Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[TropicalBabies]

Still down with the first cold in two years .

Hope you feel better soon.

 

[Perris]

Still down with the first cold in two years .

hope it clears up soon for you Penny.

 

[hmarg06]

I voted in the poll, but was wrong, will have to go back and see if I can change it. My flock is actually mostly Muscovy ducks now (14, 3 drakes, 11 hens), but I still have 4 Blue Laced Red Wyandotte hens, and one male Guinea. They have .145 acres fenced on one side by I think 4 foot chain link, and the other side is hog panels (so 3? feet tall). They live in an old hog building which is far from ideal, but I made it work. The fence is mostly to keep coyotes from them. My cousin also had poultry (chickens, turkey, and multiple kinds of ducks at the time I think) there a while back and every single one of hers got eaten, and I only lost one duck who was a fence jumper at that same time. The coyotes knew when we left every day and would come into the yard right away in the morning in broad daylight and drag whatever they could off with them.

I said they had more than 1,000 square feet each, but it's technically under that even though some do jump the fence regularly and the rest of the property is unfenced. Some never leave it that I can tell though. I have lost some to coons, skunks, and owls though and I just know that's a risk without them being totally confined.

They do not utilize their full fenced pen, and it gets very overgrown. They have the area nearest the door down to bare dirt though. That's probably more the ducks than anything. I like giving them some security, but still leave the whole property (200 plus acres) open to them if they want to jump the fence. The building gets shut up every night at some point.

The building on the right (left building is where my cousin had stuff) is where they sleep/eat. You can kind of see the bare spot they made where it gets skinny. I also purposely let Giant Ragweed (Kingweed) grow in there for some shade/aerial predator protection and they seem to love it (not so much my family I was renting from )

 

[Iluveggers]

Anyone have the link to Shad’s poll? I had it and can’t find it now, even after a search!

 

[bruceha2000]

It isn't Shad's poll but was put up by @U_stormcrow

 

[Molpet]

I wonder if I could trouble you all to vote in this poll.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/feed-management-methods-poll.1533521/

Anyone have the link to Shad’s poll? I had it and can’t find it now, even after a search!

 

[Shadrach]

Chickens also seem very good @ knowing how dangerous something is to the tribe. I've had multiple chickens out for fowl pox & reintegrated with no issues whatsoever. Other things have not been so easy. I wish I was better @ reading what goes on with my girls but I can only watch & speculate.

When I lost both senior hens within 24 hours the tribe seemed to know @ least 48 hours prior & I had a huge kerfuffle on my hands ~ which almost never happens with my girls, with everyone jockeying for their new position. When I lost Aoife, who was much further down the food chain, there was no upset @ all.

The Vorwerks do seem to take any opportunity to advance themselves but with Luna as lead hen they have really settled. As you know she is the calmest hen I've ever owned. Ha'penny is 2nd but she's as mad as she ever was.

Luna sounds a bit like Gedit. Gedit was a big hen compared to the others. Very calm. Very steady. I only once saw the result of her losing her grip, with good reason I might add. Notch seemed to know she didn't lay eggs and didn't bother her. I was very upset when she died.

 

[BDutch]

I suppose my way of having and caring for chickens is not standard either. It is somewhere in between the American way and treating them like pets.

• The chickens are not my pets, I don’t want them in my house. Because they poop everywhere and make dust. I don’t feel an urge to cuddle them.
• I have bantam chickens not the hybrid egg layers. A practical choice because the coop and my garden are not that big. And I don’t like huge poops on the terrace.
• I’m fond of them. But the chickens are selfish creatures and not real friends. Even the most cuddly chicken only asks for a pat on the back because she likes it. Not to please me.
• I don’t go to a vet if a chicken gets sick (until now). I don’t trust vets . Probably bc I had some bad experiences with vets when I was a child /living on a farm. And also because vets are too expensive and I don’t want to use medicines like antibiotics.
• I won’t kill my chickens for being improductive or for feed. Only if nessesary because the are in pain.

 

[Shadrach]

What is the American backyard chicken model?
Is it the way our (grand)parents raised chickens for eggs and meat?
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...s-you-to-keep-hens-and-raise-chickens.351110/

That depends who you ask to some extent. It was the change from mainly rural chicken keepers to the quarter acre/whatever the US standard was/is if they have one. The post you linked to is part of it. Chicken keeping became an urban hobby. It supports a quite a few small businesses as well as adding another market for the large commercial suppliers.
So, I see the American model as urban, probably hen only groups, kept permenantly confined in a coop and run. The supply of hens is primarily through hatcheries with prefered breeders.
This is the core model for BYC.
That's partly why the Coop building and coop pages are so valued by BYC.

Much of the advice on BYC is biased with that model in mind. In most cases it doesn't matter because not many farmers take their chickens to the vet for example.

The poll came about after a bit of a debate between me and U_Stromcrow. It was about the so called 10% treat rule which I said was nonsense for many chicken keepers. My reasoning being, that even in a couple of hours of say supervised free ranging, the hens in particular will eat a lot of stuff, grass, bugs, grit, etc etc. I've seem hens go from crop empty to crop full in an hour on good forage. Compost heaps speed the process up. This is on a morning feed.
I estimated by volume that a hen that packs her crop from empty to full, three times a day will have ingested the equivalent by volume of 100grams of commercial feed. Also, it is unlikely she will have consumed nutritionaly complete forage by eating one selection.
If the above crop volume estimate is near enough then its quite possible for a hen to fill her crop in a couple of hours on reasonable forage. Not a lot of point trying to apply the 10% treat rule to that hen given she's just eaten 33.3%... of her intake by volume on non commercial balanced feed.
U_Stormcrow stated he was giving advice for what he believed were the majority and that majority was the fully confined coop and run model.

I didn't think and hadn't thought for some time that the permanently confined coop and run model represent the majority on BYC. The poll is U_Stormcrows effort to put some data behind the two views.

 

[MaryJanet]

That depends who you ask to some extent. It was the change from mainly rural chicken keepers to the quarter acre/whatever the US standard was/is if they have one. The post you linked to is part of it. Chicken keeping became an urban hobby. It supports a quite a few small businesses as well as adding another market for the large commercial suppliers.
So, I see the American model as urban, probably hen only groups, kept permenantly confined in a coop and run. The supply of hens is primarily through hatcheries with prefered breeders.
This is the core model for BYC.
That's partly why the Coop building and coop pages are so valued by BYC.

Much of the advice on BYC is biased with that model in mind. In most cases it doesn't matter because not many farmers take their chickens to the vet for example.

The poll came about after a bit of a debate between me and U_Stromcrow. It was about the so called 10% treat rule which I said was nonsense for many chicken keepers. My reasoning being, that even in a couple of hours of say supervised free ranging, the hens in particular will eat a lot of stuff, grass, bugs, grit, etc etc. I've seem hens go from crop empty to crop full in an hour on good forage. Compost heaps speed the process up. This is on a morning feed.
I estimated by volume that a hen that packs her crop from empty to full, three times a day will have ingested the equivalent by volume of 100grams of commercial feed. Also, it is unlikely she will have consumed nutritionaly complete forage by eating one selection.
If the above crop volume estimate is near enough then its quite possible for a hen to fill her crop in a couple of hours on reasonable forage. Not a lot of point trying to apply the 10% treat rule to that hen given she's just eaten 33.3... of her intake by volume on non commercial balanced feed.
U_Stormcrow stated he was giving advice for what he believed were the majority and that majority was the fully confined coop and run model.

I didn't think and hadn't thought for some time that the permanently confined coop and run model represent the majority on BYC. The poll is U_Stormcrows effort to put some data behind the two views.

Did you have a role in determining the questions? The breakdown of hours and areas is interesting.