Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[ManueB]

Would there be any possibility to find someone either from the allotment or maybe one of your neighbour, interested in a weekly carton of egg for a supermarket price ? This could help paying for the hens food without too much hassle?

 

[ManueB]

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of care instructions, if any, did you get from the people you got your Ex Battery hen from?

hello @ManueB - I think your birds are very lucky to have you They seem to have settled right in to normal chicken life despite their unfortunate start in life.

We got no advice at all from the battery, and I'm afraid I made it sound like a fairy tale and gave us the good role but in fact we got so many things wrong. All our knowledge was based on my partner's memories of how his grandmother kept hens when a was a child (we are living in her house).

Here are some of our mistakes and some of the hard stuff our hens went through :
-food : when we got the pullets they were already on layer feed although they were little more than two months old. We thought it would be a good idea to keep them on the same stuff, because it was produced by the battery (on their own land and mill) ...so we bought 80 kilos. Turns out it was full of gross stuff( colourings, flavourings) , it had a three months life date, and anyway the pullets were too young for it. It probably forced them into laying too early.
- the other food mistake we made because of grandma's memory, was cook them all our potatoes that were too small or too shabby for human consumption. They must have eaten about a hundred kilo the first winter. Once I learnt better it was hard to convince my partner that maybe we shouldn't do this exactly as grandma did.
- our coop is awful. It's a vaulted cellar in our old house, it used to be a barn then turned into a coop in the 1930's, has an earth floor, is so dusty and old that I thought we could never keep animals in there. We didn't know about ventilation so the first winter we closed the double doors every night and left the water in the coop, trapping all the moisture inside. We use our harvested hay as bedding because our place is only accessible on foot and there is no way we could bring a sufficient amount of straw or wood chips for a 15 M2 coop.
- Regarding health troubles our hen Vanille has had troubles laying ever since she started. I can not count the times we thought she would die. Two other hens began having occasional difficulties in their second years. One of them has days when she will scream when she lays almost like a pregnant woman. I feel so helpless, we have tried changing their feed, adding calcium supplement, nothing is really effective. It's just on and off without us understanding what's going on.
- The bantams introduction was a psychological catastrophe. Almost two months after one of our hens is still so angry and distressed that she is literally making herself sick. All of our hens will retain laying if the bantams are in the coop at the time they want to lay so they are all getting egg bound one after the other. (The bantam lady of course only wants to lay in the coop and love watching the standards trying to lay. )

So yes they do have a good life on the whole because they have quite a lot of space and are outside all day but if we had been given sound advice before things would have been smoother. Probably we would have gotten just two ex batts and other hens from a farm.

Some tax that show the other side of the fairy tale . Vanille when she spent a month in a cage in September sick and molting.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

We got no advice at all from the battery, and I'm afraid I made it sound like a fairy tale and gave us the good role but in fact we got so many things wrong. All our knowledge was based on my partner's memories of how his grandmother kept hens when a was a child (we are living in her house).

Here are some of our mistakes and some of the hard stuff our hens went through :
-food : when we got the pullets they were already on layer feed although they were little more than two months old. We thought it would be a good idea to keep them on the same stuff, because it was produced by the battery (on their own land and mill) ...so we bought 80 kilos. Turns out it was full of gross stuff( colourings, flavourings) , it had a three months life date, and anyway the pullets were too young for it. It probably forced them into laying too early.
- the other food mistake we made because of grandma's memory, was cook them all our potatoes that were too small or too shabby for human consumption. They must have eaten about a hundred kilo the first winter. Once I learnt better it was hard to convince my partner that maybe we shouldn't do this exactly as grandma did.
- our coop is awful. It's a vaulted cellar in our old house, it used to be a barn then turned into a coop in the 1930's, has an earth floor, is so dusty and old that I thought we could never keep animals in there. We didn't know about ventilation so the first winter we closed the double doors every night and left the water in the coop, trapping all the moisture inside. We use our harvested hay as bedding because our place is only accessible on foot and there is no way we could bring a sufficient amount of straw or wood chips for a 15 M2 coop.
- Regarding health troubles our hen Vanille has had troubles laying ever since she started. I can not count the times we thought she would die. Two other hens began having occasional difficulties in their second years. One of them has days when she will scream when she lays almost like a pregnant woman. I feel so helpless, we have tried changing their feed, adding calcium supplement, nothing is really effective. It's just on and off without us understanding what's going on.
- The bantams introduction was a psychological catastrophe. Almost two months after one of our hens is still so angry and distressed that she is literally making herself sick. All of our hens will retain laying if the bantams are in the coop at the time they want to lay so they are all getting egg bound one after the other. (The bantam lady of course only wants to lay in the coop and love watching the standards trying to lay. )

So yes they do have a good life on the whole because they have quite a lot of space and are outside all day but if we had been given sound advice before things would have been smoother. Probably we would have gotten just two ex batts and other hens from a farm.

Some tax that show the other side of the fairy tale . Vanille when she spent a month in a cage in September sick and molting.

View attachment 2965499

It's a steep learning curve alright. I've been there too making my own mistakes.


Tax: My girls turn up their noses at tea.

 

[BDutch]

After reading 51 pages I can’t help to react on one of the topics that passed by.

chicks hatched from the environment that they will live in are the ones that do the best in my experience.

Likewise.

My 2 pence on the cold and heat resistance of chickens or breeds. :

I think ‘survival of the fittest’ comes in here as an important factor.
Because of the speed of generations following up (average 2 years? ) the surviving chickens* make better offspring for very cold/ very hot / very dry or whatever circumstances they need to survive in, in just a decade or 2 this can make a the difference imho.

* Obvious I don’t mean breeding programs for shows or pampered chickens but chickens that need to survive in quit a natural setting.

This is why the nowadays hybrids for the egg factories are often not fit for our backyards.

So yes, the chicks that are hatched in the environment have better genes for you’re climate than the hatchery chicks or fertilised eggs from another country/ state.

 

[Perris]

We got no advice at all from the battery, and I'm afraid I made it sound like a fairy tale and gave us the good role but in fact we got so many things wrong. All our knowledge was based on my partner's memories of how his grandmother kept hens when a was a child (we are living in her house).

Here are some of our mistakes and some of the hard stuff our hens went through :
-food : when we got the pullets they were already on layer feed although they were little more than two months old. We thought it would be a good idea to keep them on the same stuff, because it was produced by the battery (on their own land and mill) ...so we bought 80 kilos. Turns out it was full of gross stuff( colourings, flavourings) , it had a three months life date, and anyway the pullets were too young for it. It probably forced them into laying too early.
- the other food mistake we made because of grandma's memory, was cook them all our potatoes that were too small or too shabby for human consumption. They must have eaten about a hundred kilo the first winter. Once I learnt better it was hard to convince my partner that maybe we shouldn't do this exactly as grandma did.
- our coop is awful. It's a vaulted cellar in our old house, it used to be a barn then turned into a coop in the 1930's, has an earth floor, is so dusty and old that I thought we could never keep animals in there. We didn't know about ventilation so the first winter we closed the double doors every night and left the water in the coop, trapping all the moisture inside. We use our harvested hay as bedding because our place is only accessible on foot and there is no way we could bring a sufficient amount of straw or wood chips for a 15 M2 coop.
- Regarding health troubles our hen Vanille has had troubles laying ever since she started. I can not count the times we thought she would die. Two other hens began having occasional difficulties in their second years. One of them has days when she will scream when she lays almost like a pregnant woman. I feel so helpless, we have tried changing their feed, adding calcium supplement, nothing is really effective. It's just on and off without us understanding what's going on.
- The bantams introduction was a psychological catastrophe. Almost two months after one of our hens is still so angry and distressed that she is literally making herself sick. All of our hens will retain laying if the bantams are in the coop at the time they want to lay so they are all getting egg bound one after the other. (The bantam lady of course only wants to lay in the coop and love watching the standards trying to lay. )

So yes they do have a good life on the whole because they have quite a lot of space and are outside all day but if we had been given sound advice before things would have been smoother. Probably we would have gotten just two ex batts and other hens from a farm.

Some tax that show the other side of the fairy tale . Vanille when she spent a month in a cage in September sick and molting.

View attachment 2965499

Thank you for sharing this; it does sound like a steep learning curve, as Aussie-Chookmum said, and indeed we all make mistakes, especially when we're novices to chicken-keeping. By sharing our stories we help others avoid repeating them. It's very easy to assume responsibility for something that is not your doing too, for example the hen that screams when she lays - some do that, whatever the circumstances of their keeping.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

The temperature is 55 and sunny.

Have a great day!

 

[Ribh]

Thank you for sharing this; it does sound like a steep learning curve, as Aussie-Chookmum said, and indeed we all make mistakes, especially when we're novices to chicken-keeping. By sharing our stories we help others avoid repeating them. It's very easy to assume responsibility for something that is not your doing too, for example the hen that screams when she lays - some do that, whatever the circumstances of their keeping.

My Campines are screamers. They run round the yard like demented harridans screaming blue murder before they lay. Some days nowhere suits them & it goes on for hours.

 

[Shadrach]

My got-by-mistake ISA juveniles (Ginger and Goldilocks) are about 15 weeks old and I think mama Caramel is finally starting to cut the apron strings. They’re going through the funny skwonky voice change stage. She doesn’t cluck to call them over when she finds something tasty anymore, thought they’re still bedding down on the floor of the coop together. I’m surprised she has stayed with these gals for as long as she has. There was some nice sunshine this afternoon and they were still hanging around each other and enjoying the sun.

I realized when I went to fill up the waterer that the feeder was completely empty - and what a mad rush for food ensued as soon as I fixed the situation! It’s ridiculous that your birds should be in a situation that could easily be as terrible as the one they were ‘rescued’ from when they’re being fed sandwiches and scratch grains. Perhaps C thinks (consciously or unconsciously) that you’re obviously more invested in properly caring for the birds and is backing off so you will take over the responsibility. If no one is collecting eggs or cleaning the coop or helping with feed costs, then I see absolutely no reason why you can’t feed every single egg (unless you personally want some) back to those birds.

1. Peanut enjoying the swing and sunshine.
2. Mobbing the freshly filled feeder.
3. Ginger jumping off the compost pile.
4. Ginger, Goldilocks, and Caramel preening in the sunshine.

C cleans the coop on Sundays usually. But with 20 chickens in such a small space with inadequate ventilation and insufficient perch space it needs doing every day. It doesn't need a full clean out, just the stuff with poop on taken out.

The feeding is ignorance. C like ManueB's partner has apparently a farming background although they don't seem to learn't much from it, and they fed the chickens scraps and rubbish. C thinks this is fine. While I can see this may be okay where the chickens free range and the right type of chickens are kept, it's not okay for modern production hens.

I have fed some eggs back to them but the fact is they are not my chickens, or my eggs come to that.

 

[DobieLover]

I have fed some eggs back to them but the fact is they are not my chickens, or my eggs come to that.

Well, they're the chickens eggs so they can damn well have them back!

 

[RoyalChick]

Well, they're the chickens eggs so they can damn well have them back!

You beat me to it - I would have no qualms feeding them all the eggs.