Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

The weather is beautiful today. Another extreme warm day (record broken). Not everything about climate change is bad.

The chickens enjoying some scratch an mealworms. I poored a lot of leaves into the run today.

did you intend to include a photo of chickens enjoying their treats? if so, please try again !

 

[Solanacae]

yes, and also some are fast, some slow. Generally the best layers (which here means 'most consistent'; none lay lots by production breed standards) molt fast and late.

I can see how that could be true. I haven’t been keeping chickens for long enough to know if my flock mirrors that trend.

@ManueB I forgot to answer one of your questions - my broodies were on the floor of my coop, all within about 3 feet of each other. I would have given them more distance except I was treating Cordelia for sour crop when they started setting and I didn’t want to move them later. (She hates being handled so I would treat her at night, put her in a dog crate to sleep, then treat her again in the morning before letting her out for the day, rather than trying to catch her twice a day.) I had a hard enough time transitioning Sophia from the nesting box to her new nest, I didn’t want to make it even more complicated.

I have a poop board under my roosting bars, which gives me some space underneath. I keep a wire dog crate under there, which is useful for treating sick chickens but allowing them to stay with the flock. I also used it for Caramel with last year’s hatch after an egg got crushed by some squabble in the nesting box. I blocked off the nesting area this year as well, since Peanut wouldn’t leave the broodies alone. She and Sophia are best friends and Peanut couldn’t seem to fathom why Sophia was being such a stick in the mud. So she went in there to scratch and peck instead. The broodies were less that enthused about straw and shavings getting kicked around.

I kept the mamas blocked off for a week-ish after (opening things up when I could be there to supervise) and once I was confident that they would protect their chicks, left things open 24/7. I am currently using the dog crate as a creep feeder so the chicks can go and eat the chick starter without the rest of the flock greedily gobbling it up.

 

[Shadrach]

Losing feathers is okay for this time of year. But his legs do look pretty nasty indeed. It must be frustrating for you that the treatments don't seem to be working the way they should.

He is begining to shed leg scales now. Hard though it may be to believe his legs are considerably better than they were.

 

[Shadrach]

I see you have two more chickens making use of your chair.

Maybe you need to bring them their own chair.

Apparently that is their own chair.

 

[Shadrach]

So many things keeping me busy at the moment but I’ve enjoyed popping on now and then to keep up with Henry and his girls. I owe lurking tax, I’m sure. Sophia went broody at the end of July and refused to break, so I started thinking about getting some hatching eggs. I was hoping Caramel would go broody since she took such great care of last fall’s chicks. Saoirse went broody in the middle of September, right before I got the hatching eggs, so I divided 8 eggs between them. Then Caramel went broody 10 days into setting, so after candling the eggs, I had 4 viable eggs to divvy up. I was worried about Sophia quitting since she’d been broody for so long, so she got one. Saoirse had been so dedicated and careful the whole time so she got two, and Caramel got one because she was late to the party. All four hatched, despite a little drama with Caramel stealing Sophia’s egg multiple times, including the night the chicks hatched. Fortunately Sophia accepted the chick she’d brooded so well, and she and Caramel have been cooperatively raising their two chicks together. Caramel is my #2 hen and Sophia is near the bottom, so it is interesting for me to see them working together so well. Saoirse has been a fierce mama and protects her two very well, but there is no cooperation between her and the other hens. Her best friend as a juvenile was a cockerel I ended up rehoming, and she hasn’t made any other close friendships since. The black and chipmunk chicks were from an Ameraucana breeding pen but a Silkie rooster got in and managed to fertilize at least a few eggs, including these two, as they have dark skin, 5 toes, and feathered legs. I didn’t find this out about the Silkie rooster until after the eggs hatched and I asked the breeder how on earth these chicks have feathered legs and extra toes. The other two are Blue Australorps, and I’m suspecting that both are cockerels. I have loved watching these mamas take care of their little ones and teach them. They all tend to spend the middle of the day in the tall grass where they have some cover from the occasional hawk I see flying around. They’re three weeks old now.

Lovely pictures.

 

[Shadrach]

Thank you so much, I'll read it this afternoon, as it's too warm to do anything outside from two to five .
We're not in a hurry, I would prefer to wait to know whether we can keep the two roosters or not, and how many of our ex-batts make it through winter.

It turns out one of the breeder I had an eye on because they seem correct and not too far from us has created a leghorn club last year (there wasn't any in France) so I will probably ask them for more information, if we decide to get some. I still have qualms with high production breeds.

Aren't there any local breeds?

 

[Shadrach]

Good morning

Been occupied with changing jobs, went back to the oilfield. Kids are coming over tomorrow so I'll be cooking ribs and briskets today. But I'll catch up on here throughout the day. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend

Most of mine are still molting but are looking better. Still feeding feather fixer primarily and a little scratch grains as treats. Current count is 28 hens and 11 roosters.

You've beaten my maximum rooster count of 9.

 

[Shadrach]

Almost 2 years
End of November 2020.
I would say it's Old age, but I'm improving

That am I falling to bits because I'm old, or because I'm sick is always a tricky one.
Things I used to do in a day can take a week now.

 

[Shadrach]

I’m not entirely sure she was aware the Silkie rooster got in. After I asked her about it, she talked to her husband and it was then that she found out that the Silkie had gotten into the pen. Her husband didn’t think anything of it at the time, because the intended rooster was keeping him away from the hens. The Silkie obviously mounted at least a couple on the sly, though. I’m not sure what her setup is for breeding pens, or how easy it was for the Silkie to get in. I do know she usually lets the whole flock free range together and then separates them out for 6+ weeks to ensure she’s getting the genetics she wants.

I won’t be able to keep any cockerels, unfortunately. The city ordinances say I can have 10 chickens but no roosters. I moved in with 10 chickens . . . my back fence neighbor has chickens and she says no one in this neighborhood really cares much how many chickens you have but you will be reported if you’ve got a rooster crowing and making a racket. So unless I have one that hardly makes a sound, I’ll try to rehome (which is unlikely I’ll be successful as most places near here have even more restrictive limitations in keeping chickens) or they will become soup. I’m not looking forward to the second option, but I refuse to be like some people who just go and dump their unwanted chickens up a dirt road in the mountains somewhere.

I have three that have not started their molt yet - my two ISA Browns and my lead hen, which is a Marans. The others are in varying degrees of looking like porcupines. We have had a couple of hard freezes this past week, but a long Indian summer prior to that and most trees have green leaves still. Quite unusual weather - my kids were picking strawberries in October!

I have had hens molt with snow on the ground and they have been fine, albeit grouchy. I’m feeding 20% protein feed to try and help them along as much as I can, plus some mealworms every few days. Fuzzy (my head hen) has molted late the past two years and this year that pattern will hold true again. She has yet to show any signs of molting. Cannonball has been my first hen to molt every year as well - has anyone else noticed in their flocks that some consistently molt earlier and some molt later?

I've never seen much consistency in moulting.
The chick to final feathering is fairly tightly grouped but after that
It seems from what I've read that we don't really understand how the moulting trigger works. All one can say is that it is probable that some hens will moult from autumn to early winter.
It has always seemed to me that staggered moulting was what happened.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Good afternoon X Batts. With ya there old age has snuck up when I was not looking.
took a long hot shower.
My white bird is close to 2 Not sure how I got her she hatched here.
She does have a small amount of black showing on the wings.