Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

I've got a doorway sitter.
For those of you who may be unfamilier with the term. doorway sitter, it is one of the most irritating facets of chicken behaviour. A hen goes early to roost and then plants herself slap bang in the middle of the doorway.
There are hissy fit doorway sitters. I don't care if you clamber all over me doorway sitters. There are those that peck anyone more junior if the try to get in the coop doorway sitters. All are complete pain in the arse. This one is a clamber all over me type.

One of the things I learnt while building small coops is to run the roost bars either side of the pop hatch from front to back (pop hatch front)
The idea is assuming you have hight enough roost bars is when the chickens are on the roost bars they have to really strain to peck a chicken walking towards the back of the coop to find a spot. All the Ex Battery hens and the Legbars can also go under the roost bar. Of course, this relies on chickens actually getting on the roost bars.

There were three on the roost bars when I left this evening. Those that have been roosting in the main coop have got into the habit of sleeping on the floor and are doing it in the new coop.

We need a better name for this. Two here do it, both of the 'peck inferiors' variety. With three coops there's a safe alternative, but for some reason I don't understand, the juniors still prefer to run the gauntlet of a guarded one. The cleverest birds dash past the guard in the wake of one of the roos, who are able to pass unmolested. This is a hen thing. Maybe the origin of the term 'hen-pecked'?

 

[BDutch]

I've got a doorway sitter.
For those of you who may be unfamilier with the term. doorway sitter, it is one of the most irritating facets of chicken behaviour. A hen goes early to roost and then plants herself slap bang in the middle of the doorway.
There are hissy fit doorway sitters. I don't care if you clamber all over me doorway sitters. There are those that peck anyone more junior if the try to get in the coop doorway sitters. All are complete pain in the arse. This one is a clamber all over me type.

One of the things I learnt while building small coops is to run the roost bars either side of the pop hatch from front to back (pop hatch front)
The idea is assuming you have hight enough roost bars is when the chickens are on the roost bars they have to really strain to peck a chicken walking towards the back of the coop to find a spot. All the Ex Battery hens and the Legbars can also go under the roost bar. Of course, this relies on chickens actually getting on the roost bars.

There were three on the roost bars when I left this evening. Those that have been roosting in the main coop have got into the habit of sleeping on the floor and are doing it in the new coop.

The hens that roost are much higher than the auto pop door from the run to the coop. Therefore the doorway can not be blocked by the hens that have roosted. But pecking the youngest chicken , to prevent her to roost in the open air coop area sounds familiar.

If a chicken is not allowed to the preferred roost area, there is always another place available to sleep: the smaller old coop where the laying nests are. This is where Janice slept for a over a year before she was allowed to roost with the other chickens. Sometimes alone and often accompanied by Koekie.

We need a better name for this. Two here do it, both of the 'peck inferiors' variety. With three coops there's a safe alternative, but for some reason I don't understand, the juniors still prefer to run the gauntlet of a guarded one. The cleverest birds dash past the guard in the wake of one of the roos, who are able to pass unmolested. This is a hen thing. Maybe the origin of the term 'hen-pecked'?

So the name Perris introduced ‘pecking inferiors’ fits better imo. The names 'bedtime bullies', 'roost harassers' or 'perch bullies' fit even better if you ask me. But please make a pick or refine me. English is not my native language.

 

[Perris]

The hens that roost are much higher than the auto pop door from the run to the coop. Therefore the doorway can not be blocked by the hens that have roosted. But pecking the youngest chicken , to prevent her to roost in the open air coop area sounds familiar.

If a chicken is not allowed to the preferred roost area, there is always another place available to sleep: the smaller old coop where the laying nests are. This is where Janice slept for a over a year before she was allowed to roost with the other chickens. Sometimes alone and often accompanied by Koekie.

So the name Perris introduced ‘pecking inferiors’ fits better imo. The names 'bedtime bullies', 'roost harassers' or 'perch bullies' fit even better if you ask me. But please make a pick or refine me. English is not my native language.

I wasn't suggesting that as a name, just picking up Shad's distinction between those that just block the door from those that peck juniors wanting to come in. I like your 'bedtime bullies' name

 

[pennyJo1960]

Every word he says is true seen it as kid at Grandmas.. Guess that ts where I learned my affinity to animals.
Picking up a pair of frizzle 6 to 8 weeks old for my postal bud pay tax with them tomorrow.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

Hahaha I have a bedtime bully. She sleeps on the lowest roosts and goes to bed last, but won't let any inferior enter before she does, and won't let them in once she has dragged her fat butt to bed. This is why I had a pullet sleeping on the coop roof. They've got plenty of places to sleep aside from the main coop, so I don't do much about it. But it IS a nuisance.

 

[ManueB]

We lost our first and favorite hen Vanille yesterday. (Sorry for the repost for those who read the fluffy butt acres thread!) She was a frequent photobomber on this thread, so I'll share a bit about her health issues as an ex-batt, which I feel has to do with the subjects this thread deals with.

Although she was only for three months in a battery, it became very quickly clear that she was suffering like many high production hybrids of reproductive disease. After her first month laying, she started having egg retention problems : she would not lay for 24 hours, then lay two eggs a few hours apart that looked like this as they came in contact in the oviduct.

She was always in pain throughout this process, which sometimes happened only once in two weeks, sometimes for whole weeks in a row, but she was a fighter and she loved life.
After a severe illness this september and a hard molt she stopped laying for a few months. When she started laying again, her eggs were very fragile and soon enough she was passing soft shells that sometimes broke inside her.

We did what we could to support her throughout these ordeals all her life, warm baths, calcium in different forms, lubrication, trying all kind of layer feed...which we did less and less when we saw they didn't help. She always pulled out of it, until yesterday she didn't. She couldn't push the egg out, and just went unconscious after about a day of trying.
Classical fate of ex battery hens and I knew it would happen but I still feel awful about it. She was 33 months, my stupid goal was to take her to 36.

 

[Perris]

so sorry for your loss @ManueB I hope you can take some comfort from the fact that you gave her a wonderful retirement.

 

[BDutch]

Sorry to hear Vanilla passed away. Hugs from me too.
Glad you could give her a good life within possibilities. Would this chance of production failure be a reason not to want (ex)-batts anymore?

IMO its stupid (sad) what they do with breeding animals for max production. Its a kind of animal abuse to breed beyond health of animals to obtain an excellence or extreme deformity.

I supposed that normal heritage breeds and barnyard mixes rarely suffer from production problems like you’re Vanilla suffered from. But a similar problem happened with one of the Naine de Tournaisis I had too. She died after 3½ years. And she was no egg laying machine at all.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

We lost our first and favorite hen Vanille yesterday. (Sorry for the repost for those who read the fluffy butt acres thread!) She was a frequent photobomber on this thread, so I'll share a bit about her health issues as an ex-batt, which I feel has to do with the subjects this thread deals with.

Although she was only for three months in a battery, it became very quickly clear that she was suffering like many high production hybrids of reproductive disease. After her first month laying, she started having egg retention problems : she would not lay for 24 hours, then lay two eggs a few hours apart that looked like this as they came in contact in the oviduct.
View attachment 3195404
She was always in pain throughout this process, which sometimes happened only once in two weeks, sometimes for whole weeks in a row, but she was a fighter and she loved life.
After a severe illness this september and a hard molt she stopped laying for a few months. When she started laying again, her eggs were very fragile and soon enough she was passing soft shells that sometimes broke inside her.

We did what we could to support her throughout these ordeals all her life, warm baths, calcium in different forms, lubrication, trying all kind of layer feed...which we did less and less when we saw they didn't help. She always pulled out of it, until yesterday she didn't. She couldn't push the egg out, and just went unconscious after about a day of trying.
Classical fate of ex battery hens and I knew it would happen but I still feel awful about it. She was 33 months, my stupid goal was to take her to 36.
View attachment 3195405

So sorry for your loss.

She was a pretty chicken.

What breed?

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

86 sunny 71 % humidity feels like 97 with thunderstorms moving through today.

Have a great day!