Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

Caged eggs are being gradually phased out through regulation https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2...pdated-cage-eggs-battery-phase-out-/101347756 . We are very slow compared to the EU and some other nations who have made this change already. But the point is that the debate is settled, although of course all sides of the argument will find its way to the public discourse until the transition is over.

For example, one side of the discourse concerns backyard produced eggs. As the cost of eggs rises due to the transition to a free range only market, there is a spike in backyard chicken keeping, see https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-28/backyard-chicken-demand-egg-prices-cost-of-living/102534778 however, there is no official oversight of chicken care in backyard environments. If someone decides to keep chickens in a cruel environment in a backyard, it won't be susceptible to welfare inspections. At least the caged egg producers working on a large scale undergo welfare inspections.

It's easy to forget here on BYC that the majority of the keeping conditions we read about and more importantly, see honest pictures of do not represent an accurate picture of backyard life for most backyard chickens.
The type of conditions I posted at the begining of the thread are not at all uncommon. Confining chickens to a coop and run only is not uncommon either.
The arguement that a well run battery provides better conditions than many, if not most back yard arrangements is I think a fair one.
However, many batteries are not as Dr whathisneame describe and some backyard arrangements are far better than the Dr suggests.

I dare say many of those pictures in the various show us your chicken threads are misleading. Sure, the chickens look okay but many are posed for the picture and don't tell us much about how that chicken lives day to day. It's why I like keeping condition pictures on this thread. It's rather more honest than the posed shots for a competition/whatever.

The free range or range or confined classification isn't very difficult but of course, many are reluctant to drop the word "free" because it makes them look all warm and fuzzy. For the meat and egg industry it's an outright con; complete bullshit for marketing purposes.

Free range is having no physical barriers that prevent a chicken travelling any distances it wants to. There are not many people who keep free range chickens. For a start one needs quite a lot of land.
Ranging would seem a fair description for the majority of keeping arrangments that don't fall into the fully confined class.
For how long the chicken ranges and on how much land and the land condition is what one needs to know to make any sort of assessment.

My uncle free ranged and I did in Catalonia. The chickens got injured, predated, picked up lice and mites and learn't to be very cautious about where they went and when. I think they were healthier while they lived than any battery hen and a proper comparison would be an interesting study.

I wouldn't free range chickens in most circumstances. Even given unlimited resources I would still range. It might be from dawn to dusk but I would want some physical barrier even if that meant securely fencing a few acres.

 

[Shadrach]

The stocking density labelling on the boxes is an effective way to deal with the issue. See section 8 https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2017L00474

Before I had chickens I bought eggs from an egg producer who stocks hens at 150 per hectare. Other producers stock hens at 1500 or even 10000 per hectare.

I'm mindful that Shad does not encourage chatting on his thread about ex-battery hens. So if I stop leaving posts on this topic, it's out of respect for his preferences.

Chatting is fine as long as it's about chickens.
There are plenty of threads, in fact most of the long running threads, where one can chat about all the other stuff. It also helps to keep the five word converstations that one has to trawl through that clog up a thread and put people off trawling through 10 ,pages of crap about other peoples lives.

 

[Shadrach]

What I find interesting about free ranging, or even ranging if the area is large enough is chickens have what seems to be a natural range limit. A few of the free range keepers have mentioned this and the arguement that the chickens will just wander off isn't born out in reality. I pointed this out in last nights post.
With just three chickens they tend not to wander beyond a ceratin distance. I and others have found the range limit corresponds rather well with the territories claimed by jungle fowl. This seems to be around an acre per tribe. Tribe size has some bearing on this as does resources but there are too many reports of an acrea being a good average to ignore.
When it comes to those how much room does a chicken need, or better worded, how much room will a chicken use an acre is a good guideline. It doesn't seem to matter what breed they are, or even how they've been kept before. Of course chickens can be content with less, but the acre should be the reference, not ten square feet!
Bristol Zoo used to keep a polar bear. It was kept in a mainly concrete enclosure and at the time, studies from Bristol zoo showed the bear was physically fit and well fed and cared for. The truth was the bear was going insane. Polat bears wander miles in their natural environment and that's not just about finding food so I read. They made food available for an artic polar bear in one study, as much as it could eat and it still walked miles.
Thankfully Bristol Zoo stopped keeping polar bears. A similar story can be told for many other creatures and the move to wildlife parks is an attempt to provide more humane conditions that having almost nothing to do with physical health. Mental health is just as big an issue for all creatures. Look what happened to humans during the lockdowns for Covid. The repercussions of being confined, despite having food, partners, families, health care etc are still rolling on.

 

[Shadrach]

Two and a half hours today. Dreary life crap sucked the hours away. Yep, I do have a life apart from chickens. Frankly there are days I wished I didn't.

Carbon has pulled a leg/toe muscle/tendon I think. It's things like this that make the impossiblilty of giving adequate care under the circumstances obvious. If I lived there it would be easy. She would already have been in the house/or some other building where she could be contained and forced to rest.
Hopefully it's minor and she will rest because it hurts. She got on to the roost bar this evening without issues.

 

[no fly zone]

Hope Carbon heals up.

 

[RoyalChick]

Free range is having no physical barriers that prevent a chicken travelling any distances it wants to. There are not many people who keep free range chickens. For a start one needs quite a lot of land.
Ranging would seem a fair description for the majority of keeping arrangments that don't fall into the fully confined class.
For how long the chicken ranges and on how much land and the land condition is what one needs to know to make any sort of assessment.

I think the ranging vs free ranging distinction is helpful (well at least to me). I don't think mine free range - in part because of the electric fence to keep the foxes away, and in part because when I am away they are confined in a coop and run (albeit a large one that you once described as an aviary).
So I will settle on saying that I range my chickens.
What I did was kept increasing the area protected by the electric fence until they got a space bigger than they routinely use. Not to say they don't ever go to all the edges, but rather rarely.
This is an area around 5,000 square feet which I think is a bit more than a tenth of an acre (did I get that right?).
And they are actually well able to get out of the fenced area if they choose. Several have done so on occasion. But they rarely bother as they seem content with the shrubs, plants and digging area they have inside the fence.
The few times I have met a chicken outside the fence it has struck me that it is more in the spirit of an adventure than seeking more forage.

Tax: the one area where they regularly come close to the fence is where I approach to enter the Chicken Palace and people come to the house back door. I think this is the equivalent of the chickens going to the zoo to watch the people.

 

[Molpet]

I have around ten acres. The next neighbor has a couple. I got the e net fence because the 8 chickens I had in 2015, insisted on going down 2 neighbors heading towards their tomatoes. I guess those tomatoes were better than mine
Actually I think they ate all the easy bugs and were looking for more. It was a dry year.

 

[TropicalChickies]

I think that would count as free range in almost everyone's book!

This is a guide to what counts here at the moment. Note that access to the outside does not mean actually go outside. Many so called free range birds never leave the shed.
https://www.egginfo.co.uk/egg-facts-and-figures/production/free-range-egg

One pop door per 600 birds. 9 hens per square meter. That's a pretty twisted use of the word "free."

 

[Nomadicus]

We have just over 4 acres and when I say free range it means when the coop door is opened they go where they please. So far they haven't crossed the road. No fence to keep them from it but they tend to stay near feed and water. We have an acre or so of a wooded area that they explore. Not to much of a threat there for them as it is bordered by grassland acreage on the other sides. If they decide to cross the road then up goes a fence. And soon there will be some runs built onto the coops for the coops that have purebreds that I need to keep pure at hatch time. Otherwise I don't need to be running up a feed bill and hatch only mutts and no proper breeds. I do have a few that will always free range as they are pets and not breeders. We greatly enjoy sitting on the porch and watching them do what chickens want to do. I've seen to many videos showing organic free range chickens for eggs in the far north on green grass in June. What to they do in December, January, February, March......... They are shut up in a barn at best.

 

[TropicalBabies]

I like that term range chickens, makes sense. At home we have a little over 1/2 acre for my chooks to roam, sometimes they do hop a fence and wonder as the neighbor has lots of weeds and seeds, mostly they like to stay on their turf. So yep, range chickens

Up the mountain it is a different story. Feral flock, as free range as it gets.

But they appreciate the handouts.

Here is Shad wondering if this shack overhaul is for him special

Anyways, getting close to some free ranging for my flock for the rest of summer. Really excited about their new coop.