Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Aussie-Chookmum]

Have a wonderful vacay ACM! Can't wait to hear about it when you get back

We headed up the North Coast, up past Ribh. So far it has been very.....wet.

Flood warnings all around us. I think we will try heading inland next...

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

10 days without ACM. I don't think I will make it.

It's OK Bob. I finally figured out how to reach BYC on my tablet.

Thanks for the good wishes everyone. We will do our best to have fun!

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

You need the rain there though don't you?

I think I'd like it better in smaller installments.

 

[Shadrach]

Best news ever. And a TRUE testament to what you are doing. Shad, I hope you know that I do take everything you say to heart. I am just limited in what I can do due to the fact that I still work full-time and my birds have been raised in a run and therefore cannot free range without supervision. I have no rooster, and they aren’t as predator savvy as true free ranging would require. However, I do give them as absolutely much as I can. I am a true believer that free ranging is the best path to health for them. So I hope you enjoy this. They have been out for almost 5 hours already, and they’ve got about an hour to go.

I won’t go into it too much here since this is your rescue thread, but my speckled sussex Millie’s health is failing a bit. I’m just very, very happy to see her on her feet. She has been sitting around for about a month and is a hearty eater, so I’m pretty sure she is very fat and she has ascites.
View attachment 3004272

It's a problem for lots of people but in the long run the current coop and run chicken keeping model will be a long term problem for the chicken.
I've mentioned elswhere in a few posts that it took about three generations for the tribes to relearn how to be chickens. Worse still, they were not completely clueless when they started.
I was reading that for the more pregressive pasture raised commercial concerns the lack of knowledge in the chicken on how to free range was causing problems. If the chicks come from those deadfull incubator and broody barns they don't receive the knowledge from their mums and from watching how the adults go about it.
So the current coop and run model is likely to do as much harm to the heritage breeds as the batteries have done to the high production breeds.
Hens need roosters and roosters need hens. Chicks need both and until this sinks in to the average chicken keeper I can't see much hope.
I would wager that if Perris say was to post a sequence of videos of his tribes the difference in behaviour would be pretty obvious compared to a group of hens who got let out of their run for a few hours a week.
There is a further complication. Until one has seen/kept/observed what a breeding rooster and hens flock behaves like one can't really understand just how intelligent and social the chicken is. In part, because of this, people do not have a grasp on how important mixed groups that breed like feral chickens and jungle fowl is to the health and welfare of the chicken in general.

 

[Shadrach]

or they could do it in line instead of shoulder to shoulder
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That looks like a good spot. The have good vision over the open ground but some cover from which to view it. The bantams in Spain used something much like that but a bit denser as their favourite spot in the afternoons,

 

[RoyalChick]

or they could do it in line instead of shoulder to shoulder
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What kind of hedge is that Perris? It seems to have held on to its dead leaves which is a characteristic of beech trees - but they certainly aren't fully grown beech trees and there are other trees and shrubs that do similar.
Just curious - it is an attractive hedge and gives nice cover for your chickens.

 

[Shadrach]

I'm also thinking of giving my lot supervised free range time on the whole property, especially now that we're going to restrict their space for six weeks to help the grass grow.
However when I've tried that in the past they stayed disciplined for a day or two and then they just get overexcited and dispersed everywhere. This made it difficult to supervise them, and also after two days the bucket of corn to make them come back lost it's interest and I had to go carry them back one by one.
Maybe I didn't insist long enough and after a while they would think of staying together ? Also we used to try it in the afternoon when we were working in the garden, but maybe it's better to do it at the end of the day so that they would want naturally to come back to the coop when night settles in?

At the end of the day is how I've done it with the Ex Battery hens. This will change now that dusk is shifting into the evening hours. Luckily they know that when Henry heads for the coop then they should follow. Even the Ex Battery hens have this worked out although a couple of them will stay out late if I'm out there with them.

 

[Shadrach]

My flock have been at it 6 years now, and they get better all the time. I think predator pressure is what keeps them together. There are foxes and hawks, but they don't seem to attack when the flock hangs together. It is birds that have gone off on their own that get targeted. Having multiple roos no doubt helps deter predators too.

Yup, it takes time.

 

[Shadrach]

Good morning Ex Batts eggs go to lockdown today ...
Smudge lost his tail feathers with the dog fight ..
He is going into mini Molt .. He is keeping the girls closer to the coop.. and one crow keeps them running back to him so far ...
He has no wounds at all from the dog
View attachment 3005075

He's possibly having a stress moult. Able did when he took a hawk strike. He had one small puncture wound from a claw but was otherwise physically unharmed.

 

[Shadrach]

Found some rodent droppings in the coop this morning.

Time to give the coop another complete onceover/update on my next day off.

They say one is never more than a meter away from a rat.