Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[microchick]

Yes, I agree in general. But I’m afraid these days are over for my chickens. The risk of an attack is tooooooo high with the brutal cat that came into our garden again today.

The second time this cat was around. And again one chicken missing. My beautiful and elegant Janice was missing after seeing this cat. And she didn’t return to the coop. Still hoping she will return tomorrow. But my hopes are not very high after the previous experience.

View attachment 3202102Janice a week ago.

I lost one, possibly two roosters to a stray cat. Hard to believe a 10 pound kitty can do that but this one sure did.

We were sitting in bed one night in early spring with the windows open and heard a commotion coming from the barn where roosters were roosting in the loft at night.

I announced that something was after the roosters and we went out with weapons not knowing what we were going to find. One of my Amish bantam cross roosters comes tearing past us...at 11pm.... screaming his brains out and running for the woods with something hot on his tail. We thought it was a raccoon. DH got a shot off at it but at that point it was running away from us at warp 8.

Couldn't find the rooster but saw him the next day. I set my live trap in the barn and for two days didn't see anything. In the mean time I rounded up roosters and put them in a pen. Knew a couple were missing. Took two nights but finally caught the predator. Somebody had dumped a pretty Russian Blue kitty off on us. Gave it to the neighbors who have barn kitties, didn't think much of it until we started smelling something bad while we were splitting wood in the barn. Went up to the loft and yep, there was one of my missing rooster quite deceased. Kitty had been dining in style so it had been around for a few days if not a week.

Never did find the other rooster but it's likely it suffered the same fate. I get so PO'ed at people for dumping their problems. This year we have had a cat and a rabbit dumped on us. It's like, oh look, there's a farm! Everybody knows farmers love animals let's dump it here!

Well as a matter of fact we do love animals and have 6 dogs, 5 cats and about 50 chickens who eat better than we do to prove it. Wouldn't think of doing that to one of our furry children.

The cat was hungry so it killed livestock. Can't blame it. Sure can blame the owners who dumped it through.

Told my husband that I wish somebody would dump something useful off on us, like a fat steer or a milk cow.

So sorry you are going through this too and have a beautiful hen missing. Keeping my fingers crossed that she shows up unharmed.

 

[no fly zone]

Is it working?

I removed the scab easily enough, but could not find a "kernel". I put some ointment and vetwrap on her foot.

 

[pennyJo1960]

I have been real busy today wanted to say high to the Ex Batts like the folks I have learned about here always have had respect for Shad.
Tax

 

[ManueB]

Yes, I agree in general. But I’m afraid these days are over for my chickens. The risk of an attack is tooooooo high with the brutal cat that came into our garden again today.

The second time this cat was around. And again one chicken missing. My beautiful and elegant Janice was missing after seeing this cat. And she didn’t return to the coop. Still hoping she will return tomorrow. But my hopes are not very high after the previous experience.

View attachment 3202102Janice a week ago.

Oh no, not Janice . Your beautiful girl! After she went through so much to make her place in the flock. Unfortunately I don't think there's much hope either but I'm crossing my fingers.

There are special cages to catch feral cats. We used one when our cat wasn't spayed and we had all kinds of stray tomcats hanging around.

 

[Perris]

Here's another label. These are the pellets the vet recommended after the FLHS diagnosis. They're supplemented with DMG, choline, biotin, milk thistle, probiotics, and cottage cheese. And daily foraging for a minimum of an hour, usually 2-6 hours.

View attachment 3202181

could I trouble you for another photo of this bag that shows the nutrient %s on the far right? I can't quite make it out from this one.

 

[Perris]

I generally use Red Hen 17 layer crumble. It's easier to get than what MJ uses & is what my original breeder recommended for high quality eggs. Treats are the vegetable scraps each evening & meal leftovers, if any. Between 16 hens no~one gets a huge amount of anything. Very occasionally I give meal worms & in winter a small handfull of cracked corn before bed.

View attachment 3202311​

could I trouble you too for another photo of this, one which shows the right hand column with the ingredients and blurb about protein?
You do realize you're starting another issue here with 'but which omega acid should I feed? 3? or 6?'

 

[ManueB]

Here are my label contributions. I'll try to get some photos of past feed bags as I keep them to reuse. Unfortunately animal feed labels here do not need to offer much detailed information.
View attachment 3201899
View attachment 3201902

A couple more labels:

Chick Starter:
View attachment 3202032

Grower:
View attachment 3202033

Wow your feed contains animal by products! Tallow and cow meal! No mad cow disease in NZ or did your government handle the restrictions differently ?

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?

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:
View attachment 3201454
View attachment 3201455

Here's another label. These are the pellets the vet recommended after the FLHS diagnosis. They're supplemented with DMG, choline, biotin, milk thistle, probiotics, and cottage cheese. And daily foraging for a minimum of an hour, usually 2-6 hours.

View attachment 3202181

I can't believe a list of ingredients where the main ingredient is "some kind of grain". This could be anything ! So I guess we have better labels here because it wouldn't be possible.
I definitely believe that balanced doesn't mean good for you, the ingredients matter too. It's the debate we're having for human in France on nutriscore where some highly processed food still get an A. I saw that with my cats also...in some of the feeds perfect balance is achieved through additives and animal products are one of the last ingredient ! I think it matters to know if the first ingredient of the feed is wheat, triticale or corn.

View attachment 3202172

1.2 kilos of commercial feed plus two tins of mackerel, rice and plums later they did that bug hunt thing and ate a bit of grass. Yes I know I'm completely ruining the high quality optimally balanced and rather expensive commercial feed. What can I tell you? They seem to prefer the fish.

Given these are examples of the much healthier, higher production hens than our grandfathers kept and used to eating an optimal diet designed by the egg industries scientist I can't feel guilty about not following the American backyard chicken keepers manual because they are going to die soon and they haven't even got to three years old!
View attachment 3202204View attachment 3202206View attachment 3202207View attachment 3202208

I think I'm hearing my partner talk. Yesterday my neighbor gave us somme pulled pork for us, we don't like this stuff so he gave it to the hens. When I told him it's not balanced and good for their health he said he didn't give a damn because he'd rather make them happy before they died . (They never get that kind of food, I must add, so it was really a special treat).

 

[Ribh]

could I trouble you too for another photo of this, one which shows the right hand column with the ingredients and blurb about protein?
You do realize you're starting another issue here with 'but which omega acid should I feed? 3? or 6?'

No, I didn't. I'm not a scientist. I have no science background @ all- not even high school science. English Lit & theatre all the way. Not sure the photo will help. Let me know if you need another. Sadly this is the only feed bag I have @ present & it's full of chook manure.

 

[Perris]

I am working through the terrific and very recent article that ManueB linked to, and, a propos my hypothesis, note first their worry that micronutrient recommendations framed in 1994 are out of date, and second and more specifically "Weber (2009) reviewed the requirements of laying hens for vitamins and concluded that high producing layers require 5–10 times the minimum requirements determined by the NRC (1994), so as to sustain productivity and maintain welfare." (p.896)

Wow your feed contains animal by products! Tallow and cow meal! No mad cow disease in NZ or did your government handle the restrictions differently ?

Indeed! That caught my eye too.

Thanks Ribh; that's good. I note blood meal there too, so Aus has taken a different line on animal protein from us too.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

@ManueB we don't have BSE here although we do take the risk seriously. There are laws that prevent ruminant by-products being fed back to ruminants, including it being illegal to spread blood and bone as fertilizer on pastures intended for grazing by ruminants. However I think we are also pragmatic, and there is no risk to poultry or pigs from being fed ruminant by-products. It's not a common ingredient, which is why I drive to get that feed as it's the only brand that uses it. I can also get meat meal on its own, which I used to use when I made my own feed.