Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BDutch]

@fluffycrow and @Molpet , sorry for all your losses.
It sucks to keep the chickens inside, but it probably the right thing to do with a fox family nearby.

Hopefully I'll get the old coop out of the run and dismantled tomorrow and some weeding done in the back left corner.

You sound as if you much better with all these work plans. Good luck. Hope you are ready next week to make a new appointment !

 

[Mother of Chaos]

General update, and just quoting my post on the Oh Noes thread for simplicity. Thanks to all for jumping on the other thread!

Whew what a day!

Hi all, thanks for the responses! We are back home now. The vet couldn’t palpate (squeeze-feel) anything, so we moved on to non-sedated X-rays, which amazingly Lil consented to.

X-rays were negative, as in showing nothing, so we have cautiously returned home. The rest of the flock, especially bestie Buffy, welcomed her back, because they were really freaked out when we chased her, finally caught her, stuffed her into the cat crate, and Took Her Away.

I will spend the next 18 months or so looking for a 2 1/2” white plastic toothpick out in Chickenlandia (their turf.) I was surprised to find how many molted feather barbs look exactly like one.

Thanks to all for the well wishes! Fingers crossed for an uneventful night and following day.

 

[Molpet]

I would be inclined to kill the fox in such circumstances should that be possible.

I have been sitting out there every day with a shotgun and it's too smart to show it's self or go in the extra large box trap for coyotes.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I have been sitting out there every day with a shotgun and it's too smart to show it's self or go in the extra large box trap for coyotes.

There’s a reason for the sayings about “wily as a fox.” I hope you can get him.

 

[MrsNorthie]

As you know, there is a resident vixen at the field. So far neither she or her suitors have shown any interest in daytime hunting thankfully.

We have a vixen that likes to bring the kits through our property for a safe-haven, we have tons of bunnies and other rodents, plus the pond, but they stick to the rough area on my mom's side of the property. I don't know if it is because we let the dogs mark the area around the chicken and turkey areas or the fact that I check constantly, using a spotlight at night, but so far (*touchwood), they stay away.

 

[Perris]

So sorry for your losses and traumas fluffycrow & Molpet. It brings back painful memories, and prompts me to think further on why we haven't had an attack here since 2020.

Perris’s hypothesis about why no fox tries to mess with their flock comes to mind.

I've never seen a rooster chase off a fox

Numbers count. I've seen 5 roosters deter a loose dog. I've seen a large bird of prey (not sure which type, only glimpsed from the back) fly away across the field over the lane amid a huge cacophony which involved most of the flock I think. We all recognize that corvids and smaller birds can and do harangue and mob raptors. I've also seen countless TV nature shows where a predator, including the fastest and strongest in that environment, gives up, or doesn't bother, because they've been outed and lost the element of surprise. The more eyes and voices involved in lookout and warnings, the better. And where things are more closely matched again numbers count because for each animal involved there is a risk of injury, and even a little injury may be fatal if it prevents that predator from hunting successfully again before it starves to death.

Why do roos crow, and sporadically from dawn to dusk, when they are out and about and potential targets for predators? Why draw attention to themselves as potential prey? Why is there no flock hierarchy of sound production, unlike with access to food? Surely it's territorial, like other birds. Roos crowing in their individual voices advertise their presence and location to all in earshot, and if in plural, more loudly, and what they're saying is: this is our space - enter at your peril.

Who is going to take on multiple adult [large fowl] roos who feel good enough about themselves to crow? (I don't know about bantams; maybe they're the terriers of the poultry world, but frankly, they don't scare me )

Which brings me to an undeterred dog, bounding around 'having fun' chasing all the chickens until I ordered both it and its pathetic owner to vacate the premises, and reminded them of the law on dogs worrying livestock (they can be shot, and chickens count as livestock here). Despite the sound and fury, no chicken (or person ) was injured in that encounter; chickens accustomed to ranging were all fit enough to run and/or hide from the threat. Some feathers were shed. One disappeared for days. Everyone was in shock for a bit. And again I think we all realised that making as much commotion as possible was the route to salvation; it brings attention and help in numbers to where it's needed, and makes staying around unpleasant as well as riskier for the predator.

 

[Perris]

Incidentally, while on the topic, another roo observation only possible because there's so many of them now. My cockerels' relatively late starts to crowing need an explanation. I wonder, may it be related to this (external-facing) defence role, rather than an assumed (internal-facing) desire to avoid the attention of the dom?

Another one: Roos in moult crow a lot less and positions are in flux during moult (and juveniles moult repeatedly). I'm beginning to think that during this season, at least, whoever's feeling best at the time takes up the role of dom; it's Hensol at the moment. It doesn't mean much.

There are still no fights; the youngsters have started staring, flaring, chest bumping and jumping to sort out where they are vis-a-vis each other. Killay gives way to Hensol at meal times and otherwise they avoid each other, as K and Fforest have done since K became dom (Hensol assuming the role is not at all like the deposition of the king, as it was with Chirk). It's striking how little fuss there is with a dozen roos milling round together (and not as a rooster pen; they have female company).

 

[fluffycrow]

I would be inclined to kill the fox in such circumstances should that be possible. It's sad when it has to come to this but sometimes it is necessary if one wants to keep chickens. It doesn't matter in many cases whether the chickens are out and about or in a run. Not many runs are secure enough to keep a determined fox out. As you know, there is a resident vixen at the field. So far neither she or her suitors have shown any interest in daytime hunting thankfully.

I've never seen a rooster chase off a fox. They may act as an extra deterrent but to deter doesn't mean stop. There was a fox that got into the run at the field around seven years ago. I don't know how many hens died but Henry and a couple of hens survived.

Thank you for the input. I don’t know if I’m there yet. Before I even got to chickens I was a massive animal lover, and that included (and still does) foxes.

I do not forget that we were the ones to take land from the wildlife to build our houses and cities. It feels very wrong (for me, not criticising anyone who goes with that approach) to kill an animal simply because they’re trying to raise a family.
I’ve talked about this before, but my area is very lacking in the wildlife department. Only very recently have I seen an increase in the diversity of fauna. Depriving the ecosystem of an essential predator simply because I live here and decided to put chickens seems wrong.

There is the other thing, since this is a whole family, killing one parent will put the other at more strain, and would lead them right to the coop, as it’s the easiest source of food. Killing both would condemn the whole litter, which is also very sad.

@Ponypoor had recommended using electric wire (sorry if you didn’t want to be tagged), and I’m seriously considering the logistics of that. I know the access points the foxes use, and electric wire might be enough to keep them at bay. It’s not common practice here, though

 

[fluffycrow]

General update, and just quoting my post on the Oh Noes thread for simplicity. Thanks to all for jumping on the other thread!

Whew what a day!

That’s some good news ! Hopefully she’s alright, and you find it quickly enough, so that you can relax a bit too!

 

[fluffycrow]

Incidentally, while on the topic, another roo observation only possible because there's so many of them now. My cockerels' relatively late starts to crowing need an explanation. I wonder, may it be related to this (external-facing) defence role, rather than an assumed (internal-facing) desire to avoid the attention of the dom?

Another one: Roos in moult crow a lot less and positions are in flux during moult (and juveniles moult repeatedly). I'm beginning to think that during this season, at least, whoever's feeling best at the time takes up the role of dom; it's Hensol at the moment. It doesn't mean much.

There are still no fights; the youngsters have started staring, flaring, chest bumping and jumping to sort out where they are vis-a-vis each other. Killay gives way to Hensol at meal times and otherwise they avoid each other, as K and Fforest have done since K became dom (Hensol assuming the role is not at all like the deposition of the king, as it was with Chirk). It's striking how little fuss there is with a dozen roos milling round together (and not as a rooster pen; they have female company).

Thank you Perris for writing your experiences again. Your conclusion definitely makes sense to me. At the same time, I find it highly unlikely that a “beware” crow from a red junglefowl rooster would mean much to many predators found in the same jungles; the crow definitely has multiple purposes.

The most LF males we’ve had here was this spring and early summer, Big Red, his Grandson Elrond, and the Tsouloufati boy.
I don’t know if I can do more than two, ever, as the neighbours have expressed their dislike towards crowing multiple times, and many are lifelong family friends.

Despite probably never trying it, I would really like to see how a whole group of roosters would act. If it works (even sometimes), it would be a really cool and very natural, more so than electric fencing and a guard dog.

May I ask how old the cockerels there are right now? Standard crowing age for LFs here is 5-7 months. I haven’t seen the number shift much, if anything, they start younger when other males are present