Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

Naine de Tournaisis (a breed that was almost extinct) from Belgium.
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P.s. it seems these Tournaisis is not a strong breed. Both hens died quit young (4) . And not because of a predator. My guesses: internal infection after laying shell less eggs for sone time and hart attack or stroke.
Maybe 🤔 too much inbred?
I do hope the rooster didn’t pass on any genetic failures. I gave him away to a breeder who was very happy with him.
 

I was surprised you and others found it funny, but I then understood no one read the second caption 🙂. I'm more a dark grim than a funny poster!

:gig:loveMy layers prefer a grape diet in autumn.

My chickens don’t fly into the cherry trees. Maybe it’s a bit too high , or they don’t try this out of respect for the birds that claimed the cherry trees. We have lots of pigeons, sparrows and blue jays in our garden even before the cherry’s turn red. The chickens do search for leftover on the grass. But now they prefer the grass seeds we scattered to pimp the ‘lawn’.
Mine don't fly either. Vanille is perched on my partner's shoulder. They also really love grapes!
 
P.s. it seems these Tournaisis is not a strong breed. Both hens died quit young (4) . And not because of a predator. My guesses: internal infection after laying shell less eggs for sone time and hart attack or stroke.
Maybe 🤔 too much inbred?
I do hope the rooster didn’t pass on any genetic failures. I gave him away to a breeder who was very happy with him.
I think a lot of species and breeds nearing extinction are so for entirely natural reasons. Fussy eaters head up the queue :p And the fewer there are left, the more likely those trying to save them will have to breed closely related individuals, with genetically undesirable consequences.
FYI: We have a saying here : goeie grutten (good grits), meaning I am flabbergasted.
Interesting; so that's equivalent to English 'good grief' (whose origin I don't know).
 
Is chick starter feed generally the same as broiler feed? The stuff they give chicks that go off to slaughter at 39 days? If so, I think I don't want to use that anymore.
It seems to vary in composition but essentially from the types I've seen it's pretty much the same. This is why I have reservations about just how much better it is than some of the old school chick feeds.
This is the medicated chick feed I used in Catalonia.
The problem is here in the UK getting this sort of feed analysis from the manufacturers.
The USA seems to be notably better at providing such data for animal feeds.
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The eggs broody Chipie is sitting on, both Chipie and Théo, and the advice on the egg-bread mixture for chicks come from a 75 year old farmer, Gaston.
He doesn't view his animals like I do mine at all. They are livestock and have no name except for the dogs. He does care a lot about them, and this has always been the way he spends his whole days, but he cares for a flock/herd, and he will always give priority to overall vigor over saving one individual. For example he will go through a lot of trouble and time and pull some pretty disgusting tricks of the trade to get a motherless lamb adopted by a ewe, but he doesn't bother to treat a lamb with vitamin deficiency which is very common and easy to treat.
In his way of thinking using a homemade mixture to feed chicks makes sense because time for preparation isn't a criteria and the broody will indeed take over and the chick will learn to forage for itself, whereas using medicated starter definitely wouldn't. I'm not in the same mindset and for my chickens I wouldn't value public health above each individual life 🙂.
The more experience I acquired the more like Gaston's view I adopted.:oops::D
I think many of those newish to chicken keeping and who keep them in the coop and run model, particularly in the USA, tend to want to save every chicken.
This doesn't make much sense to me because the majority of the chicken they are trying to save are likely to be hatchery stock with very poor genetics.
I'm most interested in trying to undo the damage that the hatcheries have done to the breed in general.
I find it strange that some people will happily get day old chicks sent through the mail, often with packing chicks which often die, but once they've got the chicks, every chicks life matters. What about those that died in order that the person who wanted them could have them?
 
:gig:loveMy layers prefer a grape diet in autumn.

My chickens don’t fly into the cherry trees. Maybe it’s a bit too high , or they don’t try this out of respect for the birds that claimed the cherry trees. We have lots of pigeons, sparrows and blue jays in our garden even before the cherry’s turn red. The chickens do search for leftover on the grass. But now they prefer the grass seeds we scattered to pimp the ‘lawn’.
The chickens in Catalonia loved the wine grapes that grew there.
I made a terrible mistake once and bought some grapes from a supermarket. The chickens wouldn't touch them.:confused:
 
Ouch! What do you use to keep infection out? I imagine his spurs were less than sterile.

hooray!

I went unmedicated last year and lost to illness only 1 out of 9 in one clutch and 1 out of 6 in the other, and I don't think coccidiosis was the cause of death in either case.
Chlorhexedine.
 
he thinks grits should be given so the gizzard can get working properly. I think grits is porridge.
Since he is talking about the gizzard, I think this "grits" must be the plural of grit (little stones for the gizzard to grind food with.)

I know that "grits" can be a kind of food, but I do not think that makes sense here. (Unless he thinks that porridge is somehow good for the gizzard, unlike all the other foods he is mentioning.)
 

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