Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Ladies-Eight]

snap! View attachment 3088717

Nice cup.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

The temperature is 64 and clear.

Have a great day!

 

[NatJ]

There are zero scratch grains or meal worms for my chickens anymore since TWO have died of fatty liver hemorrhage. The only exception is a tiny bit of millet to call them in, if needed. I’ve even eliminated carrot.

Chickens often love wet chicken food, so a dish of that can make a good "treat" to get them to come. Of course it's nutritionally the same, whether they eat it wet or dry.

 

[Perris]

Nice cup.

Yes, one of my favorites. And Shad's got/had the same one, in his photo of Treacle

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Chickens often love wet chicken food, so a dish of that can make a good "treat" to get them to come. Of course it's nutritionally the same, whether they eat it wet or dry.

I don't give my chickens very often.

Every day as I'm leaving after gathering eggs I take a handful of their food and pitch it like a treat.

You would think I had given them the most expensive treat ever.

 

[Shadrach]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61275750

 

[ManueB]

The whole story of Janice.
3 years ago I had a young and beautiful rooster. A naine de Tournaisis.

Oscar here as a young cockerel. With 2 ‘sisters’ of the same hatch. View attachment 3087999
I gathered some eggs . When I had two Dutch broodies Ini mini and Zoë , I gave them 7 eggs for offspring.
After 20 days I had 5 chicks. The 2 Tournaisis eggs didn’t hatch.

I had contact with someone who had a death chicken and she wanted 2 of my chicks for compagnon for her chicken.
I explained that such is not a good idea. But she could buy one mother with 2 probably male chicks (5 weeks old). She agreed and I kept one mother with possibly 2 boys and 1 girl.

When they where about 10 weeks it was obvious that my suspicion was correct. I advertised that 1 cockerel could be picked up for free. A man who had 2 sons wanted both cockerels (one for each son) and I gave them both. Despite of what I planned. So Janice, my only girl stayed behind without her brothers.

Ini mini, her real mother stopped nursing her chicks after about 7-8 weeks. So now Janice was on her own. During the day she fitted in quit nicely in the flock. But before bedtime the oldies pestered her. She searched another place to roost and went back to the place were she probably felt safe. In the nestbox. She shopped roosting. After a few weeks I tried to convince her to roost with the others. But by forcing her I only made things worse for her. This was my second mistake. I’m afraid she got a little traumatised. And from the day I realisid what I had done , I let her sleep where she wanted to.

It took Janice over a year to become part of the flock.
View attachment 3088095
Janice View attachment 3088098
Ini mini

Thanks for telling the whole story. It was unusual circumstances because I gather roosters are difficult to re-home usually! It must have been a hard time for Janice and I understand why you would do things differently after having seen that.
You say after a year she did integrate the flock, so I'm glad in the end things turned out alright for her! She is very beautiful, the white earlobes look like jewellery I find.

I think I remember you keep mostly bantams, out of curiosity was the rest of the flock the same size and she was rejected just because she was the youngest, or were there standards sized hens as well?

I find incredible how important social interactions are for chickens and how difficult they can be. Going back to Ex-batts, I can't imagine what it must be like for them living in a place with thousands of hens. There were ten thousands where I got mine.

I know people don't like having poop on the eggs and bedding if a hen sleeps in the nest (I don't care about either). Other than the mess I can't see why I should object to where a chicken wants to sleep in a coop.

I have always wondered how this could happen, if you have collected all the eggs during the day ? And I suppose most people like me clean poop when opening the coop in the morning, so I don't understand when would a hen lay so that there would still be poop in the nest box where another slept?

 

[ManueB]

Tap. She often looked at me like I had just told her a tall story.
View attachment 3088215View attachment 3088216
Treacle.
View attachment 3088217View attachment 3088214
Mag.
View attachment 3088219
View attachment 3088213

Did you ever make some kind of genealogical tree of the tribes?

 

[Molpet]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61275750

In the USA I went from $18/50# to $22/40#

 

[BDutch]

Hope everyone is feeling better soon.

I never heard vaccinated people are longer then 2 weeks sick. The only people I know that have so cold long Covid didn’t get a vaccination.

Here the temp went up 10C in one day. Today feels like summer with 17 C and and lots of sunshine.

One good thing came with Covid. We can work at home if there’s no need to gather. So I’m enjoying sitting in my own garden during lunch break. With a blackbird singing to me from the cherry tree. Another blackbird in the Magnolia of the neighbours just joined the concert.

Yesterday my broody bantam RIR gave me a little egg again after 2 weeks (high hopes). But this morning she was grumping again in a nestbox. This afternoon she finally decided to join the flock again. This RIR creature is more difficult to stop than my Dutch.