Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Molpet]

Interesting. But I wonder, is this really better?

They get a 1/4 longer life.
I have about 40 hens and most are older and don't lay very well. I'm getting 6 to 8 eggs a day this week.
Farmers couldn't feed a bunch without going bankrupt.

 

[BDutch]

Yes it is isn't it. It suggests to me that our preconceptions - how we expect them to behave - are not well founded.

I bet you and @thistlewick get problems with your roosters too, if you confine them in a run with 1-4m2 personal space. Please dont try !

I can add another free range example to your flocks/tribes behaviour. In the Netherlands there was a park near to a home for elder people who needed care. People dumped their unwanted chickens (most cockerels and roosters). People complained about the noise. Not about rooster who were a danger or fighting.

 

[BDutch]

They get a 1/4 longer life.
I have about 40 hens and most are older and don't lay very well. I'm getting 6 to 8 eggs a day this week.
Farmers couldn't feed a bunch without going bankrupt.

My point is: are they postponing the end of a hen-life in misery? Or are the hens happy they can live a few months more before a machine chops their heads of.

Btw, I get 1-2 eggs at the moment from 8 hens, including 2 old 10 yo hens who completely stopped laying.

Katrientje and Pearl who are both moulting now.

 

[Perris]

I'm getting between 1 and 6 eggs a day from 17 hens, one of whom is broody, several of whom are moulting, and 6 of whom are 4-8 years old. Maria, 8, and the only blue egg layer here so no confusion about which are her eggs is possible, has laid 65 eggs so far this year, and her season hasn't ended yet (laid this morning). The annual tally is now 1511 eggs laid since January 1.

I've spent £325 and earned £519 from the sale of surplus eggs. Capital costs such as the coops, or the egg boxes (which I bought en masse before Brexit and reuse when they are retuned, as they are made of recycled plastic and washable and reusable until they fracture), aren't factored in there, or my time. I think I avoid a lot of cost by not buying supplements (there are more than enough vitamins and minerals in the real food they get) or medications (I'm sure their immune systems work better without them).

 

[Molpet]

I quit figuring out costs after the first time. It was 33 cents an egg for feed. For 6 hens and a rooster for a year. Then I thought it would be cost effective to let them hatch and eat the cockerels. Came out to $7 a lb for a 16 weeks old cockerel. This was before covid.

 

[Perris]

I quit figuring out costs after the first time. It was 33 cents an egg for feed. For 6 hens and a rooster for a year. Then I thought it would be cost effective to let them hatch and eat the cockerels. Came out to $7 a lb for a 16 weeks old cockerel. This was before covid.

you're being robbed by someone somewhere!

 

[fuzzi]

My chickens give me joy, no amount of money can buy that.

Now, if they'd stop molting and start laying!