Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[TheFatBlueCat]

What a great article. Reading it has made me late to go to the hardware store for some chicken coop essentials but it was well worth it. It has also left me feeling good about the forage area my Princesses have and my habit of sitting with them in the evening while they forage.
I wonder why red clover is called out specifically vs white (I have an abundance of white and have never even seen red clover!).
Anyway, thank you for sharing - dashing off now to get bolts for the Hooligan's roost extension.

This was a great read. I haven't fully finished it yet but I will. Need coffee...
I'm fairly up-to-speed on pastures and pasture management due to experience with cows/sheep/horses but it's good to get chicken-specific info.
I could only see one place that red clover was referenced specifically rather than just 'clovers' and it was in a quoted section about a specific seed mix to sow with oats and peas, is that the bit you're thinking of?
What I can tell you is different clovers are active during different seasons. White clover is a cool-season legume which is most active in the spring and autumn. Red clover is a summer-active legume that will die back significantly once the weather turns toward winter.
It's good to have a wide mix of legume species so you'll always have something available.

 

[no fly zone]

Zombie Chippy

 

[Ribh]

@micstrachan :

've read with interest Ribh's experiences with her broodies and she's had quite a lot now. Ribh lets them sit from what I can gather. She's heaves them off their nests to make sure they eat etc but after it's down to them.

Shad is right. With the move I had no viable way to break 8 broodies ~ most of whom were nest & egg sharing. They took over the shed nests. I let them sit & just monitored to make sure everyone got off the nest @ least once a day. @MaryJanet does the same. There are videos on this thread & mine of the nut jobs in action. I've found they quit @ about the 21 day mark. No~one noticably lost weight or seemed worse for wear & most of them had 2 or 3 goes over summer. I will have to try for fertile eggs this summer & give the determined ones a chance. Most are easy to handle. I have one Wyandotte bantam who threatened to assinate me any time I came near but she is my glorious exception.

 

[MaryJanet]

@micstrachan :

Shad is right. With the move I had no viable way to break 8 broodies ~ most of whom were nest & egg sharing. They took over the shed nests. I let them sit & just monitored to make sure everyone got off the nest @ least once a day. @MaryJanet does the same. There are videos on this thread & mine of the nut jobs in action. I've found they quit @ about the 21 day mark. No~one noticably lost weight or seemed worse for wear & most of them had 2 or 3 goes over summer. I will have to try for fertile eggs this summer & give the determined ones a chance. Most are easy to handle. I have one Wyandotte bantam who threatened to assinate me any time I came near but she is my glorious exception.

I do! Hens go broody, it doesn't matter whether eggs are fertile, and I don't like to interfere with what comes naturally.

I've found a hen who's new to sitting might not get up until day 3 or 4, but she will eventually take the time for all the usual broody behaviours like eating, drinking, pooping and dust bathing. If not, I will get her up on day 5. A hen who knows what she's doing will get up on day 2. When she's up, I steal any eggs she might be sitting on.

I have not found the hens suffer unduly from it. People speak of hens losing condition, but I haven't yet noticed any health costs that have caused me to worry and I'm the kind of person who takes her chickens to the vet for regular checkups! My neighbour has kept hens for a long time and he says a sitting hen won't lose much condition, if any, because they don't need as much energy as they usually do. They eat less than usual because they do less than usual.

One of the hens, Ivy, is now an old hand at brooding and makes her own decision to go back to normal after 23 or 24 days of sitting.

But, if a hen went broody for the first time I would be very watchful and if she got to day 5 without getting up, I would get her up every other day until she learned to do it for herself. The last time I did this was last summer when Peggy got to day 5 and I lifter her off the nest. I only had to do it once or twice before she established a routine of getting up roughly every 24-36 hours.

Also, if a hen had sat all the way through to day 25 or 26, I would support her in transitioning back to her normal behaviour by transferring her to the roost at night until she gave up on her nest.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

I love my broodies and babies. I haven't been successful in breaking any yet. I generally leave them to it, but my routine is to remove them from their nests every morning. If I catch them early enough and am around I can sometimes interrupt them going full broody by getting them off the nest multiple times. Every broody I've had so far I've hatched eggs from each time, except for the one failed hatch I had and those 2 hens stopped being broody after I removed the dead eggs, they had been sitting about 5 weeks.
I'll often give the planned number of eggs (up to 12 maximum) to an experienced broody to begin with and leave any other broodies on fake eggs, then share out the eggs at about day 16. I get better hatch rates this way, and my inexperienced hens get a good go at raising chicks without too many hatching failures.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

Tax!

I stuck the camera through the pop door to get this. They had knocked off the lowest roosting bar arguing over the nest boxes.

 

[BDutch]

I do! Hens go broody, it doesn't matter whether eggs are fertile, and I don't like to interfere with what comes naturally.

I've found a hen who's new to sitting might not get up until day 3 or 4, but she will eventually take the time for all the usual broody behaviours like eating, drinking, pooping and dust bathing. If not, I will get her up on day 5. A hen who knows what she's doing will get up on day 2. When she's up, I steal any eggs she might be sitting on.

I have not found the hens suffer unduly from it. People speak of hens losing condition, but I haven't yet noticed any health costs that have caused me to worry and I'm the kind of person who takes her chickens to the vet for regular checkups! My neighbour has kept hens for a long time and he says a sitting hen won't lose much condition, if any, because they don't need as much energy as they usually do. They eat less than usual because they do less than usual.

One of the hens, Ivy, is now an old hand at brooding and makes her own decision to go back to normal after 23 or 24 days of sitting.

But, if a hen went broody for the first time I would be very watchful and if she got to day 5 without getting up, I would get her up every other day until she learned to do it for herself. The last time I did this was last summer when Peggy got to day 5 and I lifter her off the nest. I only had to do it once or twice before she established a routine of getting up roughly every 24-36 hours.

Also, if a hen had sat all the way through to day 25 or 26, I would support her in transitioning back to her normal behaviour by transferring her to the roost at night until she gave up on her nest.

I do interfere because i believe it’s unnatural to let a hen sit on unfertilised eggs for nothing. And I don’t want more chicks (buying fertilised eggs) all the time a hen is broody.

Normally a broody hen quits after 2-7 days if I ‘kick’ her off the nest/ take away all eggs / make it impossible to sleep in the nestboxes. For me this feels better than letting a hen sit for several weeks.

 

[MaryJanet]

I do interfere because i believe it’s unnatural to let a hen sit on unfertilised eggs for nothing. And I don’t want more chicks (buying fertilised eggs) all the time a hen is broody.

Normally a broody hen quits after 2-7 days if I ‘kick’ her off the nest/ take away all eggs / make it impossible to sleep in the nestboxes. For me this feels better than letting a hen sit for several weeks.

Shutting off her nest box is much gentler than the dog crate method I read of.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

Hahaha this broody conversation is prophetic, I should have knocked on wood. Just went out to collect eggs and what do I find but a broody pullet savagely resisting me. She has been hiffed out and the coop shut up for the rest of the day. Goodness me, it is quite literally the middle of winter.

 

[Molpet]

Shutting off her nest box is much gentler than the dog crate method I read of.

Mine just switch boxes. Other hens need boxes to lay in or it's an Easter egg hunt