Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

further to this, apparently it's a well documented phenomenon - occurring naturally as well as with penned birds, though all the refs are a bit old on the wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Gamebird_hybrids#cite_ref-12 .
If they do hit it off, it could produce some very special birds though - see the photo thereon of such birds in the Rothschild Museum Tring.
Incredible! I never heard of that and the other hybrids mentioned before. With one of your swedish flower pullets it would certainly make an interesting hair style 🤣.
Day off yesterday.
It looks like C did feed them but I don't know if they got fed this morning or the second tray in the coop extension was from Sunday.
What a lovely day. Blue skies and it got to 10C at one point.
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I kept them on or around my plot today. I dug up half a dozen decent sized potatoes next to the bins. Also found a pile of rocks just to the left of the pale blue/green bin.:(
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It looks as if there may have been two plots here at some point, the other on the other side of the bins where sheets of geotextile have been left on the ground and the vegitiation has grown through it.
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Just curious, what size approximately is the plot and do you have any way to water it or is the British climate sufficiently rainy ?

This Sunday I was invited at my partner's father's house. He is the one that got us into getting ex-battery hens. He got six hens from the place as ours and same generation, except he got them when they were thrown out at 15 months, and we got ours one year before at 3 months (they had no ended layers left when my partner arrived there). He also doesn't keep them at all outside like us, they are locked up in a 10 m 2 run / coop and only come out for half an hour or an hour daily under his wife's supervision. They eat the cheaper all flock feed we find here that's mostly wheat and corn.
So it's interesting to compare how they are respectively doing. We have four left with one still unwell from a hawk attack at Christmas. He has only three, but one got caught by a fox that managed to come in their run. Of the three left, the one that is in best health and active is a cross beak little thing that probably had a very strong will to live just to survive the battery. They have named her Popeye and she is their favorite, she is the only one still laying, once or twice a week. One other is looking good but a bit slow, and one is very lethargic. Their feathers are notably in a better shape than ours, maybe because they have no rooster or maybe just the luck of genetics. All in all, there is a small difference with ours regarding their general state, but not so much, the greatest notable difference being that three of our fours are still laying three to five eggs a week.

My partner's father, even if he likes the chickens, still sees them as laying machines. His wife mentioned that once some years ago they had bought point of lay pullets from a breeder 18 euros each, and that those hens had laid until they died, the oldest one being six. His reply was that with 18 euros he could get 18 ended ex-batts 🙁(they cost one euro each).

My ex-batts for tax.
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Just curious, what size approximately is the plot and do you have any way to water it or is the British climate sufficiently rainy ?
I haven't measured it. Come to that, I'm not sure yet what's plot and what isn't.:D
There is a tap on site and a hose.
 
My partner's father, even if he likes the chickens, still sees them as laying machines. His wife mentioned that once some years ago they had bought point of lay pullets from a breeder 18 euros each, and that those hens had laid until they died, the oldest one being six. His reply was that with 18 euros he could get 18 ended ex-batts 🙁(they cost one euro each).
This is just one of the many problems associated with the whole rescue business. Many people see it as a means of getting cheap eggs. It would be interesting to see what percentage of those who get Ex Battery hens see them as a means to get cheap eggs. I know of two locally who while appreciative of any eggs mainly got Ex Battery hens to give them a better quality of life.
 
it is indeed, though I'm not sure what, if any, lessons I can draw from it.
But he was lucky to lose only one to the fox if they were confined!
It's a rather sad story. One of the hens was badly bullied and getting wounded by the others so he had built an enclosure inside the run to shelter her. The fox got in the enclosure and took the bullied hen, but didn't manage to go through in the run.
This is just one of the many problems associated with the whole rescue business. Many people see it as a means of getting cheap eggs. It would be interesting to see what percentage of those who get Ex Battery hens see them as a means to get cheap eggs. I know of two locally who while appreciative of any eggs mainly got Ex Battery hens to give them a better quality of life.
But I don't think it holds from a strictly financial perspective, at least not for him, since he's been paying feed for six months now and getting only an egg a week. I don't try to discuss with him 🤦‍♂️. It would only make sense if you culled the hens once they stop laying and even someone like him doesn't do that.
 
further to this, apparently it's a well documented phenomenon - occurring naturally as well as with penned birds, though all the refs are a bit old on the wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Gamebird_hybrids#cite_ref-12 .
If they do hit it off, it could produce some very special birds though - see the photo thereon of such birds in the Rothschild Museum Tring.
From that reference "They have also produced hybrids with peafowl".
How the heck do they manage "the act" either direction???
 

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