Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

I agree, it's not cost effective in purely financial terms.
Ignoring all the "awww, they're so cute with moma" stuff there are some distinct advantages for the fully free range and the locked in at night ranging model.
For keepers that free range, not necessarily on large properties and can keep males, broody hatching makes a lot of sense. Get this right and you can have eggs and broodies hatching. The broodies are not only hatching future generations, they are providing meat in the guise of the chickens one can't afford to keep for whatever reason.
This is my favourite model but for many killing what they've seen raised is too difficult.
One also does away with the weeks of chick care (incubated or bought) and integration problems and if the parents are healthy one can be fairly confident they will produce heathy offspring.

Good job I don't expect the allotment chickens to pay their way.

I do the math in a simple way: I keep a spreadsheet with one page for egg record, one for income, and one for outgoings, on an annual basis. By selling surplus eggs at 1.50 for 6, I've been able to cover my costs (including some capital expenditure and hatching eggs, but not coop purchase; I expect to get most of that back when, ultimately, I have to give up chicken-keeping for whatever reason and sell them on ebay or whatnot) for 4 years now. And that doesn't take into account any eggs we eat (so they're 'free') or new birds, when home bred. Given how much a sack of grain has risen in that time, and demand (far outweighs my ability to supply, so customers have to take turns getting cartons at this time of year, and they're grateful for any, whenever) I may need to raise the price next year, but I'll hold it down if I can, when the year's accounts are finalized.

 

[Perris]

I feel the same both for the cockerel and the values, though mine aren't religious, and I don't think I'm doing very well .

Gaston crowed for the first time this morning and I don't want him to become anybody's supper. I fully respect the choice of turning them into nourishment but I'm not able to do it.

his 'crow' is priceless; Amadeo is a bit behind, he's just squeaking at the moment.

I tried turning excess cockerels into food when I started out, but these are not cornish X breeds, and I decided it wasn't worth the heartache and hard work of 'harvesting' them. To date, the boys haven't survived as well as the girls; they're more commonly predated for whatever reason, and the dominant boys are hard on young cockerels so they end up eating what the rest left, which makes them less robust health-wise. That is the tough world of natural living. The old ex-dom faces the same challenges. Life is harder for cocks than hens, even without humans deciding who lives and who dies.

 

[MaryJanet]

I appreciate that. Honestly, I do. But I have the unpopular opinion that animals shouldn't be eaten. It's a religion thing. I would never ever expect others to follow suit if it's not their way, but I cannot in good conscience give one of my animals over for that purpose.

Really - it's all good. I'm muddling my way through life trying to align the way I live with my values.

Does that mean you're opposed to ending the life of a healthy cockerel if it's not eaten?

I have an agreement with the avian vet who sees the hens for me. If ever a cockerel is hatched at my house, he'll humanely euthanize it for me. He said any cockerel that spends its early life in my backyard has already won the lottery over and over compared to those in our industrial food chain.

I know many of you would see this as wasteful. Before judging me harshly, roosters are problematic in my local council because of the noise and the chickens are my pets and friends. I don't have what it takes to eat my pets.

 

[Ribh]

Does that mean you're opposed to ending the life of a healthy cockerel if it's not eaten?

I have an agreement with the avian vet who sees the hens for me. If ever a cockerel is hatched at my house, he'll humanely euthanize it for me. He said any cockerel that spends its early life in my backyard has already won the lottery over and over compared to those in our industrial food chain.

I know many of you would see this as wasteful. Before judging me harshly, roosters are problematic in my local council because of the noise and the chickens are my pets and friends. I don't have what it takes to eat my pets.

Me either. I need to talk to my vet & local produce store before trying a hatch.

 

[Shadrach]

Honestly, it was an accident for me. Where I lived before - a suburban neighborhood - the only places I knew about to get chickens were feed stores, which, of course, carry hatchery chicks. And there were breeds I wanted, so I then learned about ordering. Now that I have an established flock, I don't want to bring in illnesses if/when I add birds so my choices are: let my broodies hatch them, or buy from an NPIP breeder. Well, there aren't any NPIP places that I can find anywhere near me, and I really can't have more roosters. No one wants roosters, sadly. And I don't eat chicken. And I can't kill something I've raised. So I'm left with feed stores (i.e. hatcheries).

It's something that has led me to decide not to replenish my flock. As my birds pass away, I won't be replacing them. No more chickens for me.

It's an area of chicken keeping that doesn't receive the attention it should. Some people don't care, others have not put much thought into where their chickens come from, or the meat they eat in general.
There are partial work arounds but to be effective there would need to be a fundamental change in the way people aquire their chickens.
None of the chickens at my Uncles farm, or the farm I worked on later in life, or in Catalonia came from hatcheries.
If the hatcheries didn't exist and people wanted to keep chickens they would have to do what people have done for centuries and that is take a breeding pair from a breeder in some cases, or from the likes of you and I. I used to give breeding pairs away in Catalonia. Nobody I knew there got their chickens from hatcheries.
If you are keeping chickens for pleasure rather than just for food, or anything in between and you change to a closed self sustaining group, you can limit the number of eggs a broody has in a clutch. This helps a bit.

I've read a lot of posts where people say they couldn't kill any unwanted chickens from their own chickens and therefore buy sexed hens from the hatcheries. This conveniently ignores the fact that for every hen they order a male chick dies anyway. Just by ordering a female only delivery of chicken from a hatchery one is responsible for the death of the same number of males. The killing is done by someone else, but the person who orders the chicks is still responsible for the deaths of the males.

Unfortunately people just want, without thinking or often caring about the consequences of their wanting. Very few people need these poor creatures. It's just another I want and I can have so preveleant in modern society imo.

I find it very sad that you and many people like you who so obviously care about these creatures find themselves at the point you are at now. Education rather than propaganda and commercial interests would help. If I lived close to you I would deal with the roosters (or hens) for you. I understand how difficult it is. It does get more acceptable once one has seen how a self sustaining group works. Just watching a hen abandon a partially hatched chick at the nest gives one a rather different perspective as does dealing with free range predation issues. It becomes more apparent that it is the survival of the genes rather than the individuals in various different circumstances that is important.

 

[RoyalChick]

@ManueB I am a bit of a Gaston fan, but even I had to laugh at his attempt to crow. Hopefully he will get better with practice!

The automated hatchery video was certainly dystopian, but remember at scale hatcheries were started in the 4th century BC by the Egyptians. That doesn’t make it right of course, but it would be wrong to think that it is a very modern invention.

I eat meat (though not often) and keeping chickens has made me way more conscious of husbandry and slaughter practices, and I now mainly buy only locally raised meat from farms where I can ask about slaughter etc.

I have not had to use it yet but I have a ‘seat’ at the local livestock market for any cockerels that might accidentally come my way. I would prefer not to and I know it would make me very sad to take something I had nurtured to be killed. But my personal belief is that turning them into food is respectful of their life.

Not sure why I shared all that other than to encourage sharing of different views.

 

[Molpet]

I'm not sure I understood correctly. Are you also selling Cornish Cross ?
I wonder how the grocery store can sell them for so cheap with the price you mention of organic feed ...does organic means pasture raised for Cornish X or not necessarily ?

No I am not selling or raising Cornish cross. I was comparing my feed cost to breed and raise sustainable meat compared to CX meat available to me.
The grocery store producers are big AG that buy CX chicks from hatcheries and tons of feed for the 6 to 8 weeks at one time. They get a much better feed price than I do buying twelve 50lb bags at a time for a month. Takes 4 months for mine to get to harvest size.
The organic label just means they were fed organic food. Nothing about living conditions. Raising in a big hoop house with thousands of birds is common. They have climate controlled, no predators and in theory few diseases.... Although avian influenza got in this year.
The farmers that raise the birds for the big AG companies do not make much of a profit. They are provided the chicks and feed. They are told how raise them and when they will be picked up for harvesting. Lots of farmers that have contracts with big AG have gone bankrupt.

 

[Iluveggers]

I've read a lot of posts where people say they couldn't kill any unwanted chickens from their own chickens and therefore buy sexed hens from the hatcheries. This conveniently ignores the fact that for every hen they order a male chick dies anyway. Just by ordering a female only delivery of chicken from a hatchery one is responsible for the death of the same number of males. The killing is done by someone else, but the person who orders the chicks is still responsible for the deaths of the males.

Eventually this is where I would like to be. Although I cannot keep a rooster where I am, I have family who can. I did two incubator hatches this year for “educational purposes” with my class & my own children. I gave away a few chicks, but we had three extra cockerels (two will live with the hens they were hatched with) in group 1, and four extra cockerels (two will stay) in the second group. We have processed the 3 from the first group for eating, and will do the same to the second 4 once they are big enough.

At first, I felt guilty, but after thinking of it, once I came to terms that I buy & eat chicken (from a local farm where they are out on pasture and free until processing), I realized I was being a hypocrite.

I definitely don’t judge anyone for their choices, and I would not have been able to start a flock as I did without a hatchery. In the future I am hoping to raise dual-purpose birds at the farm to avoid using hatcheries once the flock there is established.

One thing about hatcheries, if they didn’t exist many breeds of chickens would be extinct or very difficult to acquire for small farmers or backyard flock owners. I don’t necessarily like the practices of hatcheries, but without them our countries would be even more dependent on big poultry and big egg industries, which to me are much more of a problem than a hatchery. At least the chicks leaving the hatchery have a chance of having a good life, unlike the factory broilers or laying hens.

 

[Aunt Angus]

It's an area of chicken keeping that doesn't receive the attention it should. Some people don't care, others have not put much thought into where their chickens come from, or the meat they eat in general.
There are partial work arounds but to be effective there would need to be a fundamental change in the way people aquire their chickens.
None of the chickens at my Uncles farm, or the farm I worked on later in life, or in Catalonia came from hatcheries.
If the hatcheries didn't exist and people wanted to keep chickens they would have to do what people have done for centuries and that is take a breeding pair from a breeder in some cases, or from the likes of you and I. I used to give breeding pairs away in Catalonia. Nobody I knew there got their chickens from hatcheries.
If you are keeping chickens for pleasure rather than just for food, or anything in between and you change to a closed self sustaining group, you can limit the number of eggs a broody has in a clutch. This helps a bit.

I've read a lot of posts where people say they couldn't kill any unwanted chickens from their own chickens and therefore buy sexed hens from the hatcheries. This conveniently ignores the fact that for every hen they order a male chick dies anyway. Just by ordering a female only delivery of chicken from a hatchery one is responsible for the death of the same number of males. The killing is done by someone else, but the person who orders the chicks is still responsible for the deaths of the males.

Unfortunately people just want, without thinking or often caring about the consequences of their wanting. Very few people need these poor creatures. It's just another I want and I can have so preveleant in modern society imo.

I find it very sad that you and many people like you who so obviously care about these creatures find themselves at the point you are at now. Education rather than propaganda and commercial interests would help. If I lived close to you I would deal with the roosters (or hens) for you. I understand how difficult it is. It does get more acceptable once one has seen how a self sustaining group works. Just watching a hen abandon a partially hatched chick at the nest gives one a rather different perspective as does dealing with free range predation issues. It becomes more apparent that it is the survival of the genes rather than the individuals in various different circumstances that is important.

I agree about educating folks. But I have found that the majority opinion in my neck of the woods is that animals exist to serve and be served to people. I find it very barbaric, tbh. But I don't hold it against anyone. I just do it my way. I am almost vegan, but I've been fortunate to find a local gal who milks her goats and still lets the dams keep their kids. Pre-made foods like bread are my only hang up. I just haven't made that leap yet. It's a personal struggle, as silly as it sounds. I can imagine the eye rolls and the scoffs I get as I'm explaining these things - lol!

My other hope is that when my chickens are all gone, I may just get rescue hens or start a bachelor flock. But it will be a while, hopefully. I love the individuals who comprise my flock. I am not in a place where I can put myself above their right to live their little chicken lives. Again, just me. Not proselytizing.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

86 cloudy 65% humidity feels like 93 with thunderstorms.

Have a great day!