Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[JacinLarkwell]

We leave most of our birds on the compost pile if they pass. Some are buried (or left somewhere more proper if its too frozen to dig), but most aren't.

 

[LaFleche]

Maggie is different - she clearly wishes to communicate something to me but I am too stupid to understand. She will jump up on yo my side table and yell at me and then run off to go about her business then come back and yell at me again.

Well, isn't that quite obvious? She is telling you to come along and join her!

 

[RoyalChick]

Well, isn't that quite obvious? She is telling you to come along and join her!

You may be on to something there.

 

[micstrachan]

They won't get them back. They never lost them. What they haven't had and are not likely to have, is the opportunity to practice them.

Ok; yes, I guess that’s what I meant. But their behavior didn’t change overnight, did if? It still seems like they needed to regain something. Maybe “instincts” wasn’t if. Confidence? Or maybe “practice” is the best word, as you already said.

What do you think of my chickens hiding in their run, and sometimes even the coop itself, when they have access to the whole yard? It seems to be because of fear of the hawk. I think I need to get on adding that gate installed on the back if the run under the walnut tree.

 

[Shadrach]

are you not concerned that might attract foxes or rats?

The allotment fox lives about 10 meters away from where we leave the dead chickens.
The allotment stoat lives on the other side behind the geese enclosure.
There isn't anywhere around where there are not any rats.
There has been one fox attack inn the coop run and that was because the run door was rebuilt but the loose chicken wire that should sit onn the top of the fennce wasn't put in place. The fox just climbed the gate.
Free range chicken keepers do in general come to accept that predators are going to take chickens. I've dealt with this my entire chicken tending life.
If you have males and you are prepared to let hens sit and hatch, much like people, they replace the dead with the chicks they hatch.

 

[LaFleche]

You may be on to something there.

Next time, try it and follow her lead. She might even let you in on where to dig for the tastiest worms....

 

[micstrachan]

Totally agree with you. I can remember the first time I saw a Cornish Cross I was appalled.
I am fortunate to live near to a farming area so I can get meat, eggs, honey and veg quite easily. I still feel disloyal getting eggs so I just eat fewer when mine don’t lay.

I go without eggs if mine aren’t laying. Just can’t do it. I have an egg replacer for baking snd don’t eat many eggs, anyway.

 

[RoyalChick]

Next time, try it and follow her lead. She might even let you in on where to dig for the tastiest worms....

I don't get the sense Maggie is big on sharing! More likely she wants me to deploy the shovel to increase the efficiency of her worm finding.

 

[micstrachan]

I've been lucky, I found free range eggs about a year before I got my girls.

Marie, if you look for “pasture raised humanely handled” eggs, it’s better. I still don’t buy any eggs at all, but got my parents on the pasture raised humanely handled.

 

[micstrachan]

I don't get the sense Maggie is big on sharing! More likely she wants me to deploy the shovel for her to increase the efficiency of worm finding.

Yes, I bet that’s it!