Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[MrsNorthie]

Look at those butterballs! They're getting so big.

I think that chicken watching is excellent therapy for most of what ails us. I don't sit in the run much lately, this time of year the mosquitoes are fierce, but I do visit and speak with individuals in the flock while I am cleaning the waterers, adding to the feeder, etc. I'll be bent over doing some chore inside the run, look up and be eye to eye with one of the pullets. They'll make little squeaky noises at me, and I respond.

Martha still pecks my skirt, for attention (treats).
View attachment 3644511

I agree about it being therapeutic. I spend as much time as possible with them, after I fill food and water, I just sit with them and watch them do their thing, they all come over and say hi, including the boys. I love squeaks and trills! It makes me so happy. The mosquitos are at their worst in the later evening, and we have a pond, but I am an old grumpy guts if I do not get enough chicken therapy, so I suffer the bites, until I can't take anymore. LOL

 

[ManueB]

Well, I tested exactly this out as you should recall from earlier in the thread.
I had three coops available, one prefab wooden coop, one very small purpose built coop suitable in my opinion for a broody with chicks, but up to five hens had roosted in it in the past and the current recycled plastic coop. For a couple of months at least all 20 chickens had the option of roosting in any coop. The change over wasn't instant, especially with Henry and those who roosted on the roost bar in the old prefab coop run, but eventually all 20 chickens voted with their feet and moved into the recycled plastic coop.

You may not like the idea of plastic coops but the little experiment mentoned above proves that at least 20 chickens (the entire populationin fact) chose the plastic coop in preference to the other 2 options.

Experience and evidence; I know they're a real fecker when one basis ones arguement on an untried predjudice.

I had the same kind of unreasoned resistance to the house I designed in Catalonia. I was told repeatedly, nobody would want to live in a hole in the ground. Of course, when these people experienced what a hole in the ground could be, their view changed. Just about everyone who visited my house in Catalonia loved the place.

Plastic houses may well become an option for people in the future. A recycled plastic shell properly designed would make an excellent drop in a hole and cover with earth type build.

As i’ve said before, while my coop has the advantage of being spacious and stable temperature wise, I don't like it because it's really dusty, not well ventilated, and prone to all kinds of bugs including the dreaded red mite in summer.
I also did an experience and the chickens have been sleeping with the coop's door open for two months this summer, and the run closed. That gave them the possibility of sleeping in the run or in the small plywood and wood coop my partner built that we used a as brooder and meant as an emergency coop.
None of them did. None even seemed to give a thought about it. Once or twice the four months old pullets, who used to stay a bit in the run to wait to roost until the older chicken were settled, gave a look inside the small coop. All of them, even the one we have now who gets bullied, choose to roost in the dusty coop with parasites (granted, it's not an infestation, but the red mites are not eradicated either).
Half of the laying chickens lay in the nest box of the small coop and the pullets spent their first two weeks there so it's not a foreign place to them.

 

[L-plate chicken mum]

Thanks this is what I was looking for, but unfortunately it is too complicated to read. I use the light brown, food grade and not heated DE. I’m afraid I misinterpret it.

Do the hazards as described in the document refer to the food grade DE or the heated more chemical substance?

Non heated, that has a separate sheet. Looks to me like they only found it to be a ‘nuisance dust’ although not every aspect of potential health effects were tested.

Also found this from the producers which is an easier read:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2493/0622/t/4/assets/Safety_Data_Sheet_2020.pdf

I always treat them with a degree of caution as most testing takes place in isolation & interactions in the real world have caused chemicals to be removed from approved lists. Common sense is a marvelous thing

 

[Perris]

Common sense is a marvelous thing

and sadly rare!

 

[BDutch]

A happy belated birthday for your eldest (in 10 days or so) @Shadrach. Hope some quality time if you are recovered will make it up a bit.

@TropicalChickies
Thanks for the wildlife explanations in your environment in Equador. Great pictures and now it makes more sense to me why you need do things differently as we do in W Europe.

Also found this from the producers which is an easier read:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2493/0622/t/4/assets/Safety_Data_Sheet_2020.pdf

I always treat them with a degree of caution as most testing takes place in isolation & interactions in the real world have caused chemicals to be removed from approved lists.

Thanks, for sharing. Indeed not very helpful imho, when you already know you need to be careful applying DE.

Common sense is a marvelous thing

and sadly rare!

And isn’t it so that almost everyone thinks they have common sense in their pockets* and believe that people who have different opinions don’t have a good portion of common sense?

*is this a normal English saying as it is in Dutch?

If we all have the same kind of good common sense , I’m sure there was less trouble in world.

Kraai and Janice, they like each others company most of the time. Only not if they choose a spot to sleep in the coops/runs.

Abby, Ini mini and Janice sleep in the tiny coop nowadays and the other 4 prefer the extension. My common sense can’t figure out why they choose to be divided like this.
In the extension (photo) is room for 10-15 small bantams.

In the tiny coop fit only 3-4 small bantams.

 

[Perris]

*is this a normal English saying as it is in Dutch?

I have not heard it before, so I think not.

My common sense can’t figure out why they choose to be divided like this.

My lot are very erratic in their sleeping arrangements. Some nights it seems everyone wants to be in one (and 3 out of 4 of them are identical here remember, and the 4th is just a bigger version of the same) and no-one in another. I just let them get on with it, because chances are high it'll be different the next night and/or the one after.

 

[ManueB]

And isn’t it so that almost everyone thinks they have common sense in their pockets* and believe that people who have different opinions don’t have a good portion of common sense?

As a person who often lacks common sense, I agree with that. In French it's not called common sense but good sense, the focus isn't on the fact that it's shared by many, but on the quality- and who judges that ?

I have not heard it before, so I think not.

My lot are very erratic in their sleeping arrangements. Some nights it seems everyone wants to be in one (and 3 out of 4 of them are identical here remember, and the 4th is just a bigger version of the same) and no-one in another. I just let them get on with it, because chances are high it'll be different the next night and/or the one after.

My common sense can’t figure out why they choose to be divided like this.

Well, that conforts me in thinking chicken's choice about roosting isn't only about what we think is confortable or logical for them. There's something going on that we don't understand.

 

[ManueB]

Common sense tax : Pied beau is at least twice Merle 's size, but he’s very afraid of her ! They remind me of how Chipie used to bully Gaston.

@Perris how is it going for Chirk ? Still ok ?

 

[Perris]

Well, that conforts me in thinking chicken's choice about roosting isn't only about what we think is confortable or logical for them. There's something going on that we don't understand.

I'm currently reading Birkhead Bird Sense, and there is indeed a lot going on that we don't understand - also a lot that's not common knowledge, or even contrary to received wisdom.

@Perris how is it going for Chirk ? Still ok ?

So-so. The weather's been awful previous two days (very very windy and wet) and he elected not to come out, sensibly I thought. But today the weather's fine, and he still didn't want to come out for breakfast. He is eating though.

 

[Perris]

I've just spotted that Fez's earlobes have turned lemon - so Amadeo's a daddy!