Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[ManueB]

My payment.
View attachment 3009062View attachment 3009063that picture of him crowing is wonderful! You caught him right at it.

 

[ManueB]

I would go for a Goshawk. Sparrowhawks prefer smaller creatures ime.
Yup, the rooster fights off massive hawk stories are much exagerated at best and a few I've seen have obviously been set up. A hen with chicks is another matter altogether. I've had a few fight off a Goshawk.
How's the hen with the eye injury doing?

Much better, thanks for asking. We put her back in the coop very quickly to avoid more stress, in a crate. She was able to roost alone so we let her with the others. Her eyes is now open 2/3 of the time and she is active, except some moments when she is in pain.
My partner bought metacam at the drugstore even though it is supposed to come with a prescription. We didn't give it to her because she was doing so much better.

We're kind of wondering how to handle this situation because the hawk will come back. The girls stayed inside all day , I just brought them outside for an hour with me before dawn. Théo took every opportunity to show himself a man after his pitiful departure during the attack. The girls are totally disgusted with him.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

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...

Did you stop in for coffee or tea?

We have tried to organise something but flood waters keep cutting the roads.

At the moment we are concentrating on trying to find a route home which looks like it will take us inland and away from ribh.

 

[Aussie-Chookmum]

I've made a friend of sorts at the allotments. He and his partner have turned up at the allotments from time to time over the winter months and I got to chatting with him a bit. Bar myself and C, he and his partner are the only people one could describe as active at the allotments. I've talked to him a lot about the chickens; a subject he doesn't know much about and a couple of weeks ago he turned up with a 20kg bag of layers pellets and said he is prepared to buy more in the future. He arrived with some shredded paper for bedding today.
He's not a local man and he knows a bit about Catalonia and has educated and informed views on a lot of topics. He's considerably younger than I am and reasonably fit. Niether of us think the most is being made of the place and he and I have been working out what we can do to make improvements. The improvements we are planning are small and hopefully achievable.

Hooray! A like minded ally!

 

[ManueB]

Good morning Ex Batts !
It is wet buckets of rain coming down birds will be inside doing dirt baths today
Here is the tax pair of birds coming inside. water buckets with nipples. Cones so the buckets to keep birds off them.View attachment 3008531

Did your lot figure out easily how to use the nipples? I'm thinking of getting those.

 

[ManueB]

It was just begining to dry out and then today ruined it.
They all came out for some chopped tomatoes, walnuts and cabbage. A few stayed out but most went back and got under cover.View attachment 3009070View attachment 3009071View attachment 3009072View attachment 3009073

Those pictures make their place look really dreary, and so much wet mud.
Even though these ex batts may not have the ways and the strength of a "real chicken" , in a way the ones that survived must be pretty resilient not to catch infections and diseases in such an environment.

 

[micstrachan]

I've made a friend of sorts at the allotments. He and his partner have turned up at the allotments from time to time over the winter months and I got to chatting with him a bit. Bar myself and C, he and his partner are the only people one could describe as active at the allotments. I've talked to him a lot about the chickens; a subject he doesn't know much about and a couple of weeks ago he turned up with a 20kg bag of layers pellets and said he is prepared to buy more in the future. He arrived with some shredded paper for bedding today.
He's not a local man and he knows a bit about Catalonia and has educated and informed views on a lot of topics. He's considerably younger than I am and reasonably fit. Niether of us think the most is being made of the place and he and I have been working out what we can do to make improvements. The improvements we are planning are small and hopefully achievable.

This is wonderful, Shad!

 

[micstrachan]

Another hawk attack and this time it wounded one of the girls . She's got one eye completely closed and some bloody pecks around the other. We cleaned the wounds and put some saline solution inside her eye, It seems normal inside but the lid is swollen. Now she's inside with us in a box looking like she's in pain, she ate a little though. Don't know yet if it's just complete shock or if she has some internal damage we can't see.

Oh no! I hope to read on and learn she is ok.

 

[micstrachan]

I had an afternoon off today. C is at the allotments so hopefully they'll get fed and let out for a bit. Waiting now to see how Henry gets on with the Ivermectin.
Got some Betadin on order and I'll give his legs a coating which will help with the irritation while the Ivermectin gets on with killing the mites.

Shad, how are you applying ivermectin, and how much? Do you know how much Henry weighs? I’m considering this route for Lucky, my BLR Wyandotte with bad SLM.

 

[micstrachan]

The bantams are one year old today.

View attachment 3008267View attachment 3008268View attachment 3008269

Beautiful birds!