Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[ManueB]

Caught him!

Do you know who he was mounting? He is so big you can't even see the hen underneath.

The weldmesh is just a temporary measure to close of the currnet rat runs. They will of course just get in somewhere else but this will slow them down a bit

Our fencing around the property has rectangles the size of the one you are consolidating. It's good at keeping out stags, deers and roe deers, but not badgers and hares , and our cats can wiggle through if they insist. We wouldn't imagine using it for the chicken pen even though we don't have all those mustelidaes.
I've never seen weldmesh, is it rigid like hard cloth? Right now we have woven fencing doubled with chicken mesh and because we don't have predators that gnaw the mesh off it works fine but when we redo it next year I would like to make it more secure.

This is Lima. She looked a bit off. I gave her a check over. She's not at all bothered by me picking her up. I couldn't feel an egg from underneath or just inside her vent. She laid a soft shelled egg. I just wasn't quick enough to get a picture of it. This lot arrived too quickly.
Lima looked better after the egg came out but not what I would call normal. I'm going to give her some calcium. Bear in mind that Lima will forage at every opportunity and I'm wondering if she is eating enough of the pellets to get sufficient calcium.View attachment 3057997View attachment 3057999View attachment 3058001

Interesting serie of pictures documenting soft shell laying. I'm always slightly worried when the ex-batts rush to eat a just laid soft shell egg, that they will start eating normal eggs also. However in spite of the great number of soft shelled eggs they have eaten, it hasn't happened.

Are you giving them egg shells or oyster shell on the side or is it something you don't believe is useful?

 

[ManueB]

Stunning scenery! Pretty to look @ but pretty sure I wouldn't want to be walking up your hill every day!

We have to be in good shape to run climbing back up to the house when we're all the way down, like when there was a hawk attack a few weeks ago or yesterday when the neighbor's donkeys broke in the property and made us chase them for 20 minutes. Old people here are in great health I can tell you!

What an great set of pictures. I'm sure the sunshine helps to make everything look better.

That and the fact that the grass is beginning to turn green even though we are now officially on drought alert. Without the sun it's a very stark and almost scary landscape, luckily that doesn't happen often.

Boy did I need that hint!!!!!!
What does the cat smell like if it sleeps in the manure pile?

I wouldn't know, I don't do cat hugs. The two cats were raised as barn kittens to rid us of an out of control mice problem, they lived outside their first year, even through a very hard winter in 2020. Then my partner who had fallen head over heels for them decided they had to come live with us in the house.
It's his family's place so I have to pick my fights carefully and this one I can't win, or I'll have to go live in one of the barns.

 

[bruceha2000]

If you do, I suggest finding a different place to sleep than in the manure piles

 

[RoyalChick]

If you do, I suggest finding a different place to sleep than in the manure piles

Don't forget that manure piles are lovely and warm. The top will be baked dry and not smelly. I think the cat has it figured about right!

 

[bruceha2000]

I think I might still want to put a blanket down on top of it

 

[ManueB]

Indeed it's dry and warm now it's been lying there for a few months. Before that grochatila used to sleep on top of the compost pile! I'm more afraid of fleas than of his smell, actually .

Though actually when I think of it the bantams have began digging off the top layer to get to the juicy stuff under .

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

The temperature is 72 and sunny.

Have a great day!

 

[pennyJo1960]

Hey X Batts I am up to 11 hatched Most will go to auction by next week or this Saturday ? Keeping 4 or 5 for my Bud here.

 

[Shadrach]

Do you know who he was mounting? He is so big you can't even see the hen underneath.

Our fencing around the property has rectangles the size of the one you are consolidating. It's good at keeping out stags, deers and roe deers, but not badgers and hares , and our cats can wiggle through if they insist. We wouldn't imagine using it for the chicken pen even though we don't have all those mustelidaes.
I've never seen weldmesh, is it rigid like hard cloth? Right now we have woven fencing doubled with chicken mesh and because we don't have predators that gnaw the mesh off it works fine but when we redo it next year I would like to make it more secure.

Interesting serie of pictures documenting soft shell laying. I'm always slightly worried when the ex-batts rush to eat a just laid soft shell egg, that they will start eating normal eggs also. However in spite of the great number of soft shelled eggs they have eaten, it hasn't happened.

Are you giving them egg shells or oyster shell on the side or is it something you don't believe is useful?

Weldmesh is a generic term for any welded mesh fence as opposed to a fence like stock net and some chicken which are wound or tied at the joins/nodes.
So yes, what the Americans call hardware cloth is a lightweight weldmesh.

I do give them a calcium carbonate and grit mix. The uptake is poor. I've been doing the rounds of some chemists today trying to get Calcium Citrate. Most of these types of health enhancers, like vitamins, come with other things mixed in.
I found plain Calcium Carbonate eventually. I'll have to get the Citrate online.

 

[cfonts]

Shared these photos on BYBob's thread, but thought I'd share them here too. Last time I wrote was in response to Shad about the bill that they are in the process of passing here in Hawaii - to eradicate the feral chicken in Hawaii

Here's a feral cockerel that I met yesterday named Charlie. My fiancé befriended him last week and I was able to finally meet him yesterday.

Tell me, why would anyone want to eradicate this?!