Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[JacinLarkwell]

So @Shadrach, I've got a question, and bear with me, I'll try to make it as easy to understand as I can.

Let's say that I have to get eggs or dayolds for the breed I want, and this breeder doesn't hatch naturally, hasn't for years, so the birds don't go broody often or grow up with older and the flock. They've been raised artificially for a few generations.

I give these eggs (or young chicks) to a broody and she accepts them and raises them.

Do you think that this would 'reset' those chicks back to ones that tended to go broody and they would still be proper birds? Or would they be as hopeless as their siblings that were raises by the breeder in their way?

 

[NatJ]

this breeder doesn't hatch naturally, hasn't for years, so the birds don't go broody often or grow up with older and the flock. They've been raised artificially for a few generations.

Is there some way this is different than getting chicks from a big hatchery? Their eggs are all hatched in an incubator, and their breeding stock is almost certainly raised in single-generation groups, probably culled after a single year of laying.

I give these eggs (or young chicks) to a broody and she accepts them and raises them.

Do you think that this would 'reset' those chicks back to ones that tended to go broody and they would still be proper birds? Or would they be as hopeless as their siblings that were raises by the breeder in their way?

I don't know about "resetting" anything, but I know that lots of people get chicks from hatcheries, raise them in a brooder, and later post questions about their hen that went broody. So being hatched/raised artificially does NOT prevent a hen going broody when she is an adult.

 

[hmarg06]

The broodiness difference between breeds is interesting to me. I had Wyandottes that I purchased as chicks, and one that I hatched out of shipped eggs and was raised with Muscovy ducklings since none of her eggmates survived. None were raised by an adult and go broody allllll summer long. I have to constantly take eggs, or give them Muscovy to hatch since I no longer have any roosters. Are Wyandotte just that pre-disposed to being broody? I do have one Buckeye hen left and don't remember her being broody at all this year. She was raised the exact same as the Wyandotte and is maybe a year younger.

Pic of my favorite, handsome, so well behaved Wyandotte. I was really bummed when he passed:

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Is there some way this is different than getting chicks from a big hatchery? Their eggs are all hatched in an incubator, and their breeding stock is almost certainly raised in single-generation groups, probably culled after a single year of laying.


I don't know about "resetting" anything, but I know that lots of people get chicks from hatcheries, raise them in a brooder, and later post questions about their hen that went broody. So being hatched/raised artificially does NOT prevent a hen going broody when she is an adult.

Not that I'm aware of besides the fact that most hatcheries don't usually sell hatching eggs still.

I know that hatchery birds raised artificially can still go broody, but does raising them naturally make it more likely to happen and to be successful? I guess that's a better way to ask it

 

[NatJ]

I know that hatchery birds raised artificially can still go broody, but does raising them naturally make it more likely to happen and to be successful? I guess that's a better way to ask it

Ah, that makes sense. I don't know the answer when you put it that way

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I

Ah, that makes sense. I don't know the answer when you put it that way

would think so, based off of what I've seen between my birds. I've had hatchery mamas be successful, but compared to naturally raised mamas, there is a big success difference between them when brooding, and an even larger difference between them when raising the resulting chicks. That doesn't mean my natural mamas are always successful. I've had a few glaring duds out of them too.

But I'm only one person, and I've only had birds about 11 years, so I'm always looking for other opinions.

 

[Ribh]

Well, thiis is what I'm inclined to believe.
I've read a lot of stuff about how certain traits/behaviours have been bred out of certain breeds. I got told when I started looking after the chickens in Catalonia that they dind't go broody amoung other old wives tales.
By the time I left every hen was going broody at least once a year even one who didn't lay an egg in her entire life.
My hope is for these Ex Batts and all the other breeds that humans have messed about with arrogance and dismissal rather than knowledge and empathy, that given a chance and in the right circumstances the instincts that have got buried because of the way they are treated will eventually reappear.
I would love to be able to put this to the test but I think it would take some time and the right conditions and the chances of me having either are slim.

I remember you sounding of on this the 1st time Ha'penny went broody ~ Campines being a breed notoriously unbroody according to the experts. Since then she's made a hidden nest & gone broody @ least once every year. Since moving here, in a matter of months, she's tried twice. Overly ambitious. Each nest held over 20 eggs.

 

[Shadrach]

So @Shadrach, I've got a question, and bear with me, I'll try to make it as easy to understand as I can.

Let's say that I have to get eggs or dayolds for the breed I want, and this breeder doesn't hatch naturally, hasn't for years, so the birds don't go broody often or grow up with older and the flock. They've been raised artificially for a few generations.

I give these eggs (or young chicks) to a broody and she accepts them and raises them.

Do you think that this would 'reset' those chicks back to ones that tended to go broody and they would still be proper birds? Or would they be as hopeless as their siblings that were raises by the breeder in their way?

No. I don't think they would reset without a lot of other triggers and possibly some geenerations of exposure to these triggers.
As NatJ points out, there are many instances of production breeds going broody from a variety of backrounds.
The first point I want to make is that the often quoted statement that broodiness has been bred out of a breed is wrong. I don't beleive it has and there is a lot of evidence, mostly anecdotal and my own experiences to make me believe this.
One only needs to think for a moment what the statement means. Essetially it means chickens could no longer survive without human intervention. This is obviously not true.
Next you are likely to encounter a caveat that will go something like this. Most production breeds have had the broodiness bred out of them. How exactly did they do that. Breeders can't even manage to get the colours right in the majority of breeding programs let alone breed out something as fundemetal to a species survival as reproduction which is what ensures the survival of the species.
A step further away from the absolute is some production breeds are less likely to go broody when compared to other non production breeds.
Now we're getting somewhere.
The question that needs to be asked is why this may be so.
I could write a very long essay on why I think this is so, but the reader would need to adjust their view of the chicken in most cases so as not to dismiss my arguement out of hand.

 

[Shadrach]

This young hen is generally last to return to the coop. I've almost lost her a couple of times. The slid out ot the allotment run gate once and it was only by chance that I looked in the right direction in time to see her fluffy butt heading towards a thicket.

 

[Shadrach]

Henry is devoting his time and energy to the hens that are laying. How does he know this? Is it by the colour of their combs? Is it their willingness to crouch for him? Something else?