Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Bobalina]

Half naked is okay on a family site like BYC. Course, you could always show the other end...

Well, okay
That’s the front side of the male
And there’s an old one of one of my girls with a bit of butt floof

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

Chickens and new coop are looking great @Shadrach - shame about the sick girls

I've done some DIY today, turning an old tin garden shed into a temporary coop for Squeaky and the pullets. They've outgrown their little kennel coop. And before anyone yells about ventilation, the door is hooked open with no intention of closing it, and it is fully half the size of the front shed wall.
The hardest bit was moving the thing into place!
They will of course not sleep in it right now, I've got it right beside their kennel coop, and after a few days I'll take the kennel coop away and that will force them to sleep in the shed. In theory. I have a lot of theories about what my flock should do. They generally don't agree.

 

[MaryJanet]

I have a lot of theories about what my flock should do. They generally don't agree

I can relate!

 

[BDutch]

Chickens and new coop are looking great @Shadrach - shame about the sick girls

I've done some DIY today, turning an old tin garden shed into a temporary coop for Squeaky and the pullets. They've outgrown their little kennel coop. And before anyone yells about ventilation, the door is hooked open with no intention of closing it, and it is fully half the size of the front shed wall.
The hardest bit was moving the thing into place!
They will of course not sleep in it right now, I've got it right beside their kennel coop, and after a few days I'll take the kennel coop away and that will force them to sleep in the shed. In theory. I have a lot of theories about what my flock should do. They generally don't agree.

View attachment 3206311

My experience: If the place is better / feels more comfortable in the new shed, then they will go there by themselves.

If Squeeky and the pullets don’t go in , except for a look around, its probably because it feels not as nice as the old coop.

Anyway I wouldn’t like to sleep in a tin place looking like that. I prefer a wooden house or a house that is plastered on the inside.
Why? Moisture regulation is very important! For humans and chickens.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

My experience: If the place is better / feels more comfortable in the new shed, then they will go there by themselves.

If Squeeky and the pullets don’t go in , except for a look around, its probably because it feels not as nice as the old coop.

Anyway I wouldn’t like to sleep in a tin place looking like that. I prefer a wooden house or a house that is plastered on the inside.
Why? Moisture regulation is very important! For humans and chickens.

They would prefer to sleep in a tree, but they're not allowed to because I need them contained in the far back corner overnight/early morning for crowing management. They ultimately can choose to keep sleeping in the kennel coop but it's now much too small for all of them, and I can't imagine any more comfortable than the shed (it's closer to the ground to perch, and while it is wooden, it's a thin prefab used only for chicks/broodies).
They will integrate with the adult flock once they're old enough to be accepted. Squeaky may or may not get to stay.

While I like wooden coops the most, and have one big one for the main flock (plus another even larger when we move), they're extremely expensive for something only needed for a handful of months each year for my juveniles. This time around I just happen to be growing on 5 instead of my usual 3. If I had a tree out back where I need them to be, I'd let them sleep there. The shed isn't particularly good but it didn't cost me anything. It won't be a worse climate than being directly outside, which is where they most wish to sleep. It's not really possible to be more damp and disgusting inside the shed with the door open than the climate already is here in winter. We run a dehumidifier where we sleep (people sleeping) for about 12 hours a day, every day, and I'm lucky if that keeps the humidity in the 70s.

 

[Shadrach]

This coop business. It's complicated.
Coops are usually built to provide protection from the elements and security for the chickens.

The easy botom line, as they say, is if you need a coop for chickens to live in one probably shouldn't be keeping chickens.
Obviously this isn't going to go down well with an awful lot of chicken keepers but there is a lot of truth in this view.

The best options I've seen have been large secure runs with no coops as such.

 

[Shadrach]

Here's another one for you @Perris

 

[ManueB]

these babies are 7 weeks old today (Amadeo the leghorn is out of shot unfortunately)
View attachment 3204152
and these sweeties are 4 weeks old today (one of these also out of shot; s/he was more interested in something at the base of the wall than in me and my camera) View attachment 3204154
So far, and at the risk of tempting fate, I note that both broodies have still got their full complement of chicks; none has had pasty butt; and they were all started on homemade chick feed consisting of things like bread, milk, mealworms, peanut butter, veg oil, sardines, and whatever their mum tells them to eat while wandering round the garden. They are amazingly fast and sometimes successful hunters of assorted flying, jumping and crawling insects they find in the grass and the borders and the ground. I assume they are dealing gradually and successfully with coccidiosis and any other endemic bugs, because a few have had spells of being ruffled and relatively quiet (second left and far right in the line-up, for example, though they've all just come running over in case I have mealworms for them) but no-one's got left behind, yet. it continues.

It made me happy to see they're all in good health, and a beautiful bunch, despite or because of all your homemade concoctions !

I've mentioned on other threads who's advice one pays heed to can be the difference between success and failure.
Unfortunately we now live in a world where everyone can publish their opinion and a current fashion is that each opinion is of equal value. It isn't.
When it comes to the majority of medical problems one can research the topic through the various online medical texts and find the information one needs.
There are exceptions. This for me was one such exception which demonstrates what I though was an interesting range of responses and even more so, an interesting result.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/nuerological-or-something-else.1318208/

Bracket was alive and well when I left Catalonia.

So, when seeking advice on an internnet forum try and check the probability that the person who is giving the advice has at least some experience of the problem you are faced with. Good intentions and empathy are great, but not much use when you've got a critical problem.
One way of checking is looking at profiles and photo albums.
On the profile page is is a small box with Find written in it. It offers Content, Threads and Articles.
There is a lot of regurgitating advice and information from other posts and medical texts. You can find all this yourself.

A lot of what I've learned about chickens and chicken keeping has come from observation and other chicken keepers I've known over the years. I learned very little from Internet forums until I got off the main drama boards and started reading the better articles and reading some of the threads from some of the more experienced chicken keepers.
Some of the most interesting and evenually proven to be useful information I found came from chicken keepers in Catalonia. There were as one might expect problems in translation, some of which were pretty funny.

One such piece of advice concerns the problem of Isolation and transportation.
Most people do not habitually move their chickens long distances. People involved in cock fighting and specialist breeding however do move chickens long distances, often to and from other countries.

I and the chickens found taking trips to the vets very stressfull when I started doing this. They don't like being caught and shoved in a strange container.
I mentioned this problem to one of my Catalonian friends and he told me to buy a pet transporter of the appropriate size and leave it open in a area where the chickens would see it and investigate it permenantly. He kept one in each of his runs for his game fowl. Each container was kept open and in his case filled with bedding. The cock and hen got used to the container and even built their nests in it after a while. Ushering a bird into one in such circumstances is virtually stress free for all. These days a plastic pet transporter are easiest to keep in good condition when outside. My friend still used the tradititional wicker basket.
I ended up with two. One I kept outside and another in my house.
View attachment 3205299View attachment 3205300View attachment 3205302

I'm still shaken by the guilt of the unnecessary stress I put on Caramel by taking her for such a long ride and leaving her to stay alone for several days in an unknown place to die. I'm afraid in my case I can't put the blame on advice given by BYC members not knowing better, the difficulty of the transport and later of the surgery was mentioned. The method you describe is that we have used for our cats with our old wicker pet carrier that stays constantly next to where they eat, and it helped them a lot when they made the same 1h45 ride to get neutered. I just never thought I would take a chicken to the vet, and don't believe I will again, but I will get a pet carrier and leave it in their place nonetheless because one never knows what tomorrow will bring.

I've had a difficult couple of days. Someone who brought me their friend who has 8 Ex Battery hens turned up last week and asked if I would look at a couple that were ill. I find it hard to refuse and yesterday they brought two very sick hens for me to look at. It's difficult telling people there isn't anything to be done; not by me, not by a vet and not by them. I explained that they could give pain killers and let them die, or put them out of their misery. They couldn't kill them they said and this evening they asked if I could kill them. I'm off to do the job tomorrow.

I'm wishing you alignment and clarity of hands, head and heart.

We had the Asian Hornet in Catalonia. It wiped out all the hives. The bees were the only creatures that made a profit. The chickens could have broken even if the egg sales had been better organised. Sheep, the biggest financial sink hole I've encountered. Donkeys just burnt hay, but did have some use in clearing woodland. Rabbits all died. Muscovy ducks were lovely and fairly cheap to keep.

Everytime we go through a difficulty I feel grateful that none of this we have to do for a living. Any money we make along the way selling surplus, feels like Christmas.

We're leaving for a three day hike in a mountain. A friend is keeping our home and animals, we've been postponing for ten days now. I'm not inclined to go as the last time we did this last september we came back to find a very sick chicken, but my partner is kicking my butt.

 

[Perris]

We're leaving for a three day hike in a mountain.

have a wonderful break @ManueB - you deserve it, and it will do you good.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

81 sunny 78 % humidity feels like 85.

Have a great day!