Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[bruceha2000]

I just found my snow hoggie Titus dead.

Wow, you really are getting hit!!! Bad things come in 3s and this is your last one?

 

[Iluveggers]

@no fly zone I am so sorry.

 

[no fly zone]

Wow, you really are getting hit!!! Bad things come in 3s and this is your last one?

Just found out that my other hoggie Yorick died this morning. He was at my buddy's facility.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Good morning X batts. I am fine no worse the ware.

 

[Molpet]

Just found out that my other hoggie Yorick died this morning. He was at my buddy's facility.

So sorry for your losses

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Just want to tell you all how great this forum/community is compared to another that exists in my own language.

Especially the question about Caramel, the answers and the little discussion we had on this issue, reminded me how wonderful the BYC community is. This would not have been tolerated on the Dutch chicken-forum.

The moderators on the Dutch forum don’t want people telling they choose not to go a vet if a bird is sick. Any argument or open discussions on witholding medical treatment is stopped and people can get banned for having another opinion.

All the fun people like @Kiki would get banned for posting threads that are not serious but hilarious.

I got banned too. Because I didn’t fit in for several reasons. At first I found this stupid. But now I’m glad I got banned. Participating here is much more satisfying for an open and eager mind.
Another plus: it took my English language to a higher level.

View attachment 3198991
Tax with old pic, chickens sunbathing.

And a pic for those who want to see the tiling efforts I did in the cellar yesterday:
View attachment 3198993

You did a great job laying the tile. It looks beautiful.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Did you save me any?

Afraid not, my family took the left-overs home which was not very much.

 

[microchick]

Gotta pipe in here about Marek's disease.

See, @bruceha2000 ya just had to get me started, lol.

Where it came and still comes to MD, I'm not a quitter. Trust me there were more times than I could count that I wanted too but my momma didn't raise no quitters so I put on my big girl panties and dealt with the problem head on.

I bought chicks that I thought were bred for resistance but the Marek's virus is so diverse that what is resistant for one county may not mean they are resistant for the strain of MD that is in the county next door. Plus you really can't ever get rid of it. Wait it out? Good flipping luck, it will outlive you. It's in your dirt it's in your air it's in every nook and cranny of your property.

You have to learn how to 'survive' in spite of it, both you and your flock, and yes, live with it sharing your property and your flock with you.

I discovered my own particular solution by accident. We have a large Amish community around us and many of those households run small businesses on their farms as well as farm. One of those businesses/farms is about two miles from us. We were there one day and I waited in the car while my husband went in to buy replacement chains for our chain saws and found myself watching the farmer's flock of chickens and ducks scratching around. His chickens looked healthy. They were active they were fat, not a care in the world. Meanwhile mine were dropping like flies. I asked myself if his were truly resistant to MD or at least the strain that was in our area.

On the way home I pointed this out to DH and he suggested I ask the farmer about buying a dozen hatching eggs from him and see if I could hatch some chicks that would survive the MD that was in my flock. I did. The chicks hatched, they grew, they thrived, they hatched more chicks. I lost one to MD but only one.

Then somebody here on BYC suggested Egyptian Fayoumi chickens as they were genetically resistant to MD.

I now have 10 in my flock. I also brought in vaccinated bantams. My OEGBs hatched their third generation this spring for me. All are alive and growing.

Marek's is devastating. It's horrible and it's heart breaking. But you can live with it. Oh yeah, you will lose the occasional bird. Lost two this spring to some mysterious malady that could have been botulism but the good news is that it didn't present like MD. But I don't fool myself. Marek's disease is on our property but it isn't going to stop me from enjoying my chickens.

I would be honored if anybody interested would read my article:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...-i-learned-to-deal-with-mareks-disease.76944/

Don't cull your entire flock. Don't wait around for them all to die. Most of all DON'T GIVE UP!

 

[Perris]

Isn't it better to start a new topic/thread for such a discussion?

Don't you think a thread on rescued battery hens is the right place for a discussion on the relative roles of different factors to explain their abnormally short lifespans?

So I've grouped responses by science, then environment, then examples, then diet.

He said accelerated ageing is why commercial laying hens ovulate daily.

Is this linked with genes? If so, surely there's research on how to inactive those genes in the seemingly endless search for (human) longevity? And if it's not linked to genes, what else more obvious than diet? These chickens demonstrate enhanced performance, and, to compare it with our enhanced performers (sportspeople), the chickens are not getting it through exercise, so that only really leaves diet, doesn't it?

People assume that the hens are bred to lay more eggs, but it's more a case of they are bred to lay what they have faster.

'They are bred' implies genes again. Can you give me something heavy to read on this?

All populations have a bell curve so if forced to eat the same thing there are likely to be individuals who are getting too much of something or too little of something

Very important point. The average masks a range of values.

I think environmental factors will certainly affect the expression of what a creature is genetically predisposed to do, but you can’t override it completely.

Also a very important point. I am not at all suggesting genes don't matter. But I do think they are a useful distraction for the feed industry, because while we're hand-waving in the direction of genetics, about which we can do nothing of course, they can keep their heads down and try to stay out of the argument. A lot of human ill-health is attributed to diet, especially highly processed food (as your post so clearly showed); chicken ill-health seems to be chaotically attributed to anything they eat except commercial (i.e. highly-processed) feed, as Iluveggers pointed out so well.

If they are confined to a cage lack of exercise and forage might be a problem.

Quantity and quality of exercise is another very good, and far too often overlooked, point.

You are left with anecdotes about longevity in places like BYC and that’s about it.

Indeed. We make do with what we must!

2 were isa browns. One laid every day the other missed one day, for over a year. They laid through molts even. Then they went to one a week and about 18 months old within a week of each other they suddenly hid in the coop and the first one slowly die, I put the other one down... They were free ranging and I still have a br from then. She's laying every so often still.

Thanks for this concrete example Molpet. The other thing to consider with high production breeds is that they are very highly inbred. That in itself can lead to all sorts of problems, as very rare breeds and exhibition strains of pure breeds often show.

They are more active foragers than my Marans, Sussex, Wyandotte cross, and Sultans, and about par with Saoirse (an EE with Ameraucana heritage), the Marans/Legbar cross, and my Dominique

That's very interesting; the instinct to forage is not just still there, but it's strong.

Vitamin B is something that is often insufficient in commercial feeds

That would explain the number of times I've seen the advice to give extra vit B! Thanks. Here it is automatically added to breakfast cereal, to make sure kids get enough whatever the nutritional nous of their parents, so it's easy and cheap to add to whatever we give as chicken feed if we feel supplementation is necessary.

Fatty liver is an issue of fat metabolism in the chicken NOT of being a fat chicken

I wish this were better known. There's a lot of rubbish said about fat per se.

 

[pennyJo1960]

I recall Dad saying a fat bird won't lay .. I guess I thought the same. Some birds get fat others do not... A large bird is not always a fat bird..
I do not give allot treats to any birds. I treat my birds well just not pets but cared for non the less.
Tax