Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

@Solanacae @Shadrach @BDutch @Perris

@MartJanet @RoyalChick @Iluveggers @Molpet

I believe a new thread should be started as a courtesy to "Shadrach".

A new thread would get lost and interrupt the consistency of the Ex-Batts thread.

Get an opinion from @N F C .

She had me start a new thread on what I was in need of even though there was a thread on the exact thing I needed.

I am more than happy to defer to Shadrach.

 

[RoyalChick]

This article isn't open access but the abstract is informative and it has a bunch of references. I don't have the background to understand it .
This one is on the same subject , it happens to be written by the Chinese who seem to be very interested both by nutrition and genome of layers.
This is just for fun on the very beginning of industrial poultry nutrition.

They are both rather depressing in a way. They are studies identifying (or beginning to narrow down) which genes or groups of genes differentiate frequent egg layers from less frequent egg layers.
Assuming the genetic differences are causative then I assume it lays the ground for genetically modified chickens to optimize egg laying.
I imagine this would be an alternative to the proprietary breeding recipes such as ISA Brown.
That said, they note that one egg a day is the physiological limit and as we are already there via breeding I am not sure the gain.

Oh sorry, were we supposed to be stopping this discussion?

 

[RoyalChick]

and is comprehensible! Note that the RIR is a high production layer for them

Sadly they have been bred to be so though heritage RIR are still available in the US at least.

 

[Perris]

Oh sorry, we’re we supposed to be stopping this discussion?

Ladies-eight thinks so. I defer to Shad, it's his thread.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good afternoon one and all!

90 with rain off and on 64 % humidity feels like 102.

Have a great day!

 

[Ladies-Eight]

I am more than happy to defer to Shadrach.

That would be great.

I would not like to see @Shadrach's Thread get walked on.

 

[Ribh]

me neither. Biology has moved on a lot since I studied it!

Lost me pages back. I don't have any science background @ all.
Never quite sure how I ended up running with so many science heads....
TAX:
My Olivia dustbathing.

 

[Shadrach]

Sad news everyone- I found Sky dead in the coop late this morning. She was perfectly fine last evening, and had not been showing any unusual behavior or signs of illness. The damn fire ants had already chewed up her face and vent. I buried her in the back yard near her son Achilles.

I had been planning to get some pics and video clips of her with her babies today, as I hadn't posted anything much of them lately. She was probably the friendliest bird we've ever had.

Well, here are a few new pics of the babies, sans Sky:
View attachment 3200377View attachment 3200380View attachment 3200381

That's terribly sad. Poor chicks.

 

[Shadrach]

Gotta pipe in here about Marek's disease.

See, @bruceha2000 ya just had to get me started, lol.

Where it came and still comes to MD, I'm not a quitter. Trust me there were more times than I could count that I wanted too but my momma didn't raise no quitters so I put on my big girl panties and dealt with the problem head on.

I bought chicks that I thought were bred for resistance but the Marek's virus is so diverse that what is resistant for one county may not mean they are resistant for the strain of MD that is in the county next door. Plus you really can't ever get rid of it. Wait it out? Good flipping luck, it will outlive you. It's in your dirt it's in your air it's in every nook and cranny of your property.

You have to learn how to 'survive' in spite of it, both you and your flock, and yes, live with it sharing your property and your flock with you.

I discovered my own particular solution by accident. We have a large Amish community around us and many of those households run small businesses on their farms as well as farm. One of those businesses/farms is about two miles from us. We were there one day and I waited in the car while my husband went in to buy replacement chains for our chain saws and found myself watching the farmer's flock of chickens and ducks scratching around. His chickens looked healthy. They were active they were fat, not a care in the world. Meanwhile mine were dropping like flies. I asked myself if his were truly resistant to MD or at least the strain that was in our area.

On the way home I pointed this out to DH and he suggested I ask the farmer about buying a dozen hatching eggs from him and see if I could hatch some chicks that would survive the MD that was in my flock. I did. The chicks hatched, they grew, they thrived, they hatched more chicks. I lost one to MD but only one.

Then somebody here on BYC suggested Egyptian Fayoumi chickens as they were genetically resistant to MD.

I now have 10 in my flock. I also brought in vaccinated bantams. My OEGBs hatched their third generation this spring for me. All are alive and growing.

Marek's is devastating. It's horrible and it's heart breaking. But you can live with it. Oh yeah, you will lose the occasional bird. Lost two this spring to some mysterious malady that could have been botulism but the good news is that it didn't present like MD. But I don't fool myself. Marek's disease is on our property but it isn't going to stop me from enjoying my chickens.

I would be honored if anybody interested would read my article:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...-i-learned-to-deal-with-mareks-disease.76944/

Don't cull your entire flock. Don't wait around for them all to die. Most of all DON'T GIVE UP!

Pssssttt. Post some pictures of you Fayoumies please. One of my favourite breeds,

 

[Shadrach]

'They are bred' implies genes again. Can you give me something heavy to read on this?

I'm not sure that I can. What I've read about it was a long time ago.
One website I read for information on commercial egg and meat production is this:
https://www.thepoultrysite.com/genetics-breeding-2
To understand how the breeding evolved requires studies in the 1950's and 1960's.