Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

Incredible!
If it wasn't for that egg laying bit I would say hens were the future for women .

Yeah, the egg laying bit is a bit of a handicap.

 

[Shadrach]

oh yes, she's pleased as punch. She came out to do that triumphant leap-in-the-air-and-flap-the-wings-twice-while-flaring-the-hackles-and-screeching thing she does. (Does anyone else have a bird does that? None of my others do it.)

Lots of the hens I knew did this when they were broody and sitting. It went eat a bit, walk a few steps then leap up in the air screaming and tear off into the distance.
Never been too sure what it meant. Ready to fight and defend perhaps...

 

[Shadrach]

I can't help feeling that eggs are meant to be laid in a nest and then left alone until the hen decides the clutch is big enough and sits on them.
Posting, driving them around, candling and all the other things people do just seems like asking for trouble imo.

 

[Molpet]

I can't help feeling that eggs are meant to be laid in a nest and then left alone until the hen decides the clutch is big enough and sits on them.
Posting, driving them around, candling and all the other things people do just seems like asking for trouble imo.

A friend's kid is in 4H. For a project he was comparing shipped eggs to unshipped. I gave them 2dz turkey eggs from a weekend. They shipped a dz to themselves from their local post office. None of the eggs arrived broken but lots of detached air cells. They have hatched shipped eggs before.
3 of the shipped eggs hatched and all 12 of the unshipped, but driven about 30 miles, hatched.

 

[Shadrach]

A friend's kid is in 4H. For a project he was comparing shipped eggs to unshipped. I gave them 2dz turkey eggs from a weekend. They shipped a dz to themselves from their local post office. None of the eggs arrived broken but lots of detached air cells. They have hatched shipped eggs before.
3 of the shipped eggs hatched and all 12 of the unshipped, but driven about 30 miles, hatched.

It's such a shame there isn't more research and data on this. It's not in any of the commercial concerns interests unfortunately and currently they are the people in the best position to gather the data.
My friend who travels from Spain to Eygypt for his eggs or chicks has what seemed to me at the time a really ellaborate protect system for transporting eggs. It was an incubator without the heat basically.
He was just as careful with the chicks. He took the entire nest the last time he went and kept it in a suspended shock proof arrangement.
My Finish friend who is trying to salvage some land race breeds is equally fussy.

 

[Iluveggers]

A friend's kid is in 4H. For a project he was comparing shipped eggs to unshipped. I gave them 2dz turkey eggs from a weekend. They shipped a dz to themselves from their local post office. None of the eggs arrived broken but lots of detached air cells. They have hatched shipped eggs before.
3 of the shipped eggs hatched and all 12 of the unshipped, but driven about 30 miles, hatched.

Interesting…I am in the middle of an incubator hatch. No broody here or rooster. It is a wonderful educational experience for my son. We have 12 local EE/BYM eggs I picked up myself, and 15 eggs from Meyer. So far, I have 8/12 local eggs left (2 are questionable as far as development), and 12/15 shipped eggs from Ohio to NY. I am SHOCKED at how well the shipped eggs are developing. The 3 I tossed, 2 were infertile and the 3rd had a tiny crack and bubbly air cell. I hatched 10 of 14 of the local farm eggs at school last month.

I would love to let a hen set her own eggs, but with no rooster allowed it is not possible. We are giving the chicks to my FIL (will keep a legbar pullet), and DS has learned a ton already. Hopefully my FIL will keep a rooster and we can watch how things progress in his group.

 

[Shadrach]

Interesting…I am in the middle of an incubator hatch. No broody here or rooster. It is a wonderful educational experience for my son. We have 12 local EE/BYM eggs I picked up myself, and 15 eggs from Meyer. So far, I have 8/12 local eggs left (2 are questionable as far as development), and 12/15 shipped eggs from Ohio to NY. I am SHOCKED at how well the shipped eggs are developing. The 3 I tossed, 2 were infertile and the 3rd had a tiny crack and bubbly air cell. I hatched 10 of 14 of the local farm eggs at school last month.

I would love to let a hen set her own eggs, but with no rooster allowed it is not possible. We are giving the chicks to my FIL (will keep a legbar pullet), and DS has learned a ton already. Hopefully my FIL will keep a rooster and we can watch how things progress in his group.

I'm going to sound crazier than usual but..,
I have no doubt that even the least complex incubators can and do hatch chicks. The various happy clappy hatchalongs on BYC show this as do the hatcheries. Do they hatch healthy well adjusted chicks though?
Even the best incubators are brick thick when compared to the adjustments a broody hen can make to a clutch of eggs and the incubator industry are well aware of this. They read the studies on incubation as it's in their interest and try to develope better incubators and better advice on their use for the commercial concerns.
Not that many years ago the Chinese did an experiment where they took babies from their mothers and reared them in a communal setting with no distinct parents and many other children. None of these babies got breast fed and I imagine none got the same level of affection or interaction with adults that a baby brough up bu it's own parents gets. The experiment got some publicity at the time but what didn't get so much coverage were the long term results. A very high percentage of these children showed difficult in many areas of social interaction in later life. The experiment got dropped to the best of my knowledge.
Despite all the gender complications that may seem common in todays western society it is still generally acknowledged that children raised with two parents (not necessarily male and femal, but two) fared better in many areas than those of single parents, or of no parents known to the child. Consider carefully that this our species with reams of studies and data on parenting and outcomes.
There isn't such data when it comes to chickens. Are chickens raised by a hen and rooster better equiped to deal with the social complexities they will encounter. The chickens social world is very complex when they are kept in captivity, no matter how benign that captivity is. They not only have to learn the social working of their own species but also that of their keeper, their keepers other pets, often a limited and inadequate environment and a constant threat of new predators depending on location.
It's parents that teach much of the basics for all these social complications in human society.
Of course, not many care if the chickens has mental health issues; after all, it's just a chicken...
Not may care if the chicken has long term health issues from how it was treated when growing up, diet, handling, stress, etc etc all play there part in human stability and health. I can see no reason why this doesn't apply to chickens as well.

 

[Molpet]

Do they hatch healthy well adjusted chicks though?

Nope, not unless you give them to a broody hen.
The chicks I raised in a brooder didn't know a lot about the world. But they were friendly.
The ones I incubated and gave to a broody hen within a couple days, were taught the way of the world... sorta friendly.
The ones from a broody hen usually aren't friendly. Some run as soon as they see me.
My friend that just hatched the Turkeys has a bunch of broody chicken hens that are happy to raise them... until some other Byc people get a few..... they are for Thanksgiving. But they have a better life than the BB from the store.

 

[Perris]

leap up in the air screaming and tear off into the distance

Eve doesn't tear off into the distance, she just goes back to the nest (before they hatched)/chicks now. It strikes me as an outburst of joie de vivre.

 

[Perris]

I can't help feeling that eggs are meant to be laid in a nest and then left alone until the hen decides the clutch is big enough and sits on them.
Posting, driving them around, candling and all the other things people do just seems like asking for trouble imo.

wild birds' eggs yes, and the domestics that hide their nests and disappear, only to reappear weeks later with chicks in tow, do just that. But orchestrating the bringing in of new genes is necessary in a world where someone else's chickens don't and can't just wander into my garden, as jungle fowl could and would mix in the wild.