Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

Temperature is in the 80s.

Have a great day!

 

[MrsNorthie]

Yes me too. @MrsNorthie I am afraid I already borrowed it to explain why I didn't want to attend an event!

I love this phrase.

I probably didn't invent it..lol but I definitely live it. I am happy with my animals and my husband, otherwise, I like to keep myself to myself.

 

[fuzzi]

Look what my sister sent to me.

She bought them in Lahaina, Maui back in April

 

[Shadrach]

Shad, @ManueB and others,
I have been wondering about past singles within a flock and interfering in roosting preferences.

I had a problem with one young pullet (Janice) who was bullied after her two brothers (about 12-14 weeks old) went to another family. She turned into a very flighty hen. Behaved extremely protective towards me when she was a broody and mean to the chicks after she left them at about 7 weeks.

The lonely hen I took over from a girl that couldn’t keep her (Kraai) . She is behaving mean and bossy towards the others. Doesn’t tolerate the pullets around her. But is friendly towards me and not flighly.

And even Katrientje is behaving less friendly after I kept her apart for a while because she was horribly broody. She chased the chicks away from the nest-boxes when they were still young (about 8 weeks) and never stopped chasing them afterwards if they came near. The 2 pullets I have don’t dare to come anyway near her because she is really mean to them.

These 3 mean hens are the reason I dare not to interfere in the preference of the pullets to sleep in their own small coop in the run. I don’t want any more hens that are psychologically damaged because I forced them to sleep somewhere else as they prefer. They probably know better.

Only sleeping in trees and broodies sleeping in nest boxes are a no go at the moment.

I’d like to hear you opinion on this matter/roosting. Interfere towards wanted behaviour or let the chickens choose were they want to sleep.

I used to let some roost in the trees. I still would in some circumstances. However, once in the coop I don't care if they sleep in the nest boxes, on the floor, or on a roost bar. The main reason I can gather for not wanting chickens sleeping in nest boxes is the poop in the box and the eggs get dirty. Not really a problem if one cleans the coop daily.

 

[Shadrach]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. He sure is grumpy. I'm trying not to take it too personally. This morning as I was mixing up their breakfast, he was chasing Patucha around everywhere. She usually crouches for him, but she was on the run, so I think we're all feeling his angst right now.

He's ten months old.

Sadly, he was no better this morning. He wanted to have a standoff on the way out to the feeding area. I just kept walking past him in that direction. He jumped at me, not very high and pretty half-heartedly I must say. I gave him a firm but gentle push away with my hand. He came back for me. Repeat. Finally he took a peck of food and let me feed him and the others.

I don't like all this contact. The last thing I want is for him to perceive me as a threat. But standing there and letting him flog me while I'm holding the food bucket isn't exactly my cup of tea -- and he's holding up breakfast for everyone. Making sure everyone gets fed should really be his priority I think, not dueling with the Food Lady before she's had her coffee.

Maybe it's all just hormones and insecurity, but I think it could also be about Butchie's death. Lucio comes to the door of the kitchen looking for her several times a day, tidbiting outside the door (which is more like a gate, all of our buildings are ground level and built more like gazebos with low walls and wide entrances). On days when she was feeling good, I would let her out to mix with the others and kick some juvenile butt to give her day more oomph. Sometimes she would even crouch for him. So even though she wasn't with his other wives all the time, he still felt like she was his hen.

Now I'm the only one coming out of that gate. Maybe he thinks I'm keeping her for myself or took her away (which I did, because she was dying) and that has something to do with his aggression. Because the change in his attitude towards me over the past week is pretty stark.

Thanks again for the response. I'm being as patient as I can without letting him hurt me physically. My partner -- who is a very steady, resolute person-- has been attacked more often than me just going about his business and is basically like, time for sopita. I just keep saying, he'll grow out of it. I'm willing to give him time to settle down because if I don't make an effort to resolve the problem with this hormonal cockerel, it's certainly no guarantee that the next one will be any different. As Shadrach says, getting rid of the rooster doesn't solve the problem, it just removes the rooster.

If he gets nasty with the hens, that will be another story.

Tax for cockerel dismay

Dusty in the bath wondering where the heck her kids are
View attachment 3619020

Oh, hey mom!
View attachment 3619021

To be honest, I'm just confused.
How many roosters do you have?
How many cockerels do you have?
How many proper coops do you have?
How many hens do you have.
Where does everyone live?
Who is the senior male?
Where did the hens and the males come from?

If I've understood correctly you hand fed one of the cockerels who I believe isn't the senior male and then you stopped doing this because there were plenty of bugs to eat?
If you hand feed a junior cockerel that doesn't yet have his own hens then stop, for whatever reason you're asking for problems.
Everything and I mean everything goes through the senior male, that includes all the regular feed and treats if everyone is housed together.
If a junior cockerel becomes homeless (driven out of the group) then once he has his own place to live, then you can hand feed him. You then become his best friend and you will stay his best friend until he attracts hens and they move in with him.
If you were hand feeding a junior cockerel with treats then if he's got any brains he will use that to attract hens (look, I can get you better treats) if you then stop and he has been using the treats you gave him to try to attract hens then you've taken away his advantage.

You may not have been doing any of this. As I wrote, I'm totally confused.

 

[Shadrach]

Towey disappeared this afternoon. Predated I assume . Janeka and the other 3 chicks do not appear to be in any way distressed, so I don't think they witnessed it. I heard no commotion, so I don't think any of the rest of the flock knew about it either. I wonder if Janeka is really aware that there are 3 not 4 under her tonight.

My experience has been that the mum doesn't seem to care if a chick wanders and gets predated. They just get on with looking after the chicks they have. If the predator strikes while mum is there it's a different story. What used to be a fairly frequent event is at some point the chicks get a bit careless and don't keep close to mum and that is when they go missing. The next danger point is when mum has finished rearing them more or less and they start rushing around as a group of juveniles and don't keep close to the tribe. I lost most then.

 

[Shadrach]

Oh what a shame. I'm not sure that hens can accurately count. It seems that they have number categories like 'a few' and 'a lot'. Or 'not enough' and 'enough'. I had a weak single chick survive a brood, there was something not right about him and he wasn't very vocal at all. His mother would forget about him because he didn't peep for her. She would remember and go back but not like normal hen behavior. This was an experienced mother who always raised her broods well. Not at all her fault, it was my fault all her babies died (it was my incubator experiment). That chick disappeared at 3 days old. I never found the body. I'm not sure if he got predated or just forgotten.
Hens definitely seem to need to hear their chicks in order to respond to them appropriately. I saw an experiment once that put chicks in little glass cups where the mother could see but not hear them and the mother didn't respond. But if she could hear but not see the chick she went full mama bear.

Sorry that was a bit of a tangent!

Yup, chick don't peep, mum don't bother.

 

[Shadrach]

But when I scooped the chicks up to take them to shelter, if they didn't peep, the mama didn't follow,

Just no! Move all or none. We've had a fair bit of rain at the allotments the last few days. Fret initially tried to shelter the chicks but not head for proper cover.
It took a couple of goes and I had to herd her and the chicks back into the coop extension. Now she takes the chicks there on her own.
Never seperate the chicks from their mother.

 

[Shadrach]

In general one shouldn't handle chicks. There are exceptions and one is when trying to get them used to following mother into the coop. What should happen is as soon as the chick gets lifted off the ground or whatever, it makes distress calls and mother should appear in full battle order and try to peck and flog you to death.
Even when I've had to take a broody to the vet, or move her for some reason or other, her chicks come with her.

If a mother hen is letting you handle her chicks something has gone wrong with the relationship. I sometimes tap chicks on their bum to move them out of the way and this is understood by mum and tolerated. The call the chicks make is different to their distress call and mother knows this. I've done it a lot with the current pair because they are often trying to dig/forage while I'm trying to dig and they#'ll get hurt. Mother understands this. She often has the same problem when she is scratching for food. It takes a while for the chicks to understand they must get in front of mother rather than behind where they get kicked showered in dirt.

 

[Shadrach]

I have had a few months old chicks find a live fledgling Robin, quarter it by pulling apart and eating it. I was horrified. But it made it easier to harvest the extra cockerels.

It is easily forgotton just how savage chickens are. All those bugs we talk about are live creatures. They don't even have the decency to chew them a bit first.
They'll eat each other if they are hungry. I don't have a problem with that but hopefully we all feed them well enough so the situation doesn't arise.
I still recall when Gedit decided that Fray had been bullying her mum and being generally unpleasant to all for long enough. Gedit attacked Fray while they were in the coop, early morning I assummed given the blood was still dripping fromFrays comb and wattles and head when I opened them up in the morning. Gedit still had blood on her beak. It took me a couple of hours to clean Fray up. I had to super glue a tear in one of her wattles and really they gash in her head should have been stitched, but I covered it in pine tar and she healed up well.