Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[bruceha2000]

I'm over 100 pages behind. I'll try to catch up in bits and pieces.

Difficult to do unless you have a lot of time. Sometimes one just has to jump ahead and hope to keep up from there.

 

[ManueB]

If these boys are anything like their father, they will be done after this big fight and they will get along well enough. If not, I will figure out what to do with Magpie. Magpie was allowed to roost in the main coop but I moved him to the broody coop at least for the night until I can get a better idea of how Jackdaw is going to behave.

Are Magpie and Jackdaw brothers and if so, are they from the same hatch or is one older?

The sadest part was for me when it was quite apparent that an issue between two roosters was not going to be resolved without one of them dying.

I am curious to know how many times you have seen this in the years that you have lived with chickens, in an environment that could be thought as close to nature as possible, where the roosters had enough space to avoid one another and to live with their own tribe. Would you say this was an exception, or would you say it still did happen regularly ?

 

[Shadrach]

Are Magpie and Jackdaw brothers and if so, are they from the hatch or is one older?


I am curious to know how many times you have seen this in the years that you have lived with chickens, in an environment that could be thought as close to nature as possible, where the roosters had enough space to avoid one another and live with their own tribe. Would you say this was an exception, or would you say it still did happen regularly ?

It's an exception. I have seen this three times in about 15 years of watching I don't know how many roosters.
There is nothing one can do about it apart from remove one of the roosters.
The rooster in my avatar was the head rooster not just of his tribe but of all the roosters. You didn't bother Major.
One day all the other roosters decided to try and dethrone him. He fought every one but one younger rooster just wouldn't let it drop. They would fight, Major would drive the other away and I would clean them both up. Same again next day, and the day after and the day after that.
We ate the one who wouldn't drop the challenging in the end.
Once very early on at my uncles farm there was a similar problem. Same result.
Once with a couple of related crosses who had never got on. I rehomed the challenger with his favourite hen.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good afternoon one and all!

The temperature is 80 and sunny.

Have a great day!

 

[Sortacountrychicken]

Are Magpie and Jackdaw brothers and if so, are they from the same hatch or is one older?

They are from the same hatch and are biologically half brothers related through their father. They hatched August 8th of last year.

 

[Marie2020]

I'm going to have to adjust my eating habits now that roosting time is around 8pm. By the time I've finished inspections (and stroking Henry a bit) and checked everyone is there it's getting on for 8.15, half an hour of travel and it's getting late for cooking. My eating habits have become very sloppy. Main meal mid day from now on I think.

Grey with added drizzle although it wasn't cold enough for me to wnt to wear gloves.
They all came out.
View attachment 3049932
That portly looking rear end belongs to Fret I believe.
View attachment 3049928
Some are prepared to put up with less rain than others.
View attachment 3049929
Once again in my hurry to get the picture I didn't have time to check the settings and the picture quality isn't great. Lovely picture of Henry and Matilda I thought.View attachment 3049933

Natural settings are the best

 

[Shadrach]

I believe the issue is that Jackdaw has been taking on escorting duties and Magpie has not. For winter, I had one hen that would reliably travel to the barn to lay and one that would intermittently lay in the barn. Jackdaw escorted them both. There were recently two more hens that started laying in the barn and Jackdaw escorts them as well. He has recently started standing guard over the nests as the hens lay (there are two nest currently in use in the barn). Now I didn't see the first couple minutes of the fight but what I imagine happened is Magpie attempted to mate one of these 4 hens. What I have been wanting to do since Jackdaw first started to show promise of being responsible enough the watch over hens of his own is build him his own coop. I simply have not been able to get my hands on the resources to do so. If these boys are anything like their father, they will be done after this big fight and they will get along well enough. If not, I will figure out what to do with Magpie. Magpie was allowed to roost in the main coop but I moved him to the broody coop at least for the night until I can get a better idea of how Jackdaw is going to behave.

It seems we may have similar chicken keeping experiences.
The junior roosters in the tribes used to take on escort duties while the senior rooster would stay with the hens. Eventually the junior rooster would try his luck with a hen and the hen would kick off big time and this would bring an irate senior rooster to the scene.
I ended up with five coops and two maternity units in the end. I build very simple coops. Even then they need paying for and making.

 

[Shadrach]

They are from the same hatch and are biologically half brothers related through their father. They hatched August 8th of last year.

Still young then. They may work it out. I hope so.

 

[Shadrach]

As they see it.
Minor beak problems. She's checks over as pretty healthy on the outside.

Minor beak problems. She checks over on the outside okay as well. A new patch of blood on her comb maybe from a peck.

 

[Shadrach]

It was grey and chilly at the allotments. There was food in the feeder when I got there so they didn't hang around to see what I had, they headed straight off to do a bit of foraging and running around.

The Legbars are having some feather problems. They are losing feathers just above their chests. I don't know why this is. It doesn't look like the feathers have been plucked out.

Lima of course. Lima is now one of the best at foraging. I think Cloud and Matilda would give her a run for her money in quantity of earth shifted per second.

An interesting mix of cecal and ordinary poop. The chickens at the allotments produce a much more yellowy poop than the tribes.