Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[MaryJanet]

Wow, thats a lot if eggs shad!

And can I ask a cat question.
My chickens always make a typical and recognisable sound if they spot a cat. Completely different than the egg song or the ‘I want feed’ begging.
The chickens often spot a cat before I do. So if I hear them making this sound I look around to see where the cat is.
Today it took me a few minutes to figure it out. But finally I found one of the neighbours cat between the high plants lurking and luring. Like a lion who wants to ambush a gazelle. The chickens make this ‘I spotted a cat’ sound , step away a little, but don’t really bother to back off.

Who recognises this? Or experiences something similar?
View attachment 3175344
Tax for asking.

My hens have a special call for this purpose too. Then Mary (the biggest hen - about twice the size of Blossom, the cat) takes a few steps towards the cat to intimidate her. Sometimes Mary charges at her. The cat always runs away. Because the yard is Blossom's territory, other cats stay away.

 

[Shadrach]

As far as I can tell without my glasses on, the chickens look extremely healthy in that photo Shad.

They're getting there. Some look a bit ragged because of mating with Henry. He's pretty good in general but he's too big for the Red Sex Links in particular and a lot of feathers get pulled out around the back of the heads and necks. Henry needs hens Matilda's size ideally with the same feather strength. I've only found one case where he has caused a small cut which I dealt with. There isn't much more I can do.

 

[Shadrach]

Wow, thats a lot if eggs shad!

And can I ask a cat question. ?
My chickens always make a typical and recognisable sound if they spot a cat. Completely different than the egg song or the ‘I want feed’ begging.
The chickens often spot a cat before I do. So if I hear them making this sound I look around to see where the cat is.
Today it took me a few minutes to figure it out. But finally I found one of the neighbours cat between the high plants lurking and luring. Like a lion who wants to ambush a gazelle. The chickens make this ‘I spotted a cat’ sound , step away a little, but don’t really bother to back off.

Who recognises this? Or experiences something similar?
View attachment 3175344
Tax for asking.

The tribes, and Henry here have a call for what I describe as known non critical threats. It's not the same as either the aerial predator warning or the ground predator warning. The tribes gave it for the dogs that lived at the place in Catalonia and some of the cats that came by on a regular basis; that's if the dogs didn't kill the cats which they did if they caught one.

 

[Ribh]

Wow, thats a lot if eggs shad!

And can I ask a cat question. ?
My chickens always make a typical and recognisable sound if they spot a cat. Completely different than the egg song or the ‘I want feed’ begging.
The chickens often spot a cat before I do. So if I hear them making this sound I look around to see where the cat is.
Today it took me a few minutes to figure it out. But finally I found one of the neighbours cat between the high plants lurking and luring. Like a lion who wants to ambush a gazelle. The chickens make this ‘I spotted a cat’ sound , step away a little, but don’t really bother to back off.

Who recognises this? Or experiences something similar?
View attachment 3175344
Tax for asking.

My Vorwerks don't alarm when they see my cats. They straight out attack. My biggest Vorwerk is extremely aggressive. None of my other hens pay the cats any attention @ all. The bantams will give them a very wide berth.

 

[RoyalChick]

Maybe I should charge for what I'll be collecting.

Some of the farms around me sell it by the bucket (bring your own bucket). I don't know if they rot it down first or not. I use mine straight from the run onto the plants and it seems to work fine.

 

[Perris]

Are the geese beginning to win you over Shad?

 

[fuentemoon]

Wow, thats a lot if eggs shad!

And can I ask a cat question. ?
My chickens always make a typical and recognisable sound if they spot a cat. Completely different than the egg song or the ‘I want feed’ begging.
The chickens often spot a cat before I do. So if I hear them making this sound I look around to see where the cat is.
Today it took me a few minutes to figure it out. But finally I found one of the neighbours cat between the high plants lurking and luring. Like a lion who wants to ambush a gazelle. The chickens make this ‘I spotted a cat’ sound , step away a little, but don’t really bother to back off.

Who recognises this? Or experiences something similar?
View attachment 3175344
Tax for asking.

Mine do the same.

 

[pennyJo1960]

I do understand my big birds have a job. They are not now nor ever been pets.

 

[Perris]

My view on preferring to let senior hens sit doesn't have anything to do with whether they'll sit and hatch okay. It's more about what happens when they leave the nest and any problems there may be with other hens. Senior hens also know more about staying alive than the juniors and this gets taught to the chicks.

I've been thinking more about this, and would appreciate your reflections on it too:

Paprika was raised by Maria, my 5 yr old head hen (aka bossy boots), who (as we also discussed recently) stayed with this clutch for almost 4 months, so taught them an awful lot, relatively speaking. So although Paprika had herself only just turned 1 when her clutch hatched, she is relatively very well educated in the arts of foraging and survival (plus her only-1-generation-distant genuine Spanish Penedesenca genes). She can do nothing about her relatively low status in the hierarchy, or the neighbour's cats (who apparently predated the whole of a wild pheasant's clutch that appeared in their garden), but I think she's got nature and nurture on her side. Of course time will tell, but with your long-attentive hen, did you see any benefits of it? I guess I'm grasping at the idea that a good education may compensate for a lack of years and experience, in chickens as well as people...?

 

[Perris]

I sell around two dozen a week now which helps with the cost of the feed and stuff I buy.

I do the same. Most years it covers my costs completely. How much do you ask? I charge £1.50 per carton of 6. To continue covering costs, I think I'll have to put the price up next year, as a sack of grain has risen from £8 for 25kg when I started in 2017, to over £11 for 20kg now