Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[NatJ]

There's a lot of hostility on BYC to giving bread, but I see no problem with it as yet (of course time may prove me wrong), and I've not to date read anything to explain what exactly is supposed to be the problem with it. Anyone who thinks they know, please chip in, but I'm not interested in unsubstantiated condemnations; I want to see some evidence please.

My main problem with bread is what it does not have (total protein content, certain amino acids in particular, many vitamins and minerals). A chicken will only eat so much food in a day, so eating more bread means they eat less other stuff. Depending on how much of what other stuff they are eating, they may not get enough of the things bread lacks.

Also, bread comes in many different forms. I have no problems with chickens eating small amounts of any kind of bread, but I would not want them to eat large amounts of most breads that can be bought in the stores in my country (USA).

My main problems with the common breads:
--sugar content
--salt content
--the main ingredient is refined flour made from wheat (wheat does not contain everything a chicken needs, and refining it removes even more of the nutrients. Most of them are not added back into the bread.)

My views on feeding bread to people are about the same as feeding it to chickens. It depends on the bread, the quantity, and what else is being eaten with it.

 

[Shadrach]

When I looked up french websites and blogs on advice regarding to the adequate space in the run for backyard hens the numbers were much, much larger, between 100 and 200 sq ft per chicken.

Yup, it's not just on French sites either. Nobody I knew in Catalonia kept chickens in the coop and run model. The only person I know in Italy lets their chickens range over their entire property of a couple of acres. Reading chicken sites from other countries can be quite illuminating and at times pretty horrifying if one is used to the attitudes of the American based sites.

However I and many chicken keepers don't necessarily know what would be adequate chicken behaviour.

What I find incredible is just how little is generally known about what is and what isn't a chickens natural behaviour given how long humans and chickens have interacted.
If I have any specialised knowledge it is in the natrual behaviour area. I know of a very few others who have expertise in this area. Lets face it, most people haven't got the time to spend hours each day watching chickens nor the environment to allow chickens to demonstrate what their natural behaviour is.

 

[Shadrach]

I'm guessing, but hoping I'm wrong, that it's Dustin

Nope Dustin is alive and well as is the other fence hopper.
My feeling is this poor hen didn't hop over the fence. My guess is at some point she got let out and wasn't noticed.

 

[Shadrach]

My main problem with bread is what it does not have (total protein content, certain amino acids in particular, many vitamins and minerals). A chicken will only eat so much food in a day, so eating more bread means they eat less other stuff. Depending on how much of what other stuff they are eating, they may not get enough of the things bread lacks.

Also, bread comes in many different forms. I have no problems with chickens eating small amounts of any kind of bread, but I would not want them to eat large amounts of most breads that can be bought in the stores in my country (USA).

My main problems with the common breads:
--sugar content
--salt content
--the main ingredient is refined flour made from wheat (wheat does not contain everything a chicken needs, and refining it removes even more of the nutrients. Most of them are not added back into the bread.)

My views on feeding bread to people are about the same as feeding it to chickens. It depends on the bread, the quantity, and what else is being eaten with it.

Tax time for you I think @NatJ
Lets see your chickens and your keeping arrangements.

 

[Shadrach]

I live in a beautiful place but you live in a charming fairy tale. I think your hen house looks awesome and I don't know that I would ever be able to leave it if I had one like that. I'd probably pull up a charming stool and sit for days in content bliss I am sure of it.

I was thinking byc should have its own vacation house swap. Like no one better to watch your animals than some of the folks I see on byc. I surely don't trust my big kids or neighbors to keep clean waters or scrape poop. Last time was a $500. Vet bill and 3 dead chickens.

Shad would be in high demand lol but pretty sure if he came this way he would never leave. We have 1000s of feral chickens to be observed and cared for...

You can be more than pretty sure; it's a certainty.

 

[Perris]

Thanks for that @NatJ ; you've prompted me to examine the info on the one of the shop bought breads here that comes in a bag (we typically have 2 sorts of shop bread, one sold with and one without nutritional info, and sometimes homemade bread, lots of different types depending on mood and ingredient availability). It's fortified wheat flour (fortified with CaCo3, Fe, vits B3 and B1), water, yeast, salt, soya flour, emulsifiers (listed but too complicated to type), Calcium propionate (= preservative), and ascorbic acid. Sugars are 4.2%, protein 7.6%, salt 0.9%. Maybe the calcium could be an issue for non-laying birds?

Nope Dustin is alive and well as is the other fence hopper.
My feeling is this poor hen didn't hop over the fence. My guess is at some point she got let out and wasn't noticed.

I'm happy for Dustin; sad for whoever else it was.

 

[Shadrach]

It's not Impossible but would have other major inconveniences. The actual coop has three real advantages that I would like to keep: it's big, it's stays cool in summer and relatively warm in winter, and it's completely predator safe. I've mentioned before that the ground is really steep in most of the chicken zone so it would be quite special to accommodate a coop with that slope ; in summer it would be really hot as there are no shady spot we could put it in without really cutting up on the Cherry tree. And, we couldn't build a little covered pen next to the coop like we have now for when we need to lock up the hens for a few hours, with the slope.
The other solution would be to put the coop in a completely different place of the property but that means we wouldn't be able to see it from the house and from our dining table outside and that would make a huge difference in keeping them safe from air predators.

I can't see anything wrong with their current accomodation.

 

[Bobalina]

Hi Shardrach, I read about 100 pages of the thread…do you think it’s okay if I can join? Also do you take floofy quail butts as tax? —I don’t have enough space for chickens

 

[Shadrach]

The homemade chickfeed experiment is going well so far, I think. This morning Eve rejected yesterday's leftovers for herself and her brood, and led them off to forage instead, so I took the hint and when I changed it out to freshly made feed, she ate it and told them to eat it, so I know I can rely on her instincts to tell me if I get it wrong, which is a great relief. The basic mix is blitzed hard boiled egg, breadcrumbs +/- milk, and enough polenta or a wheat/maize flour to make it crumbly, delivered little and often. There's a lot of hostility on BYC to giving bread, but I see no problem with it as yet (of course time may prove me wrong), and I've not to date read anything to explain what exactly is supposed to be the problem with it. Anyone who thinks they know, please chip in, but I'm not interested in unsubstantiated condemnations; I want to see some evidence please.

They also enjoyed their first little mealworms - and Eve only took two for herself, which is remarkably restrained by her normal (non-broody) standards. Needless to say, small mealworms are substantially bigger than anything else I've offered as food (can't speak for Eve, but her forage is limited; see below), and they have no problems at all swallowing them, in the same way that wild bird chicks seem to manage just fine even with what sometimes look like impossibly large insects or fish that the parents present them with.

Eve is a much better broody this year than last time (2 years ago); she is more careful when scratching and she does it with less vigour, so any that get in the way only get a relatively gentle fling backwards, not the 6 foot slingshot their predecessors endured . And she got them all up the ramp and back into the coop on her own, through many attempts starting around 6pm, and continuing patiently until they were all in. I'm sure it helped that I am confining them for the first week or two this time, because in the past she's exhausted her chicks by leading them all over the garden and beyond. The scaffolding netting is proving an unexpected asset as a fly trap, so she doesn't have to chase flies very far before they're stopped or she is (the pen is about 3x2m). You can just about see her in the front right corner.
View attachment 3139438
this is a better shot of her and them
View attachment 3139439

Watching mum trying to get her chicks into the coop after their first few days out was high on my stress list. She would get one in, stand at the coop door calling the others. Go back down to try and encourage them and the one she had just got in would follow her back out! It went on for hours with some mums and chicks.

 

[Shadrach]

Hi Shardrach, I read about 100 pages of the thread…do you think it’s okay if I can join? Also do you take floofy quail butts as tax? —I don’t have enough space for chickens

Of course you can join in. I suppose I could accept Floofy quail butts as tax but I should mention I know nothing about quail.