Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[DobieLover]

is there some sort of financial wheeze going on with the emphasis on making sure donors claim to be 'friends and family' when sending money to these people? dodging income tax? or am I being too suspicious/cynical?

That is to avoid the payment processor from taking a portion of the money as a fee.

 

[sourland]

That is like humans, we lose most of our heat through our scalp.

Oh, I'm in serious trouble.

 

[Sortacountrychicken]

In post #554 I provided a link to the rescue center that the Ex Batts I've been writing about came from.
If you are at all interested in how these rescue centers operate and chicken welfare in general it's well worth reading the stuff about chickens on the site.
It's going to be important later in the thread because I have some reservations regarding the rehoming of Ex Batts in general which I intend to write a bit about.

The link below is the UK's most respected and well known Ex Batt rescue concern.

https://www.bhwt.org.uk/hen-adoption/

What I would like you to do is read the Hen Health topics found in the header (the top bit of the page) and make a comparison with the Pear Tree Farm page and what you know about chickens from your own experience and what you've read on whatever chickens internet sites you visit.

Its a bit sad to read through these. Some quick internet searches could bring you some better information than what these sanctuaries are giving out to people.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I guess I could squeeze him in as a full tax submission....

Oh thank you, Great Tax Assessor!

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Rescues good morning one and all!

The temperature is 53 and sunny.

Have a great day!

 

[MaryJanet]

Its a bit sad to read through these. Some quick internet searches could bring you some better information than what these sanctuaries are giving out to people.

The poor hens have already had a sad life, the least these rescuers could do is stump up some robust advice for the folks re-homing them.

 

[Ribh]

The poor hens have already had a sad life, the least these rescuers could do is stump up some robust advice for the folks re-homing them.

Agreed. I nearly had heart failure when the dozen rescue ISAs I got flopped all all over the sun baked brick paving. It looked like a massacre had taken place. I'd never owned chickens before & had no idea!

 

[Shadrach]

Today I bought an 8 foot x 4 foot x half an inch sheet of plywood.
I've got the new base for thhe coop cut. It's a question of carrying it to the allotments and making it fit now. I will take pictures of what is there now. It is so bad that I'm expecting a chicken to fall through the floor any day.
I would have prefered three quarter inch but the places I tried either had spoilt sheets or none at all.

Me and C have different ideas about what is okay for the chickens and what isn't. Some things have improved slightly and C did at least buy a bale of straw. C's prefered bedding is shredded paper which of course can be got for nothing. Shredded paper may be okay for a dry coop but this coop isn't dry and it's badly ventilated. The problem with the shredded paper is once it gets damp it stays damp. Straw at least doesn't compact the way shredded paper does and dries out more easily. It does cost money though.

C it seems cleaned out the coop today before I got there. As usaul everything was done in a rush and the first three pictures are what I founf when I looked.
Yep, there is plenty of straw and cardboard underneath that but the roost bars have just been chucked in the coop.
Because the coop wasn't well designed the roost bar rests are too close to the floor and the supports (one side is lying in the nest box, the other side you can see in picture 4) are not only too low but not secure.

The problem is, Henry will not roost in the coop unless he can roost on one of the bars. If Henry won't then some of the hens wont either. The weather here is not the weather to be roosting outside in.
In picture 4 you can see the sockets for one end of the roost bars. The picture of the other end didn't come out very well.

Once the new floor is in place I can adjust the roost bars to a sensible height.This will help to stop the chickens drooping their tails into the shit they deposit during the night. It will also improve the overall comfort for those that use the roost bars.

 

[Shadrach]

Agreed. I nearly had heart failure when the dozen rescue ISAs I got flopped all all over the sun baked brick paving. It looked like a massacre had taken place. I'd never owned chickens before & had no idea!

Ohh, good. I was going to tag you to ask if you would mind giving a brief description of your experiences with the Ex Batts you took on.

 

[Ribh]

Ohh, good. I was going to tag you to ask if you would mind giving a brief description of your experiences with the Ex Batts you took on.

These girls are the reason I won't do ex batts again. I don't have the emotional strength to see them fight so hard to get well only to die before they really have a chance to enjoy their lives.

I don't have any pictures @ present but briefly: a friend & I went into chickens together & picked up 2 dozen ISA browns that were due to be culled from the local chicken shed @ the end of summer. She also got a rooster: the meanest, badest rooster there ever was. He was so awful the girls actually eventually killed him but that is another story.

When they arrived I said they looked like they were ready for the oven. Most were pretty bare & basically skin & bone. Most high stepped to start with. They had no idea about grass or dirt & I think they were cold. They spent a lot of time sunbathing on the bricks. They were too weak & subdued to engage in flock disputes & I actually never had any trouble with them that way. They laid from the day they arrived until the day they died.

At the time we were about the only house on 50 acres so the girls were allowed to free range as they wished. Most didn't wander too far from the house. They did pretty well through winter & feathered out nicely but when our hot weather arrived they started dropping like flies. There were plenty of places to get out of the heat but they were 3+ by then & well past their use by date. None of my girls had internal or egg laying issues. I didn't know about beak triming but can't recall any issues the girls had eating or preening. It was my first time owning chickens so there was probably a lot I missed but I do know once they started feeling better & were used to their new routine they were enjoying their lives.