Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

I believe it is all tied up in the history of the US Postal Service and a ruling by the Postmaster General in 2018.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/truth-behind-journey-mail-order-163945897.html

Prior to that believe it or not, they delivered human babies too!
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/mailing-babies-postal-service/

typo you may want to fix: 1918 not 2018
thanks for the informative link
the mailing babies stories is astonishing, but also touching. How innocent the world seemed then.

 

[RoyalChick]

typo you may want to fix: 1918 not 2018
thanks for the informative link
the mailing babies stories is astonishing, but also touching. How innocent the world seemed then.

Typo fixed - thanks for catching. I agree - the baby story made me smile in a nice way even though it is in many ways rather shocking.

 

[TropicalBabies]

Tis early days. Your broody will now get on largely unassisted with the rearing process while you have to teach the incubator babies everything they know, as well as make provision of appropriate food, drink etc., - or are you expecting the broody to adopt the incubator chicks?

I was contemplating giving her a few more but honestly just not sure yet.
Leaning towards probably not.

I really enjoy chick rearing. I have 3 wonderful brooders, grow out/rooster pens and mutual freerange space that make it easy for the blending of my flock. I am in the tropics where it is bug plentiful and chicken instincts kick in pretty good. I maintain the feed and water of my flock and it is nothing to do another few sets of feeders and waterers. I have a pretty good poop scraping composting system so that is also a breeze.
The chicks I raise are friendlier than the ones my broodies have raised. Though, in all fairness, my past broodies -with the exception of Pi'i- have been half feral dna with hella instincts. So, this will be the "eye opener" for me. A domestic hen raising a domestic chick. Are they friendly enough? Does the flock take to them any faster? How will I see the benifits?
I need to be able to handle my flock reasonably. Health checks, worming etc. And I want their new people to not have a problem with that either. That really seems to add to their quality and longevity of life here.

We have wild feral chicken junglefowl galore over here. Talk about chicken instincts gone wild. We can literally go out anyday of the week and trap more chickens than a person needs. People normally want them off of their property as they can be a pain.

I'm up at the cabin with 1/2 my flock and have been adopted by 3 ferals. They had a young cockerel tagging along with them but he challenged my roo, they squared off, had 2 goes and I made a few steps forward and her left to never come back. He was not that afraid of me as he had been lurking around here for a few weeks prior.

The hens were not attached to him.

They are the little light brown one. Forgive my chicken and roo molts ♡ and cage mess.

 

[TropicalBabies]

My head too!! I just can't deal with that thought.

Now think of being a day old or hour old chick and getting boxed and sent to Hawaii from Texas... they come in beat but get revived, just as we would a sick chick, but yeah, lots of stress

 

[TropicalBabies]

Well, ugly cages worked. Poor lost hunting dog has been around over a month and I have been feeding in hopes I could get him somewhere safer. The mountain is a hard lonely life. So, after a month + of feeding I set the trap last night and now... ?♡ we hope.

This hungry orphan dog must have been trained to stay away from chickens (because of our feral chicken population can distract a hunt) so he would walk right through my flock- though I was not able to freerange them with out being a Sheppard. I'm hoping my husband gets all soft and wants to adopt him but he is very, very shy. He will need lots of work.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good afternoon one and all!

88 sunny 72% humidity feels like 100 thunderstorms coming.

Have a great day!

 

[TropicalBabies]

And I am going to defend breeders/shipping a little. It is the consumer who dictates this and they do do a service. We the people do buy this way and until small breeders supply a better product for less people will choose a $5 vaccinated chick over a questionable chick from a breeder unless you are lucky enough to live next to a NPIP breeder you risk bringing things into your flock.
It is in the best interest of these large breeders for their chicks to arrive alive and well and I think that they mostly do an outstanding job of packing and coordinating their shipping as they have far many more successes. Some losses are exceptable. I say this with the opinion of someone who lives on a isolated island chain where (unfortunately) we are heavily reliant on shipping.

 

[Molpet]

Well for meat , rangers or CX, pretty much have to get from a hatchery. I got a few from the box farm store that came from a hatchery a couple hundred miles away. But I kept one and started some meat mutts from her ... Not cost effective meat though, but healthier and sustainable birds

 

[TropicalBabies]

Day 20, I think all but 3 eggs have hatched so far, which is giving me a far better ratio than the broody this time. Though, if I had not been there when the electric went out or had a generator she very well may have had the better hatch and to loose so many beautiful littles would have been devastating...
What a little mob ♡

 

[pennyJo1960]

Good morning X Batts house is sick covid I am in the best shape only heaven know why ?