Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Cold-Blood]

@Shadrach and all other rooster lovers, check this out:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/top-tips-for-raising-chickens.78225/
Nr21. You should only keep roosters if you want chicks.

Wrong- my rooster screamed and got all of the chickens into the coop, before a hawk swooped through the pen. This was a few days ago.

 

[kcan2]

Waiting to get out.
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Not quite so cold today, around 3C.View attachment 3352328View attachment 3352330View attachment 3352327

Henry's legs have greatly improved now he's shed more scales. I'll do his legs again tomorrow if I can.
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Happy to see Henry! Curious to know how he is taking Matilda's absence thus far. She was one of the head hens, correct?
Glad to see his legs/feet shaping up!

 

[lightm]

I have predator attacks even when I am outside.
I just finished processing cockerels years ago when I heard an alert and seen a flash of brown a couple hundred feet away. I immediately ran down the hill and found a hawk on a barred pullet. I thought she was dead , blood coming out eyes and mouth....but when I picked her up by the leg she cheaped. I held her thinking she was going to die but she didn't. I thought about dispatching since I had the plucker out and everything set up. But I didn't. Lucky lived in a parrot cage in the living room watching TV all winter. She just sat in the cage like she was in shock for months. She started laying in the spring but it Took about 5 months before she wanted to go outside ... she would stay on the outside of the flock and go to the gate and wait for me to bring her back in. Finally about 8 months after attack she went into the coop at night. The next year she went broody and raised her chicks. She died the next year.

Also had a coyote jump the fence and kill a turkey hen on a nest when I went inside to get something.

Another time I came out from lunch and heard a broody hen yelling. I found her co broody sister being eaten by a hawk. The yelling broody raised her sisters chicks.

My great great grandparents cleared this property for farming. They killed the wolves and other predators off. They didn't feed the chickens, the other livestock got fed and the chickens ate what was left. Not saying these were good things but at the time this was how they survived.

Oh Lucky!!

 

[lightm]

Tax for thread trash: Dyffryn at the beginning of the month
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Wow. Stunning looking. Have you submitted it to POW?

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Yes

X 2

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good evening one and all!

The information has been very helpful and useful now and later.

55 mostly cloudy 88% humidity feels like 56 rain 9%.

Have a great day!

 

[Solanacae]

My birds are loved and cared for. Do you all think that it is ethically ok to keep them this way?

Mine don’t completely free range, and if I’m honest with myself, the space they have is far from ideal forage space. The previous owners of the house apparently thought that a couple of trees and lawn was ideal landscaping. However, one think I liked about the yard was that it was a big one (.4 acre) so I’d be able to give them a large space to roam without my husband complaining about poop all over the back yard. I’ve already planted one tree in their area with more shrubs and better pasture plants for foraging in the plans for next year. They seem to be happy and healthy for the most part, though I worry about Cordelia who's gone back to having crop problems. I’m not sure what to do for her. It is definitely a far cry from what I have seen in some neighbor’s yards - small spaces, high stocking densities, etc. I think it’s important to recognize what you are doing right while you are also looking for ways you can improve their situation. My brother is not fully vegan, but is trying to cut industrial meats out of his diet for ethical and environmental reasons. He has no problems with the game meat the family harvests and he helps to butcher the animals, and he loves coming to visit my chickens and enjoying some of their eggs. I wouldn’t be surprised if he starts keeping a flock of his own when he’s able to buy a house with a yard. Anyway, my point is, I think you’re doing fine.

 

[Solanacae]

Chatter tax:
Genevieve and Estella are in the coop with everyone else but are very wary about coming out of their area. It is set up so they can escape several ways from the other chicks and the Sultans, but the larger birds can’t squeeze into their area.

The black chick, named Mabel by my daughter, is getting red shoulder feathers and definitely a cockerel.

One of the Spitzhauben’s checking out the crumble my daughter is holding for it. I can’t decide if it’s male of female. It’ll be 17 weeks on Monday, no signs of saddle feathers or spiky crest feathers, but has had large wattles and there’s a pretty prominent comb in those crest feathers.

 

[BDutch]

Chatter tax:
Genevieve and Estella are in the coop with everyone else but are very wary about coming out of their area. It is set up so they can escape several ways from the other chicks and the Sultans, but the larger birds can’t squeeze into their area.

The black chick, named Mabel by my daughter, is getting red shoulder feathers and definitely a cockerel.

One of the Spitzhauben’s checking out the crumble my daughter is holding for it. I can’t decide if it’s male of female. It’ll be 17 weeks on Monday, no signs of saddle feathers or spiky crest feathers, but has had large wattles and there’s a pretty prominent comb in those crest feathers.

If there were no health problems with your Spitshauben I bet it’s a she. 17 weeks without a rooster cry and no spikey feathers say more than the size of wattles an comb imo.
2 years ago I had a hen that had very large comb and wattles too:

 

[Iluveggers]

Thanks everyone for the kind words & encouragement! I tend to be harder on myself than I should…