Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[MaryJanet]

Thanks for that. I've gotten lots from folks in the "real world."

I can imagine.

It seems increasingly difficult for people to accommodate views that are inconsistent with their own.

The small benefit is that each time we encounter resistance or hostility, whether from others or directed towards others, it's an invitation to think a little deeper and expand the ways in which we understand the world, including our own resilience.

 

[Shadrach]

For now, if it were a friend who performed it with care and thoughtfulness, I would probably try a bite and discover I couldn't go further.

I comprehend the reason and substance of your argument, but my worldview isn't quite there yet.

It's curiosity really. I've always struggled with the issue. I'm not quite sure what tipped the balance. I don't believe there is a right and wrong in there anywhere.

 

[MaryJanet]

It's curiosity really. I've always struggled with the issue. I'm not quite sure what tipped the balance. I don't believe there is a right and wrong in there anywhere.

I'd like to be completely on board with @TheFatBlueCat and come to terms with respectfully consuming and honouring home hatched cockerels, but the lessons we learn as children are the deepest and I spent a LONG time arguing for a pet when I was a kid, which was disallowed until I was a young adult earning my own money. That experience led me to place a very high value on the pets I keep - they're not taken for granted.

It took me quite a while to build a commitment to hatching eggs under a hen because of the cockerel question. Your argument that it's good for a hen is clear and IMO doesn't even need evidence. It was the vet who finally won me over when we discussed it and he said the cockerel would've had an amazing life and then a humane death, he won't have lived as though his life was short, he'd have lived joyfully, then he'll simply go to sleep and not wake up.

The other factor in South Australia (probably all of Australia) is that we don't really have the kind of hatcheries the Americans have. We're more like NZ in that hatcheries serve the food industry, with a mere few 100 birds sent to small retail outlets (often family-owned fodder and grain stores) to eventually find homes in people's backyards among the millions of birds hatched to feed humans one way or another.

Many backyard chickens are not from hatcheries at all, but from breeders who focus on breed standards and showing, and who sell the pullets who are not up to standard into backyard flocks. Other breeders focus on the backyard market, producing pretty crosses like Ivy and Peggy at my house. Sometimes buyers go direct to breeders, Ribh does this; sometimes breeders place their pullets in small retail outlets, perhaps even alongside the ones from the industrial hatcheries.

So it's possible for us to source pullets that were more ethically bred, raised, and converted to commodity with greater humility than the Americans can.

These features of the Australian pullet market are a minor disincentive to hatching your own. An incentive to hatching your own is that you're not introducing viruses or bacteria that you're not already coping with. For me, that holds some appeal.

 

[Shadrach]

Well! What can I say about today. It's still too hot. I've got mites. The hens kicked off in the coop. C who was supposed to help with a couple of health issues this evening arrived and then wandered round picking bits of fruit like a character is Alice In Wonderland and then wandered off home. I got a couple of hens sorted but there's a good two or three hours health work to be done.

I thought I would clean out the small coop. It's infested with mites. I got it clean enough to spray Permethrin but in the process I got covered in mites. I had to spray my hair with Permethrin while I was there and my top. I itched and slapped my way home and headed for the shower. No wonder none of the chickens are interested in sleeping in there. The mite explosion has happened in the current heatwave.

It looked like everyone going to roost, bar Henry, Matilda, Lima, Copy and Carbon who were on the outside roost bar, was going along nicely. I had just propelled the last bum through the pop door and walked over to Henry's lot when a riot broke out in the new coop. I opened the back door to find five hens in one of those if it moves whack it type scraps. They were jumping over the roost bars to get at each other. I had to practically get in the coop to put a stop to it. I got a few scratches for my troubles. im not sure what it was about or even who was in the fight. They did settle down.

Bad picture day to top it off.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

I'd like to be completely on board with @TheFatBlueCat and come to terms with respectfully consuming and honouring home hatched cockerels, but the lessons we learn as children are the deepest and I spent a LONG time arguing for a pet when I was a kid, which was disallowed until I was a young adult earning my own money. That experience led me to place a very high value on the pets I keep - they're not taken for granted.

It took me quite a while to build a commitment to hatching eggs under a hen because of the cockerel question. Your argument that it's good for a hen is clear and IMO doesn't even need evidence. It was the vet who finally won me over when we discussed it and he said the cockerel would've had an amazing life and then a humane death, he won't have lived as though his life was short, he'd have lived joyfully, then he'll simply go to sleep and not wake up.

The other factor in South Australia (probably all of Australia) is that we don't really have the kind of hatcheries the Americans have. We're more like NZ in that hatcheries serve the food industry, with a mere few 100 birds sent to small retail outlets (often family-owned fodder and grain stores) to eventually find homes in people's backyards among the millions of birds hatched to feed humans one way or another.

Many backyard chickens are not from hatcheries at all, but from breeders who focus on breed standards and showing, and who sell the pullets who are not up to standard into backyard flocks. Other breeders focus on the backyard market, producing pretty crosses like Ivy and Peggy at my house. Sometimes buyers go direct to breeders, Ribh does this; sometimes breeders place their pullets in small retail outlets, perhaps even alongside the ones from the industrial hatcheries.

So it's possible for us to source pullets that were more ethically bred, raised, and converted to commodity with greater humility than the Americans can.

These features of the Australian pullet market are a minor disincentive to hatching your own. An incentive to hatching your own is that you're not introducing viruses or bacteria that you're not already coping with. For me, that holds some appeal.

It is very true that the worldview we have put into us as children shape how we continue to see the world. In some cases I think that's insurmountable. In my case I've been raised in a rural town, in what used to be very much a rural country, and with parents who did respect life (my mother never killed a spider). It's easy for me to see the livestock nature of chickens (how I choose to see them), knowing the deep respect that the farmers I grew up with held towards their livestock. This doesn't make me right or correct, it just allows me to feel like I'm congruent with my worldview most of the time. I still fail.

Just today I was pressure washing the deck, and I had to pause to consider to myself that the algae I was blasting off is also life and must be allowed to continue in its cycle. I will make sure I return to scrape up the mud and sludge collected from the process and put it into one of my future garden beds. This did not occur to me at the beginning of the job, and I could have missed it entirely.

 

[Sequel]

Now now…lol. I’m a wife & I hate mall shopping!

Oh me too! And trying on clothes! Ughh!

 

[GregnLety]

That's sad to hear as most dogs can be rehabilitated.

I have 2 that have killed chickens but now they don't pay them no mind.

A good example happened just a few minutes ago. Maya, a adult female husky we have killed a chicken and attacked another after she arrived here. I was taking her outside this evening and several chickens were around the door. She stopped, looked at them and looked at me and then made her way through them to get to the water bucket. It's been a long road but I am very happy with her progress.

 

[Iluveggers]

I understand my view of canines is not shared by all.
Be a solid owner fence the birds in know the danger is what I would ask.. otherwise I would havew to dump or kill 2 of my own..

Fencing at my house…lots of fencing…

 

[Shadrach]

A good example happened just a few minutes ago. Maya, a adult female husky we have killed a chicken and attacked another after she arrived here. I was taking her outside this evening and several chickens were around the door. She stopped, looked at them and looked at me and then made her way through them to get to the water bucket. It's been a long road but I am very happy with her progress.

Huskies are difficult dogs to train to be other creature friendly. We had a Husky in Catalonia. She got trained by the dog already there.
My eldest has a Husky.

 

[GregnLety]

@Shadrach here are 2 of my youngest roosters and they share the same tribe