Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[MROO]

This is great, thank you. I’ll try gently brushing her, and then spray her legs and the coop after emptying it’s contents. Should I spray all birds legs as a precaution? I’m sorry to clog up the thread, this is such an informative place to be, so I hope someone reading through finds this helpful as well. I’ll pay my tax later after picking up treatment supplies.

Don't ever feel badly for "clogging a thread" with genuine questions! That's how we learn. I work in the public school system, and I always tell the students that the only truly "dumb question" is the one you are too embarrassed to ask, so you walk away feeling worse and without learning what you needed to know. So ... ask away. We'll all enjoy the learning tax pictures, later!

 

[Iluveggers]

Additional tax: todays kitchen special, the leftover cooked butternut rinds. Looks like a hit!

 

[BDutch]

Update in this thread about the broodies with 11 hatching eggs.

My Dutch Black definitely got broody too. Not what I prefer but i didn't succeed in stopping her broodiness. Because it’s more difficult to feed two separated groups , I didn’t close the gate between the broodies and the extension where the non-broodies sleep.

I candled 8 eggs tonight (day 8-9). The candled eggs are all alive. 3 bantam Vorwerk eggs , 2 Sussex and 3 Dutch. The Dutch I candled are Yellow, Silver and the last one has a R. I forgot what that stands for. Probable it’s Red shoulderd/Pyle. I didn’t want yo take all eggs out and disturb the broodies a lot.

 

[Shadrach]

This is great, thank you. I’ll try gently brushing her, and then spray her legs and the coop after emptying it’s contents. Should I spray all birds legs as a precaution? I’m sorry to clog up the thread, this is such an informative place to be, so I hope someone reading through finds this helpful as well. I’ll pay my tax later after picking up treatment supplies.

Not really much point in preventative spraying so concentrate on the ones that need treatment.

 

[Shadrach]

We missed the worst of the rain, or rather it missed us. I could see it raining over the hills towards the next county.
We got out. Lima and Fret were wedged against the gate dying to get out after a bit of a snack.

Fret, fretting less each day. I sat on the roost bar waiting for Carbon who was still in the allotment run investigating the latest weeded patch on the off chance there was something edible. Fret got up on the bar and shuffled over close enough to have a few investigating pecks at my coat and settled down for a bit of a pre roost nap.

I didn't see it, but I did hear it; Ella got told off by someone which is why she's on the roost bar on her own.

 

[lightm]

"I saw chickens today" -- from A Turtle's Journey

Lots of rain yesterday night and somehow I ended up on this woodchip pile

I was spotted by some weird looking reptile (if that)

She was afraid of me.

Then her friend came over too. Supposedly a very adventurous one.

We hung out for a bit together.

Then another friend of hers came over.

They were friendly.

But I need to carry one, so I walked all the way to the end of the fence.

A much bigger sized weirder looking reptile saw me and thought I'd like this TINY pond

Nope, not at all. I walked out of the barrel and kept on going.

Annnnnd I was stuck.

(In the end, I had to walk backwards to unstuck myself, yes yes, not very dignified, but I am all good now.)

 

[TropicalChickies]

I wish Lima was a naked neck but unfortunately she is an Ex Battery Red Sex Link with problems. The back of her head is bare because Henry really like her and when mating he pulls her head feathers out. An added problem is Lima really likes Henry and unlike the other hens, she doesn't tell him no often enough. Henry is quite happy to accept no as an answer to his advances and I've told Lima numerous times to say no and dodge him.

On the face of it one might consider my resistance to seperating her, or him, as poor husbandry but the fact is, the seperation would send Lima into immediate stress and given her heritage, stress is the one thing that is likely to decrease her already short expected life span.
Recently she has been saying no more but she's a happy little hen, super fit, alert and interested in everything around her and as long as there are no wounds as such, she is much better off with her friends than she would be isolated for the length of time it would take for her feathers to regrow.
The probability is she will die this year. She has I suspect Salpingitis which is common in battery hens and she is three years and some moths old now. Most battery hens die at around four years old so she doesn't by averages have that much longer to live. Better die happy with her friends, even if she does look a mess than in isolation, feeling miserable, lonely and stressed.

I completely agree. Four years is a long run for a battery hen and now she finally has an opportunity to live some rich and good days with good care, friends, and a handsome fella courting her -- that's the best anyone can do is let her have that in whatever time she has.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Hello X Batts on much sadder note my 4 year old raised here Rooster Smudge is going away. He has started refusing to allow to eat. He pecked one hen so bad she looks like a naked neck now.
This has escalated to where I really do not want him harassing them.

 

[Perris]

Hello X Batts on much sadder note my 4 year old raised here Rooster Smudge is going away. He has started refusing to allow to eat. He pecked one hen so bad she looks like a naked neck now.
This has escalated to where I really do not want him harassing them.

In my experience, when a bird who was nice turns nasty, they're lashing out because they are feeling rubbish and are seriously ill, even if nothing is yet showing.

 

[janiedoe]

In my experience, when a bird who was nice turns nasty, they're lashing out because they are feeling rubbish and are seriously ill, even if nothing is yet showing.

This makes sense to me. Doris got very cranky before he died last summer. I'm pretty sure he had, had a heat stroke. He started pecking on the little chicks, which he had never done before. I moved him into a pen with his favorite girls so he wouldn't get beat up, for bullying.
I'm thinking maybe I should move my husband into his own space? He's getting a little cranky in his old age.