Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[LaFleche]

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.

Indeed, so don't waste her time any longer and start digging!

 

[micstrachan]

I understand and fully agree with how awful it is. I just feel that while those situations exist, it is not always kinder to the chicken to ‘rescue’ then.
Bring rescued by Shad is very different from being rescued by Shad’s ‘C’.

Excellent point! To extend a life just for the sake of extending a life may or may not be a good thing (usually not). But to extend a life so they can practice and enjoy natural behaviors, THAT is doing something meaningful.

 

[Shadrach]

This is my philosophy as well. While I get that my domesticated chickens have been “robbed” of their natural wild life, I also think that they only even exist at all because of farming and breeding, and I love my little tribe for what and who they are. I try to provide them with an environment in which they can enjoy their lives. They run and play and forage all day. They live for feeding time and treat time.
It’s not a jungle fowl life, but it’s their life.

I don't know what breeds you have but the majority of the breeds that I see on BYC were bred for the backyard chicken keeper, not farms or commercial meat and egg concerns.
This is one of the points I've tried to make over and over again. It's the backyard chicken keeping that has encouraged the hatcheries and the breeders to supply heritage breeds. Unfortunately these heritage breeds are bred with the same lack of concern for longevity etc as the high production fowl.
Usaully someone comes along now and says I'm against backyard chicken keeping. I'm not. What I am against is the breeders and hatcheries that are churning these creatures out like product, effectively ripping their customers off with basically faulty goods.
Healthy, well bred and managed chickens will live to ten to twelve years old, some even longer if they are not killed by a predator and that includes humans.

 

[Perris]

Free range chicken keepers do in general come to accept that predators are going to take chickens

as I do, but I try not to do anything to encourage them to come here looking for food

 

[Shadrach]

As she said.

Plus they would be killed for pet food if no one rescued them. Can you imagine how wrong that is, they've locked in tiny cages, just for their eggs then killed.

Have you fed your cat any food containing any meat or fish produce?

 

[RoyalChick]

Have you fed your cat any food containing any meat or fish produce?

I have often wondered why we can't have mouse or rat based cat food.
Feels like it would be a win-win (well not for the mouse or rat of course).

 

[JacinLarkwell]

As she said.

Plus they would be killed for pet food if no one rescued them. Can you imagine how wrong that is, they've locked in tiny cages, just for their eggs then killed.

I'm going to play devils advocate and hope y'all forgive me because of my pictures.

At least they're still using the hens. Even if it's for pet food. Even at that young, those birds arent going to be as tender as most people prefer, and they're tiny compared to what most people buy in the store. It could be worse, they could just be thrown away.

Now for the taxes:
Mixed flock picture with Jezebel running in the back

Pheonix male in the mixed flock

A young picture of Adoni (Greek girl's name for Dragon)

Japanese hen enjoying the summer grass

And two pheonix hens

 

[Shadrach]

Production breeds will always be kept as long as people eat eggs. In almost every grocery cart in every line is at least a dozen eggs.
I am really pleased with myself, lol, because I have not bought an egg in a year and a half. I am spoiled now.
Some of my girls are “production hens” breed-wise, because I had little knowledge when I started. Regardless of how long they live, I treat them like the queens they are while they are here.
We all live for as long as we do, so for me, it’s about quality of life.

Now yer talking. I agree, it's about the quality of their life. There isn't much that can be done about the attrocious breeders and the hatcheries in the short term, but we can do something about how we treat what there is already.
So, in this thread I'm trying to show a bit about how these Ex Battery hens have flourished and explain a little bit about why I beleive they are that much healthier and happier (I assume) than they were when I first met them.
Unfortunately perhaps, it has nothing to do with how much I may love them, or how I think about them or the coops they live in, or the cuddles they get.
They have improved (even C has been surprised) because they get out of the run and on to natural ground. This, if there is enough ground and in the appropriate climate is all a chicken needs. Provide the nutrients they can't find by foraging due to season or weather and they will thrive. It's what chickens do. It's one of the reasons why people have kept free range chickens all over the word for thousands of years.

 

[Molpet]

least they're still using the hens. Even if it's for pet food. Even at that young, those birds arent going to be as tender as most people prefer, and they're tiny compared to what most people buy in the store. It could be worse, they could just be thrown away

After WW2, Campbell soup used to come around and buy old spent hens. This is before CX and hybrid layers. Now soup companies use CX and it tastes like the chicken ran through it....no taste compared to an old bird simmered for hours.

 

[Sally PB]

1 oz hydrated lime (pickling lime)

Where did you get yours? I want to try this next summer/fall when I have lots of eggs.