Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Ribh]

Ribh could tell you just how delighted she is every time one of her hens goes broody.

I object to having to fight tooth & nail to grab eggs from under vicious little bantams & most of them have been broody for most of the summer. The bonus is they are going to live longer & be healthier chickens for not laying so often. As most of the bantams are in their 1st laying season they aren't always the brightest sticks in the pile.

 

[Ribh]

And just to drive the point home, Ha'penny & Beatha, who are NOT bantams, have been up to their old tricks & stashing eggs in a secret nest. At least I found them while they are still fresh but they did need a good wash.
Don't ever let anyone tell you Campines don't go broody!​

 

[Marie2020]

Another sunny day! Positively crowded at the allotments this afternoon. Three people! All at once! I spoke to everyone. When the next allotment meeting is held I want to know a bit about who I'm talking to. I'm going to explain that I want to let the chickens out on the entire allotment and that they should fence off delicate/chicken interest plants. It isn't hard, or expensive to do. I'm doing it on my plot. It just needs to discourage the chickens. It's not like they are trying to keep out wild boar.View attachment 3036352
Tuna and a small amount of plain pasta.
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Matilda in the front of the picture. Next is Henry. That grey hen third in is Fret. How she squeezed in between Cloud and Henry I have no idea. They'll stay there overnight.
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The rest making their way to roost. There are only two hens that stand in the doorway and stop some others getting in. Fortunately they get bored quickly or barged out of the way by a more senior hen and the others pile in behind her.
That's Lima looking up at me and you can see that feathers still haven't grown on her throat.
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They all look soooooo contented. Good work Sharach

 

[Marie2020]

Definitely Leghorns have these issues. Anecdotally, I’ve only had two… a Brown Leghorn and a California White, which is 3/4 Leghorn and 1/4 Plymouth Barred Rock. The Brown Leghorn (Margo) died of a chronic egg yolk peritonitis infection that went septic. She also showed a background Marek’s infection, which likely compromised her immune system per UC Davis necropsy write up. She showed signs of a reproductive infection about a year before her death, but never had soft eggs and laid frequently.
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The California White, Dorothy, battled soft eggs on and off for about a year. She slowly got less active over time, but seemed mostly healthy (except for the soft eggs, which made her feel lousy and were exhausting to pass). Until, suddenly one morning she seemed miserable and was hiding. She had the same too-deep-of-a-red colored comb Margo had before she died. Poor Dorothy died that evening.
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Because of the timing of her death, I was unable to send her for necropsy. She is buried under the giant walnut tree you can see hovering over the run in the background.

 

[Marie2020]

Your English is better than many native English speakers.

Plus the spelling and grammar is much better than mine

 

[Marie2020]

Would have to go back to family farms for that to work. Too many people to feed and too many people needed for modern jobs (that aren't really needed, like fast food) . Have to go back 75 yrs in lifestyle.

Then let's go back immediately

 

[Marie2020]

Oh no!! I'm so ashamed !

You have nothing too be ashamed of. I need lessons in spelling and grammar. Do you have a lifetime of time to teach me please

 

[Solanacae]

Ginger and Goldilocks have such expressive faces : the curiosity of youth! Is it the light or is ginger turning a lighter color as she grows ?

It may be the lighting, I think. Goldilocks is a shade lighter and has more white on her feathers than Ginger.

A few clips from earlier today

Grumpy broodies make me smile. When Caramel went broody last year she would furiously dust bathe like that as well. I had to chuckle at the rest of your flock standing off to the side just watching her and (except for Mr. Bumble) staying out of her way!

Only having chicken for Sunday dinner. Unless your rich....my parents met because a farmer was selling 3 chickens for a dollar in late 1930s...my mom made friends with the farmers daughter, visted in summers and ride their horses... met my dad who worked at a local stable.

Western society and the US in particular eats WAY more meat than is necessary or healthy. Portion sizes alone are distorted and the frequency of meat-based meals are to blame. I was chatting with a lady about how I plan meals - one or two dinners each week will have a lump of meat on the plate, 3-4 will have meat in the meal but in a smaller quantity and not the main focus, and 1-2 will not have any meat at all. It was like a revelation to her. She always felt obligated to have a meal where that chunk of meat was there on the plate. No one was forcing her to serve meals like that, she just never really considered anything different. She was also spending a fortune doing it that way, because she was purchasing better quality meat (the more humanely raised kind) which is more expensive than the cheap garbage produced en masse at factory farms. Changing our expectations for meat consumption to how people were eating 75 years ago would go a long ways in reducing the number of factory farmed birds.

Yes, you can only do what you can do.
If I had to guess, I would say the next generation would do just fine. I don't think it would only be Henry's genetic contribution, I think it would be their living conditions.
For sure some behavior is learned, but other behaviors are instinctive but may have been suppressed in battery life.
Take the whole dustbathing thing. Diana, is not ex-Batt but is a battery hen breed who has spent her adult life with me. She is a huge dustbather. She digs the biggest holes you could imagine and has a grand old time in them. So it hasn't been bred out of the breed of chicken, it just hasn't been allowed to become a habit in a battery hen. Whereas with Diana it is definitely a habit (more like an obsession really).

Ginger and Goldilocks are exactly the kind of bird that would be in the battery situation, except they ended up at a feed store and got mistakenly put in a bin that made me think they were Orpingtons instead of a production breed. (I should have noticed the yellow legs, but never having had Orps before, I forgot they had white legs . . . they are really sweet, friendly birds though, and I’m happy to give them as good and long a life as I can.) Anyway, it’s my understanding that the ISA Brown genetic “formula” is tightly controlled. Both in terms of not revealed what breeds were used to create it and that very specific breeding stock is controlled by the company who holds the patent on the breeding lines. So I agree with @RoyalChick, the environment has more to do with why your ex-batts don’t ever seem to dust bathe than genetics. Mine were raised by a hen and learned to dust bathe from her. Her Diana is a similar example.

 

[Molpet]

one or two dinners each week will have a lump of meat on the plate, 3-4 will have meat in the meal but in a smaller quantity and not the main focus, and 1-2 will not have any meat at all.

Raising my own poultry, which is the meat I mainly eat, has reduced how much I eat.
Having to wait until a hen goes broody, 3 to 4 weeks to hatch a chick or poult, then 16 weeks to 6 months before I start harvesting. Lot of time, effort, feed and especially stress getting them there. Also taking a life is not something I take lightly.
I also eat eggs of course, and can wild salmon. Sometimes I trade turkey eggs with a farmer for pork or beef. I have a big garden and some years I grow enough veggies for most of the year....other years I would die of malnutrition if I couldn't get to the store lol

 

[ManueB]

Possibly the moral high ground would be for me not to keep chickens at all, but I do feel comfortable that my contributions to supporting industrialized poultry farming are now pretty minimal, and I am too selfish to give up my Princesses who bring me so much joy.

I also feel like it's impossible to find perfect solutions. We have definitely decided we are not getting ex-batts again, but I don't regret having them.

Here individuals don't buy chicks from hatcheries, there are only a few of them, that are massive and provide mainly batteries and some breeders. As an individual you would most probably buy from a breeder : the last one that used to send live poultry through mailing has stopped doing it recently with H5N1.