Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[lightm]

me too! so here's Fforest enjoying the sun today, and feeling the sap rising...
View attachment 4065182
I was re-laying an overgrown hedge today, and his gang of older, maturer hens came over to have a rummage even though work was in progress... until they nearly got clonked on the bonce by the next piece coming down
View attachment 4065184 There will be plenty of time for that when I've finished girls! Just wait!

Fantastic picture of Fforest. POW worthy.

 

[Shadrach]

Any thoughts?

If Mow is broody she's not showing any other signs of it. I really don't know what she thinks she's doing.

 

[Shadrach]

me too! so here's Fforest enjoying the sun today, and feeling the sap rising...
View attachment 4065182
I was re-laying an overgrown hedge today, and his gang of older, maturer hens came over to have a rummage even though work was in progress... until they nearly got clonked on the bonce by the next piece coming down
View attachment 4065184 There will be plenty of time for that when I've finished girls! Just wait!

Both great pictures Perris. I prefer the second one.

 

[Shadrach]

Warmish in the sunshine. Chilly in the shade as the evening drew in. Two hours today.
Mow is walking properly. She was raising one foot to her body as she walked while the toe was still hanging and sort of giving it a shake in the process. I've read other posts of hens walking like that and I wonder if it's a sign of a broken toe. Something that bears thinking about.
I'm delighted of course. I was going to cut it off this week if she hadn't managed to shed it herself.

Henry mid groom.

Fret foraging. Another wonderful sight to my eyes given the length of time she's not been that active.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Warmish in the sunshine. Chilly in the shade as the evening drew in. Two hours today.
Mow is walking properly. She was raising one foot to her body as she walked while the toe was still hanging and sort of giving it a shake in the process. I've read other posts of hens walking like that and I wonder if it's a sign of a broken toe. Something that bears thinking about.
I'm delighted of course. I was going to cut it off this week if she hadn't managed to shed it herself.
View attachment 4065355

Henry mid groom.
View attachment 4065353

Fret foraging. Another wonderful sight to my eyes given the length of time she's not been that active.
View attachment 4065352
View attachment 4065354View attachment 4065356View attachment 4065357

Henry in tha house! - but close to the door.

 

[Perris]

A propos Fret and Mow, on another thread you wrote this Shad

The hardest part for most chicken keepers is adjusting their view of predation. If you have 20 hens prone to going broody then one can end up with an exponential population climb. One doesn't really want that. What one wants usually is to maintain a stable population with the smart survivors taking their genes forward.

I used to lose about half the hatchings to predation which saved me the unpleasant job of deciding who I could keep and who I couldn't. Working with nature rather then trying to protect the flock from it has its benefits.

Having got to a self-sustaining flock, I am in that position and now take the same attitude to illness (because I have to act in loco predatoris, as @RoyalChick aptly put it) and am facing having to cull, say, 4 of the flock, simply in order to let any broodies do their thing this summer. It's better for the gene pool, as well as for me, if illness takes some out. So while I try to protect the flock from getting ill in the first place, if someone does get ill, my interventions are minimal now. If they get better, like Fret and Mow, they are often stronger with a better immune system than they had before, and if they don't, then they are top of the list for culling when the job can't be put off any longer. Sad but necessary.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

A propos Fret and Mow, on another thread you wrote this Shad

Having got to a self-sustaining flock, I am in that position and now take the same attitude to illness (because I have to act in loco predatoris, as @RoyalChick aptly put it) and am facing having to cull, say, 4 of the flock, simply in order to let any broodies do their thing this summer. It's better for the gene pool, as well as for me, if illness takes some out. So while I try to protect the flock from getting ill in the first place, if someone does get ill, my interventions are minimal now. If they get better, like Fret and Mow, they are often stronger with a better immune system than they had before, and if they don't, then they are top of the list for culling when the job can't be put off any longer. Sad but necessary.

This is a helpful, and more importantly, realistic perspective that I need to get in my head. It reminds me of what I pot my poor 18-year-old cat through, keeping her alive a bit longer. For me, not for her. Never again.

 

[SimpleJenn]

One of my babies, this one hatched from a blue egg labeled "legbar". Curious to see how it grows up.

 

[Shadrach]

Two hours today. 10C with light rain on and off.

 

[Shadrach]

A propos Fret and Mow, on another thread you wrote this Shad

Having got to a self-sustaining flock, I am in that position and now take the same attitude to illness (because I have to act in loco predatoris, as @RoyalChick aptly put it) and am facing having to cull, say, 4 of the flock, simply in order to let any broodies do their thing this summer. It's better for the gene pool, as well as for me, if illness takes some out. So while I try to protect the flock from getting ill in the first place, if someone does get ill, my interventions are minimal now. If they get better, like Fret and Mow, they are often stronger with a better immune system than they had before, and if they don't, then they are top of the list for culling when the job can't be put off any longer. Sad but necessary.

I still had to rehome or eat some in Catalonia and here at the field come to that and the field even at an acre is small ground compared to most smallholding and farms. Sitting in the field (it's mainly flat) I can see 80% of it from the chair. It's doable supervision. The other places I've looked after chicken have been large, twelve to sixty acres, with banks and ditches, buildings, other livestock, woodland...
You just can't watch all the chickens. In fact it can be hard just keeping track of one; trying to follow Tan one day early on on my learning curve, we covered maybe 200metres on manageable ground when she suddenly dived into some tall grass. I followed as quickly as I could but she was gone. It took me another two days to find her nest.

So, if one can't find them and one can't catch them one doesn't have a hope in hell of protecting them.