Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

I need @pennyJo1960 at my place! Haha saw a baby rat having a a sniff at my compost bin.

I haven't taken a chicken to the vet before, but I have spent a fair amount of time talking to the vet clinic about my chickens. I've always found them very helpful. And they dispense flock-sized amounts of wormer/coccidiostat for me, so I don't have cow or horse sized bottles sitting in my refrigerator. I live in a rural place where keeping chickens is just the way everyone used to do things and still is the way a lot of people do. The vets are very good here and I imagine they are in all small rural places here in New Zealand.

If anyone wants to follow my hybrid incubation thread you can find it here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/hybrid-incubation-feedback-please.1541686/

I didn't get any feedback on my plan yet, probably because I tend to ask complicated questions! I'll be posting updates as I go along. Should be educational at least.

As someone who has never used an artificial incubator I'm afraid I can't help with feedback, but how do you know that the humidity was the issue for your broodies in the past?

 

[Perris]

We're switching back from all flock to layer, because even the rooster is eating the crushed egg shells all the time!

you may find this useful: https://extension.uga.edu/publicati...title=Nutrition for the Backyard Flock#title5
especially the section on minerals. In old poultry books the advice is to make sure the flock has access to old mortar, which no doubt worked fine when mortar was lime mortar. I've no idea what goes into modern mortars, but you might, as you've been building recently!

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

As someone who has never used an artificial incubator I'm afraid I can't help with feedback, but how do you know that the humidity was the issue for your broodies in the past?

I don't know for absolutely sure that it was the humidity, but it's the most educated guess I can make. I had one 100% failed hatched of I think 16 eggs, all of which were developed at the same rate, and all of which died in the shell without pipping. They all had air cell sizes that indicated an issue with humidity. These eggs were split between 2 different hens also. I only candled them after they failed to hatch as I am usually very hands-off. This happened over a very unusually humid period over summer where the humidity just did not break. I get lower hatch rates (below 50%) when the humidity is high and excellent hatch rates (above 90%) when the humidity drops into the 50s and 60s for at least a handful of days during the 21 days. This has all been with broodies.

I honestly don't know how I can be sure of the precise reason, but this seems like a solid explanation worth accounting for and seeing what happens.

 

[Ponypoor]

Back home! Three days in the mountains is enough to empty your head, fill up your eyes and soul, and kill your back and quads. We played around the Italian frontier leaving our van at the col de Larches (la maddalena for the italians) staying above 2300m.
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My favorite author as a teenager : "I just lay on the mountain meadow side in the moonlight, head to grass, and heard the silent recognition of my temporary woes. "
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Our friend keeping our home fell head over heels for the chickens and chicks and spoiled them to death! He didn't do so well with the garden so we have to catch up three days of no watering, no harvesting (zucchinis) and no weeding... but it was worth it.
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I skimmed through what I missed on the thread and I am very keen on doing a real catching up once we're
settled.

You are a true poet Love the statement from your author, that describes it perfectly.

Breath taking dramatic landscape! You must come to Canada to the Rockies Mountains here

 

[Molpet]

I don't know for absolutely sure that it was the humidity, but it's the most educated guess I can make. I had one 100% failed hatched of I think 16 eggs, all of which were developed at the same rate, and all of which died in the shell without pipping. They all had air cell sizes that indicated an issue with humidity. These eggs were split between 2 different hens also. I only candled them after they failed to hatch as I am usually very hands-off. This happened over a very unusually humid period over summer where the humidity just did not break. I get lower hatch rates (below 50%) when the humidity is high and excellent hatch rates (above 90%) when the humidity drops into the 50s and 60s for at least a handful of days during the 21 days. This has all been with broodies.

I honestly don't know how I can be sure of the precise reason, but this seems like a solid explanation worth accounting for and seeing what happens.

I have the same hatching problems when hot and humid with broodies. I will start eggs in the incubator at the same time and split the chicks between the broodies. Last year I didn't incubate, because I still wasn't feeling well from covid, and had 16 of 18 broodies fail completely. The 2 that had eggs hatch, One was in nest box and had 5 of 12. The other showed up from the brush with 10. This year is similar. The 2 in the brush had 9 each. The ones in the nest boxes have 11 between 6 hens.
So I agree with Shadrach that on the dirt works better.

 

[BY Bob]

Back home! Three days in the mountains is enough to empty your head, fill up your eyes and soul, and kill your back and quads. We played around the Italian frontier leaving our van at the col de Larches (la maddalena for the italians) staying above 2300m.
View attachment 3210235

View attachment 3210238
My favorite author as a teenager : "I just lay on the mountain meadow side in the moonlight, head to grass, and heard the silent recognition of my temporary woes. "
View attachment 3210247
Our friend keeping our home fell head over heels for the chickens and chicks and spoiled them to death! He didn't do so well with the garden so we have to catch up three days of no watering, no harvesting (zucchinis) and no weeding... but it was worth it.
View attachment 3210267

I skimmed through what I missed on the thread and I am very keen on doing a real catching up once we're
settled.

Magnificent! I'm glad you had a relaxing reset.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

The first thing that struck me as we stood outside the run fence that night was there was a rather dirty Light Sussex rooster with a Light Sussex hen perched one side of him and a grey hen perched on the other side on a roost bar in the corner of the covered run area of the coop. The next thing that struck me was there was no door on the run area of the coop so the rooster and the two hens only predator protection was the outer run fence (I’ll write more about this fence further on).
At that time I had no idea that there were another 22 hens inside the coop itself!

I didn’t take any pictures that night but below is a picture of the rooster and one of his favourite hens on the roost bar settling down for the night.
View attachment 2907198

I’ve kept a short written diary each day since I started looking after these chickens and taken quite a few photographs over the past three months. Many of these photographs I’ve posted on By Bob’s, Ribh’s and Mary Janet’s threads. My apologies for reposting them here.

A couple of days after speaking to the person who has the small holders licence that covers the keeping of the creatures and the allotment style plots, I had new keys cut for the padlock on the main run gate and was finally able to see better what it was I had taken on.

Don't apologize for the pictures just keep putting them up.

Some of us don't follow the threads that you mention.

 

[bruceha2000]

Or am I muddled again & that's not who you were talking about...

Correct

The comment was made that you get more sensible chicken advice from vets in Australia and a video of a vet - Sez the Vet. I watched the video and looked at her YouTube channel info, she is in New Zealand, not Australia.

 

[RoyalChick]

Correct

The comment was made that you get more sensible chicken advice from vets in Australia and a video of a vet - Sez the Vet. I watched the video and looked at her YouTube channel info, she is in New Zealand, not Australia.

 

[pennyJo1960]

So the tractor had to have new wheels it is like 15 to 20 years old.. Gentleman that built it was a electrician he used metal conduit that lasts close to forever.
The reason to have it is banty the cats would love to have chicken dinner. Banty are tx today!