Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[pennyJo1960]

Good Morning Ex Batts. I agree with Shad this is why I watch and follow.. Did not have chickens till I retired ..
They have 1/4 Acre as their yard .. Dog free zone.
They have plenty of cover .. There is one spot open to air attack. Protection is up to Smudge.

 

[TropicalBabies]

Both your settings seem very well suited both for the chickens and for the environment. Many chickens owners would dream of having those conditions

I think the same thing every time you post photos. Just absolutely dreamy!

 

[TropicalBabies]

As some of the few "chicken thinkers" (scholars is too much no?) on earth that will "get this" and you may need to zoom in- but having posted a little of the back story of the nanny and trust me, it was just a little of her back story as she has a whole big beautiful story- Anywho, just a funny share.
Manono is quietly obsessing over her babies, light B hen is running for her life as backup cockeral out for exercise and hot on her tail rounds the corner on 2 wheels (maybe 1).
Main guy Spider is just out of the photos frame. Anywho, makes me chuckle so I thought I would share. Call it tax...

Well, off to go see what I can do for my flock. I'm sure they have a list ready for me.

Have a awesome safe day all!

 

[Ribh]

isn't that idea a hang-over from breeding-to-standard-of-perfection advice, where they're trying to concentrate the genes they want with minimal risk of introducing something undesirable? I think the usual natural pattern is young males or females leave the group and join another one, as they approach sexual maturity. The human conventional version is probably most familiar in the form of matrilocal or patrilocal marriages. And it happens every generation.

How kind even though this did follow an invitation to the guillotine!

I got one of those too... & I'm not even a royalist.

 

[Ribh]

First job in my early 20s was social worker for the ministry of justice, in a juvenile home for minor offenders and placed teens .

I was house mother for homeless teens straight out of college. The system is broken & I'm not sure it's fixable. It's worse now than when I was dealing with the system & my OD is now studying to join it. I think it will break her, probably sooner than later.

 

[Ribh]

I moved her this morning with the four chicks and the remaining egg. Unfortunately the tiny things I thought were lice turned out to be baby red mites in the coop so I didn't want to leave them there any longer.

I managed to do it under 50 seconds, it was stressful but quick. They seem to feel better in the dog crate outside. She is sitting half heartedly on the remaining egg and letting the chicks eat and do their messy stuff.

She's turned from Nyarlathotep to a sweet and fierce mama hen. She still growls the few times I come to have a look. I bet she's not going to raise cuddly chicks this one. I barely managed to snap one or two picture.
View attachment 3138138

She's a very pretty hen.

 

[Shadrach]

@Shadrach, I value your opinion very highly. (I'm sure many others do too.) So I'd like your opinion on my chicken "set up," honestly, not mincing words.

I have 6 hens. My rooster died a few weeks ago. They have:

-Approximately 47 sf in the coop, which is open all day long, and they are closed in at night. Two nest boxes, two roost bars. Food inside during the day, removed at night so as not to attract animals. I scoop the poop off the poop board everyday. It does not smell in there at all, unless someone has just dropped a cecal poop. The bedding is 4+ inches of pine shavings.

-Approximately 156 sf in the run. The run is covered. Half the roof is polycarbonate sheeting (83% light transmission), so there is plenty of light; the other half has a tarp for shade. Two feed bowls and a bowl of water (removed at night). The ground is dirt with LOTS of organic matter in the form of added leaves and weeds. They have lots of clutter to perch on and climb, to take advantage of the vertical space. The have a dust bath with sand, but prefer certain places that they have made.

I do not free range. There are raccoons, opossums, feral cats, dogs, hawks, eagles, skunks, ground hogs, and possibly coyotes in the area. HPAI is circulating too.

I bring them buckets of weeds during garden season. They get "mash snack" just about every day. (Mash made of their regular food and some water.) Their food is a commercial 20% protein flock raiser crumble. I also give them vegetable/fruit kitchen scraps. They have grit, oyster shell, and crushed eggshells on the side.

What can I do better? Do they have "a good life," or am I deluding myself? All honest opinions appreciated.

Let me start with one of those broad sweeping statements I'm probably infamous for; no chicken should be confined to a coop and run.


Wait!
Confined: To shut or keep in, especially to imprison.

From what I can tell most of the keepers on this thread don't in fact do this. They let their chickens out for supervised, or unsupervised sort of free ranging on a regular basis.

How long for and how often should they be let out?

Should one of us be unfortunate enough to get sent to prison under most civilised regimes we would be entitled to an hour of exercise away from our cells. So, one hour a day minimum would seem humane. Lets go with this as a starting point.
It's not just the extra room, it's some relief from the boredom and monotony of living with the same surroundings day in day out. Bored chickens are not well or happy chickens in my experience.

Of course, there are many variations of a coop and run. There are runs of over an acre with a coop, or the one I'm thinking of in particular, a few coops.

The current woefully inadequate allowance for a run is ten square foot per bird. You had 22.3 square feet per bird including your dead rooster. Without your rooster 26 square feet per bird. A bit over two and a half times the current recommendation.

I have no doubt that you are an attentive and caring keeper. The condition of the run is very important. A couple of pictures would have been good. After the above I can't really comment. You are doing what you can to try and ensure your chickens are healthy and happy. Naturally the inclusion of a rooster in your flock in the past imo makes a major difference to the chickens being able to carry out more natural behviour. It's a shame he died.
Any further comment would not be fair on either of us.

If you were to ask me if I would keep chickens in such and arrangement the answer is no.

My minimum requirement is around half an acre, properly fenced and maintained to provide three hens and one rooster what I consder to be a reasonable quality of life. I'm quite aware that many don't agree with me.
I wouldn't and haven't kept any creatures as pets. I might keep a working dog that lived outside in a comforatble kennel if I had a large property properly fenced and chickens of course.

My elder sister keeps hens and has done for over 25 years. In the past she had a larger garden, about half an acre perhaps with trees and banks and lots of unkept patches of ground and her chickens ranged on the entire acreage. Her more recent home is about a quarter acre plot and her chickens range on this from morning to dusk. She manages to grow a few veg and flowers and cleans up the poop on the grass and paths. Her hens haven't turned the place into a desert, far from it in fact. She has five hens. Her boundries are secure through fencing and having other fenced properties at both sides and back.

Ribh's old run was very interesting; lots of clutter and thing of interest. I might mention here that just from the pictures and stories Ribh posts there seem to be a marked difference in both the chickens quality of life and Ribh's enjoyment of the chickens since she moved and has a larger area for the chickens to roam in.

None of the above does means I am anti backyard chicken keeping as some have suggested. It's the coop and run model I object to. There are plenty of variations and alternative models that are suitable for even small back yards.

I hope I have answered your question without causing offence and with sufficient honesty.

 

[Shadrach]

As some of the few "chicken thinkers" (scholars is too much no?) on earth that will "get this" and you may need to zoom in- but having posted a little of the back story of the nanny and trust me, it was just a little of her back story as she has a whole big beautiful story- Anywho, just a funny share.
Manono is quietly obsessing over her babies, light B hen is running for her life as backup cockeral out for exercise and hot on her tail rounds the corner on 2 wheels (maybe 1).
Main guy Spider is just out of the photos frame. Anywho, makes me chuckle so I thought I would share. Call it tax... View attachment 3138537
Well, off to go see what I can do for my flock. I'm sure they have a list ready for me.

Have a awesome safe day all!

A priceless picture. She's not having any of that rooster nonsense is she. Great cornering control on the roosters part I must say.

 

[Shadrach]

I had my usual Sunday off yesterday. When I counted everyone in on Saturday and made sure everyone got into one coop or the other and the regulars were on the outside roost bar there were 21 chickens.
Today when I counted them there were only 20.
There were some chicken feathers along the path at the back of the coop run.

Both the known flyers were accounted for.

I don't know what happened and I'm not sure I want to. One Ex Battery hen is dead and there is nothing that can be done about it.

 

[Sally PB]

I hope I have answered your question without causing offence and with sufficient honesty.

Thank you. I appreciate your answer and your honesty. I certainly am not offended.