Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

That close up shows pretty decent feather quality, considering. They've come a long way under your care!

Oh, and I wanted to mention that when I saw that portrait you took of Henry, "Winston Churchill" popped into my head unannounced. There is just something in the "eyebrows", the posture and mass, and just - gravitas - of that rooster in that photo. Of course he has the breadth of Henry the Eighth, as well!

Most are still underweight but the quality of the extra nutrition is showing.

 

[Windrider]

May I ask what brought you to BYC if you are not a chicken keeper?

Oh, I am a chicken keeper! I joined 12 years ago to research keeping chickens and a year later got my bantam cochins as started pullets. They were a show breeder's culls (not perfect enough to breed), and I count myself lucky. They were not bred for excessive laying, and indeed went broody a lot, but it saved them from reproductive issues. I lost them from what I guess was extreme old age just last year, since there were no warnings of sickness. One died at 9, the other two at 10 years old.

When the powers that be made the regs for poultry in Los Angeles, they probably didn't have my tiny beach-city property in mind. I got out my tape measure and made sure my open air coop was strictly legal to the inch, but it was a tight fit! Of course, my hens were mostly pets and garden helpers and got to roam the whole yard when I was out there working. With poultry shows starting back up after the pandemic, I am going to be looking for another three or four bantam pullets this summer.

 

[RoyalChick]

Contemplating her escape options...
View attachment 2922444​

She is gorgeous.

 

[Ribh]

She is gorgeous.

She may be gorgeous but she's quite wicked.

 

[MaryJanet]

Maybe not even an excess of hens but just an excess of chickens period. If the Jungle Fowl evolved behaviors for trios but we forced chickens to be in large flocks, it stands to reason that new behaviors would develop to cope.

My only personal chicken keeping experience was with my three Bantam Cochin hens. For the life of me, I never saw any defined pecking order between my three, and as far as I know there was no top hen. They all pecked now and then at each other, but there wasn't one that drove the other two away from treats and such. Was that because they were a small group of siblings with plenty of resources or because bantam cochins are just that mellow?

There are four hens at my house and three of them seem to be in an egalitarian pecking circle, with one abstaining/deferring.

 

[RoyalChick]

She may be gorgeous but she's quite wicked.

all the most gorgeous women are. It goes with the territory.

 

[fuentemoon]

One of the things I've done is to clean out the two black bins behind the coops that are used to store bedding and feed. The feed bin had rotting bread and a number of plastic bags containing mouldy feed and yet more bread.
The picture below is recent. What this is is wild bird feed mixed with a handfull of layers pellets. Something like what I think is called scratch in the US. This is what you can see in the picture above.
View attachment 2922687

That definitely looks more like wild bird seed. Here is a pic of the scratch I buy for comparison. Grains vs seeds

 

[BY Bob]

45 pages!

I may never catch up.

 

[fuentemoon]

45 pages!

I may never catch up.

There are lots of pictures

 

[BY Bob]

Isn't there some kind of tax payment due for repeating yourself? Just asking.