Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

A factor that makes the you should only feed a commercially produced balanced feed a bit of a nonsense is the range of feeds available.
Which one is balanced? I've got a few feed labels here. There is no ratio between the feed componants across the brands that I can see. Some have more of this and less of that.

 

[Shadrach]

I'll collect some more but here's a few to start with.
Feel free to add more please.

 

[Iluveggers]

Indeed. And what's been almost absent from our discussion so far is what exactly is in commercial feed. We've written about it as if it's uniform. Those who buy it could have a look at what they get, and we could compare here, because I imagine there's a lot of variation between countries and climates.

I’m sure. Thank you @Shadrach for posting your labels. I’ll post the labels of the organic chick starter & grower I buy below. They don’t have an all-flock, so i either have to switch to layer as the girls get older, or keep them on grower. They also have a turkey feed. Thoughts?

And we really need to define treats, because what it means seems to vary hugely, even within a single thread. For a start, I think it only makes sense in discussions about flocks fed mostly commercial feed. And then to make progress (because there's a lot of contradictory views on treats), I think we need abstract outlines, such as 'something high in sugar', rather than specific examples such as 'donuts', because we need clarity on what actually is supposed to be bad in said food, to do the research on in what quantity it might be bad. Everything is toxic in excess. Toxins are things that are harmful in tiny quantities.

Agreed on defining treats. Maybe list plain produce scraps, yard scraps, meat scraps, or processed food scraps? Plus more specific treats like mealworms and BOSS. We don’t eat processed food 95% of the time, so that won’t ever be an option even if I wanted to give it to them (which I don’t).

Feed labels from online:

 

[Shadrach]

View attachment 3201112
This is one of my Fayoumi/Amish barnyard cross roosters Pepper Corn. Sweet and gentle with humans and great with the girls, he's pretty tough on other roosters though. I had hoped that crossing the EFs with the Amish Barnyard crosses would mellow out some of the Game bird genes that I knew were in the Amish birds and the roosters would have some of the more mellow characteristics of the EF roosters.

Nope. I'm still trying though and to get meatier breast and better muscle mass on potential duo purpose birds, cross breeding is the way to go since EFs do not have that duo purpose muscling that a lot of folks look for.

I actually suspect that Pepper is a cross between an EF hen and one of my OEGB SDW roosters due to his coloring and his party colored feet and legs.
View attachment 3201108
This is King Tut my EF flock master. Love him to pieces. He's sweet, great with the hens, protective but definitely not a lap bird. Like my other EFs he will take treats from my hands but don't touch without expecting an explosion in response.

I love their raptor like heads.
View attachment 3201098
Hatched three cockerels and three pullets this spring in my Brinsea. DH named the three boys, Curly Larry and Moe. This is Larry. Surprisingly enough they WILL let me pick them up which won't last forever I suspect but I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
View attachment 3201107
Two of my mature EF girls I have two that are 3 and one that is 2. I think this is Cleo and Brigid.
View attachment 3201103
The three yet unnamed pullets from this spring.
View attachment 3201102
One of the pullets close up.

The lighting wasn't the best. We got 2 inches of rain overnight and everything is pretty cloudy still and soggy. Better than poor St. Louis made out though.

I'm still trying to hatch some EF/Amish cross hens. Been trying for two years now and boys keep popping out of those eggs, drats! Since most of my Amish cross girls are getting long in the tooth, I'm thinking about picking up a few Orscheln chicks next year, pullets and try from them. I'm hoping that the genetic resistance of the EFs will cross over and enhance non EF birds' resistance to MD.

Thanks. Feel free to post any more pictures here should you find the time.
I had friends in Catalonia who kept Fayoumies, fully free range and it was very difficult to get a decent picture of any. They move so quickly and were hard to find.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

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

@Perris

I did not say you can't discuss this problem, all I said was we shouldn't walk on @Shadrach's Thread.

I feel the two ideas will affect the thread.

I feel if there were two threads all of us could get more out of it.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

That's very thoughtful of you. I think we could do it here to fill in the spaces between the pictures. It is and it's broader implications are topics I'm interested in.

I don't think there is very far to go with it. The main problem being lack of data.
It's another one of those needs a few decades of research and observation topics.
The problem with starting a new thread is, as you mention, like to get buried or at worst closed.

I am enjoying your thread and I just thought it would be too much for one thread.

My apologies to you sir.

I am just as interested in the genetics as they are.

 

[Shadrach]

I am enjoying your thread and I just thought it would be too much for one thread.

My apologies to you sir.

I am just as interested in the genetics as they are.

No apologies necessary. It was thoughfull of you to mention it.
From what I've seen so far all the contributors on this thread (many differing views and keeping circumstances) can manage a debate without rancour.
The only one likely to throw a hissy fit is me.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

85 sunny 70 % humidity feels like 94 with rain showers today.

Have a great day!

 

[Shadrach]

Thanks, Royal.

I especially love that they haven't keeled over on me from Marek's....yet. But I have a really nice flock of Bantams, Fayoumis and Amish cross birds. A vast contrast from 6+ years ago when I was losing one to two birds per week to Marek's disease. The fact that Tut has lived to see three, 6 OEGB SDW roosters who are 4 and I have two surviving Amish cross roosters who are 5 now is encouraging to me as until now I haven't had a rooster live past 2 years of age.

The vet I talked to at MIZZOU's animal lab told me not to consider any bird resistant until it made it to 3-4 years of age. The older the better.

There are other breeds that are reported to be Mareks resistant from China and Asia.

 

[Iluveggers]

There are other breeds that are reported to be Mareks resistant from China and Asia.

Interested in this! I wasn’t aware of a cold-hardy resistant breed.