Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

Examination day today. I got 15 of them. It's getting easier. Most now dont scream blue murder when I catch them and most stay calm in my palm as long as I don't restrict their wings.

I now have three Ex Battery hens on the watch list. Two have water belly and one of those has lice. I've treated her for the lice with permethrin spray.
This one was looking under the weather. I picked her up and checked her over. Her underbelly felt slightly swollen. I had a feel around and gave her vent a check. When I put her back on the ground she delivered this lash egg wich she and another hen promtly ate. I'll see how she is tomorrow.

 

[RoyalChick]

Examination day today. I got 15 of them. It's getting easier. Most now dont scream blue murder when I catch them and most stay calm in my palm as long as I don't restrict their wings.
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I now have three Ex Battery hens on the watch list. Two have water belly and one of those has lice. I've treated her for the lice with permethrin spray.
This one was looking under the weather. I picked her up and checked her over. Her underbelly felt slightly swollen. I had a feel around and gave her vent a check. When I put her back on the ground she delivered this lash egg wich she and another hen promtly ate. I'll see how she is tomorrow.
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Are you sure that is a lash egg? It looks like it had a real yolk.

 

[Shadrach]

It is one of the things that has surprised me about our move.. I was a yes voter on your poll. Here the hens have more accesible ground to free range over every day & obviously found enough all summer that I wasn't feeding as much commercial feed. There are several really deep litter areas in the yard & with all the rain I expect a lot of bugs, worms & other creepy crawlies are close to the surface but all my moulters are asking for commercial feed. My fence hoppers [Campines & Vorwerks] are being encouraged by 1 neighbour to clean up her grasshopper problem so I know they have access to natural protein. Apparently they're doing a really good job. I can't imagine they have totally debugged this yard in just 6 monthhs so I'm not sure what the issue is.

My feeling is the commercial feed problem may be more applicable to first time moulters. Fudge who was particulalry off commercial feed on her first moult was less fussy on her next. The same is true with a number of the other hens I observed. What that means I don't know.

 

[Shadrach]

Are you sure that is a lash egg? It looks like it had a real yolk.

To be accurate it was a shell less egg with a partial yolk.

 

[MaryJanet]

My feeling is the commercial feed problem may be more applicable to first time moulters. Fudge who was particulalry off commercial feed on her first moult was less fussy on her next. The same is true with a number of the other hens I observed. What that means I don't know.

My hunch is that different environments afford different nutritional support and hens use commercial feed according to need.

 

[Sortacountrychicken]

My feeling is the commercial feed problem may be more applicable to first time moulters. Fudge who was particulalry off commercial feed on her first moult was less fussy on her next. The same is true with a number of the other hens I observed. What that means I don't know.

My birds are always the worst with their first major molt. Queen was my latest example of this. I thought she was going to die she looked so miserable and unwell. She barely ate anything, commercial feed or otherwise. I do believe she didn't consume enough protein to complete her molt as she didn't drop all of her old feathers. She is currently broody and I am watching her with interest as I've had hens go through molts when they sit.

 

[Sortacountrychicken]

I hope everyone here is doing well. We have had some wretched storms lately but everyone is alive. Lots of hail, wind and rain. The chickens have been enclosed. They currently have access to the goat pastures and so far have not strayed from them. They are perfectly capable of escaping as they are jumping part of the fence to access them. As long as they stay in the goat pastures they will be left be. If they decide to come up to the house they will be locked into a roughly 50' by 70' area. With 33 chickens right now it would be a muck pit very quickly.

I have 3 broodies right now, one of which is a hatchery bird from last spring. I will have to get a picture of them but I haven't been out to the coop lately while its light enough to take a picture. The other two are Queen and Sundew. Queen sat last year but none of her eggs were fertile. She does not willingly let any of the boys mount her but I do think someone chases her down every once and a while. The other is Sundew who raised Chickadee, Magpie, Jackdaw, and Grackle last summer. They are all sitting on a mixed clutch of eggs as they are all in the main coop. Queen started sitting 5/8, Sundew the day after, and this hatchery hen just started 3 days ago. I had been taking her eggs because she didn't seem very serious but I gave her eggs yesterday and she is doing well.

 

[Ribh]

My feeling is the commercial feed problem may be more applicable to first time moulters. Fudge who was particulalry off commercial feed on her first moult was less fussy on her next. The same is true with a number of the other hens I observed. What that means I don't know.

Except that 1/2 my present lot are going through their 1st moult...

 

[Perris]

My feeling is the commercial feed problem may be more applicable to first time moulters. Fudge who was particulalry off commercial feed on her first moult was less fussy on her next. The same is true with a number of the other hens I observed. What that means I don't know.

Another factor at play and that complicates any comparison is that commercial feed varies in composition, so different flocks are eating different things (even if the nutritional profile is the same) and the same flock is eating different things at different times. Lots of people notice that their flocks don't like X brand/type as much as Y brand/type when they change feed.

 

[ManueB]

That's a good analogy. And a cool conversation sparked about anthropomorphism.

I'm not too used to this rooster thing I'm a beginner with chickens. Month 27, I believe. Though we've had male chickens all of those months, and I've been extra focused on them. I want to move away from hatcheries, which typically means bringing home or hatching roosters, and I've fallen for roosters too much to be raising them to kill every year.

In March, my first bachelor pad failed. I'm trying not to let this setback ruin me, but we won't add more chicks until I've had more time to reflect. The boys' personalities were probably the culprit. Merle was never going to be okay without girls. He was crowing by 3 weeks and preparing nests and tidbitting soon after, like a tiny grown-up bird. Meanwhile, Andre is a slow-growing bully who used to steal treats from pullets.

I reluctantly separated the guys into a bachelor tractor at 5 months, when their cockerelly mayhem resulted in minor pullet injuries but before they were sparring with each other. They lived peacefully for 5 months. Merle would even groom Andre. Then, after 2 days of severe weather, they decided they could no longer co-exist. I separated them, patched up their abrasions, giving Merle extra attention so he'd look good for the ladies, and began preparing a plan to transition Merle back with his female broodermates.

From what I understood, you can't just drop a chicken back into a group after 5 months. But when I brought Merle into the girls' space, they rushed the fence to see him, not in an aggressive way. He began tidbitting so hard the neighbors a mile away could probably hear. After a few minutes, I relented and tentatively cracked the door that separated them. They ran off together and started foraging like they'd never been apart. It was beautiful, while making me feel awful for ever separating them.

We pulled the bachelor setup back next to the chicken yard so Andre can preen and talk with the others through the fences without inciting rooster riots. Eventually, I think he should have his own girls, but to my inexperienced eyes, he's a contented single. He's a different kind of guy. Giant, slow growing, aloof, though he's recently started to dance at the hens who flirt through the fence.

Besides rooster relations, chicken nutrition is a topic I'm really trying to learn about. @Perris - thank you so much for sharing your regimen and reasoning. Very gracefully articulated and thought-provoking.

I hope to gain enough knowledge and experience to evolve our feed strategy in the coming years. So far, my focus has been how to find good commercial feed, including the "why" behind the ingredients. Jeff Mattocks at Fertrell tends to bring up great discussion points in the many podcasts he's on (below is a link to one of them). Fertrell also welcomes being contacted to discuss feed and supplements. They're nice people who go out of their way to be helpful.

https://www.breedersacademy.com/ep35-interview-with-jeff-mattocks-about-poultry-nutrition-part-1/

That said, I take any advice with a grain of salt. Commercial feed researchers don't ever seem to satisfactorily address a) the affect of foraging/seasons on feed needs, and b) how roosters and "spent" ladies are actually affected by the calcium in layer feed.

Does that mean Merle is now in the same coop as Stilton, or do you have several coops ? And are Merle and Andre from the same hatch ?

Regarding nutrition and seasons I have heard it said that cold weather should mean giving more fat and less protein, but this doesn't go well with the idea that molting hens should be given more proteins, as from what I understand most hens tend to molt when it starts getting colder. Though I can't say this has been true with mine.
Poultry nutrition is like human nutrition I guess, a bit of science, hard facts, but also fads and hardcore beliefs .