read it all, it's here
https://academic.oup.com/auk/article/111/4/863/5168263

 

[Molpet]

Another spare rooster had been trying to take over and running the retired rooster off.

And the spare rooster mentioned is filling the void ASAP. He did an initial chase when I let the hens out about 2 pm. He is settling down and much better behaved than in August. None of these 8 hens are laying anyway. But they weren't laying in August either.

ETA he's around 17 months

 

[fuzzi]

Sure.
View attachment 3976436View attachment 3976437View attachment 3976438

Oh, I love that third picture. Who's peeking on the left?