Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

Scant progress is likely on the new coop for a couple of days if the weather forcast is correct.
We are now on day two of the worming treatment and something I noticed is the layers pellets with flubenvet are smaller than the usual layers pellets I but from this company. The chickens seem to prefer the smaller pellets and any concerns I had about the chicken eating them are unfounded.

Matida knows. She went straight through the hole where the nest box will be attatched when I let them out this evening. I think about half the chickens have taken the new coop tour now. It clouded over a bit and spat a few drops of rain. Matilda went into the coop.

One encouraging sign is I've now watched a couple of the hens try and get on the new coop roof. They just slide off. This may mean that once the new coop is in the run and the tallest part of the old coop out, the fence hopping will stop.

 

[no fly zone]

First time I have seen Sky take her babies into the run, but then again they are only 6 days old.

 

[RoyalChick]

Let me start with one of those broad sweeping statements I'm probably infamous for; no chicken should be confined to a coop and run.


Wait!
Confined: To shut or keep in, especially to imprison.

From what I can tell most of the keepers on this thread don't in fact do this. They let their chickens out for supervised, or unsupervised sort of free ranging on a regular basis.

How long for and how often should they be let out?

Should one of us be unfortunate enough to get sent to prison under most civilised regimes we would be entitled to an hour of exercise away from our cells. So, one hour a day minimum would seem humane. Lets go with this as a starting point.
It's not just the extra room, it's some relief from the boredom and monotony of living with the same surroundings day in day out. Bored chickens are not well or happy chickens in my experience.

Of course, there are many variations of a coop and run. There are runs of over an acre with a coop, or the one I'm thinking of in particular, a few coops.

The current woefully inadequate allowance for a run is ten square foot per bird. You had 22.3 square feet per bird including your dead rooster. Without your rooster 26 square feet per bird. A bit over two and a half times the current recommendation.

I have no doubt that you are an attentive and caring keeper. The condition of the run is very important. A couple of pictures would have been good. After the above I can't really comment. You are doing what you can to try and ensure your chickens are healthy and happy. Naturally the inclusion of a rooster in your flock in the past imo makes a major difference to the chickens being able to carry out more natural behviour. It's a shame he died.
Any further comment would not be fair on either of us.

If you were to ask me if I would keep chickens in such and arrangement the answer is no.

My minimum requirement is around half an acre, properly fenced and maintained to provide three hens and one rooster what I consder to be a reasonable quality of life. I'm quite aware that many don't agree with me.
I wouldn't and haven't kept any creatures as pets. I might keep a working dog that lived outside in a comforatble kennel if I had a large property properly fenced and chickens of course.

My elder sister keeps hens and has done for over 25 years. In the past she had a larger garden, about half an acre perhaps with trees and banks and lots of unkept patches of ground and her chickens ranged on the entire acreage. Her more recent home is about a quarter acre plot and her chickens range on this from morning to dusk. She manages to grow a few veg and flowers and cleans up the poop on the grass and paths. Her hens haven't turned the place into a desert, far from it in fact. She has five hens. Her boundries are secure through fencing and having other fenced properties at both sides and back.

Ribh's old run was very interesting; lots of clutter and thing of interest. I might mention here that just from the pictures and stories Ribh posts there seem to be a marked difference in both the chickens quality of life and Ribh's enjoyment of the chickens since she moved and has a larger area for the chickens to roam in.

None of the above does means I am anti backyard chicken keeping as some have suggested. It's the coop and run model I object to. There are plenty of variations and alternative models that are suitable for even small back yards.

I hope I have answered your question without causing offence and with sufficient honesty.

@Sally PB - I have a similar sounding arrangement to you (though bigger) and I have recently found that adding an outside area protected by an electric fence has greatly enhanced the chickens' lives.
I set up a field of about 4,000 sf (which I think is about a tenth of an acre) inside the electric fence and it seems to bring a lot of satisfaction even though they still hang out in their coop and run at times.
I don't know if that is practical for you but I found it easier than I expected to set up.

 

[Ribh]

Ribh's old run was very interesting; lots of clutter and thing of interest. I might mention here that just from the pictures and stories Ribh posts there seem to be a marked difference in both the chickens quality of life and Ribh's enjoyment of the chickens since she moved and has a larger area for the chickens to roam in

The thing is the chickens seem to been living a more natural sort of life ~ minus a rooster. As @ least 1/2 the present flock are bantams , a 1/4 acre seems to be ample. I only have one really large hen left & maybe 4 medium sized standards. The garden is well established with lots of cover & deep litter. Neither of the neighbours my chickens *visit* object to this. I don't get to spend as much time interacting with them as I'm used to ~ conditions aren't conducive to this ~ but they all still run to greet me & congregate where I am when I'm outside. Probably the biggest change is this:

It was darker than it would seem from this picture & I still can't believe how high Shuri can get up that tree!

 

[Sally PB]

@Sally PB - I have a similar sounding arrangement to you (though bigger) and I have recently found that adding an outside area protected by an electric fence has greatly enhanced the chickens' lives.
I set up a field of about 4,000 sf (which I think is about a tenth of an acre) inside the electric fence and it seems to bring a lot of satisfaction even though they still hang out in their coop and run at times.
I don't know if that is practical for you but I found it easier than I expected to set up.

Thank you! I have thought about letting the chickens into "the side yard," as we call it. I'd say I could fence in about 40x20 feet, maybe larger. But. (There's always a but.) This area is used for many things, so the fence would have to be moveable and at times removable, or at least gotten out of the way so that we could access other areas.

My main concern would be aerial predators in the area. I could not be there all the time, or even for extended periods of time, as the gardens are in a different area of our property, and now is garden season, in a big way.

How high is your fence? Or, what I need to know is, how high does an electric fence need to be to contain chickens?

 

[RoyalChick]

Thank you! I have thought about letting the chickens into "the side yard," as we call it. I'd say I could fence in about 40x20 feet, maybe larger. But. (There's always a but.) This area is used for many things, so the fence would have to be moveable and at times removable, or at least gotten out of the way so that we could access other areas.

My main concern would be aerial predators in the area. I could not be there all the time, or even for extended periods of time, as the gardens are in a different area of our property, and now is garden season, in a big way.

How high is your fence? Or, what I need to know is, how high does an electric fence need to be to contain chickens?

I have two serious flyers in my group and one who thinks she is but really isn't. But even the flyers tend to fly up to land on something rather than up and over something. So far the only escapees have been the non-flyers when the fence had grounded out and they spotted a gap - they came straight to where I was working to tell me all about it!

This is the fence I have - you can get this sort of thing from other places too, I just happened on this one as someone else on BYC told me about it.

https://kencove.com/fence/Electric+Netting+10/40/3½_detail_NSPCG.php

As you can see the fence part is only 40" high. It is moveable and removeable. I do it on my own. It is a bit of a palaver but totally doable. You step the posts into the ground. The biggest hassle is when weeds grow up or a post falls over (happened after a heavy storm) and then you have to go around and check every part of the fence. The other big hassle is every couple of weeks you do need to mow under the fence to stop it shorting out.

As well as improving the chickens' life it has enhanced my own enjoyment of them as I have set myself up with a chair in their yard and I can happily sit there to relax and watch chickens.

There is a risk from aerial predators - I have them all - but there are several shrubs they hide under and I have added some chairs and benches which provide cover as well.

Hopefully that is helpful - happy to explain more in PM if you are interested.

 

[no fly zone]

So it's looking more and more like the sick rooster (I have named him Achilles) has Marek's. He cannot stand and just lays on his belly with both of his legs stretched completely back. He is a sweet little guy, but unless he makes a miraculous recovery in the next 36 hours, I will have him euthanized. I managed to get him to swallow an entire B complex pill tonight, so I am still hoping it's just a dang vitamin deficiency.

 

[Ribh]

So it's looking more and more like the sick rooster (I have named him Achilles) has Marek's. He cannot stand and just lays on his belly with both of his legs stretched completely back. He is a sweet little guy, but unless he makes a miraculous recovery in the next 36 hours, I will have him euthanized. I managed to get him to swallow an entire B complex pill tonight, so I am still hoping it's just a dang vitamin deficiency. View attachment 3139152View attachment 3139154View attachment 3139155View attachment 3139156View attachment 3139157View attachment 3139158View attachment 3139159

For what it's worth it took me months to right a Vorwerk who ended up like this. At one point she was completely paralysed & infested with lice. It took a lot of time & patience but you'd never know she had ever been immobile. As Shad said, stress, sometimes very delayed stress, will do this. According to my vet it may be neurological or it may be a vitamin deficency ~ or all 3! My chicken wanted to live so I fought for her. She got worse & @ one point I was considering euthanising her, then bit by bit she got better & all of a sudden she was back running with the tribe.

 

[no fly zone]

For what it's worth it took me months to right a Vorwerk who ended up like this. At one point she was completely paralysed & infested with lice. It took a lot of time & patience but you'd never know she had ever been immobile. As Shad said, stress, sometimes very delayed stress, will do this. According to my vet it may be neurological or it may be a vitamin deficency ~ or all 3! My chicken wanted to live so I fought for her. She got worse & @ one point I was considering euthanising her, then bit by bit she got better & all of a sudden she was back running with the tribe.

It's not something I really want to do, but we are planning to list our home for sale as soon as possible (that real estate bubble is going to pop any day now) and will likely not be able to have roosters any more, if we can even have chickens at all. I can't pawn a sick bird off on someone else, especially if it might have Marek's. It's a crap sandwich and I have to eat the whole thing.

 

[ManueB]

I think the same thing every time you post photos. Just absolutely dreamy!

They have a nice landscape but it needs more covered ground. Just under them there's about 400 sq. ft of very steep land with trees and bushes, to access another vegetable garden underneath. I'm trying to convince my partner to let them have it, he is reluctant as it means we'll have to protect five planted saplings with wire and he hates jailing baby trees .

My chickens problem isn't space, it's the dreary state of the coop (an old 20 M2 / 215 sq fr barn in a vaulted basement). It needs to be completely whitewhashed with lime and all the perches and ladders should be changed. We would need at least two days, maybe three, so it means temporary accomodations for the chickens. I'm very poor at logistics and I don't see how to organize it. My partner doesn't think it's a priority as we have so many things to do.