Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BDutch]

the children have dads, unless you're suggesting these were virgin births.
Where are they? Why aren't they raising their kids? Why are they out of mind and apparently free of any responsibility for their offspring and their upbringing?

In the old days (when I was young) it was common practice the men went to work for an income and the woman stayed at home with the kids. In some (often religious) families, woman still choose to stop working and raise their own.

Today I have a colleague who chose to have a baby without a man involved. This is tough. And I don’t recommend it to anyone who has no backups to care for the young child.

Tax: ini mini with her new feathers. She has one feather without a plume. So strange. Never seen it before.

 

[Shadrach]

One and a half hours today. It rained all day. Nobody was interested in being out. 4C with real feel at 0C. I've picked up some bug, running a temperature and feeling like crap. Not a good day.

 

[MaryJanet]

This one caused me to shake my head in despair.
So, if I have understood correctly, for the sake of doing the research more quickly they create an environment (a chicken without a caecum) that makes the results of the research essentially invalid.
Leave aside the issues of how they are treating the chicken, that is just bad science!

Yes!! It's outrageous. Where are the ethics committees? There should be at least one vet on an animal ethics committee right? We have two vets on ours. The vets should be requiring amendments.

 

[MrsNorthie]

I may not have been very clear. It doesn't matter if it's males or females. My point was that children in push cairs are being encouraged to cultivate the same addiction to mobile technology their parents have. I've seen fathers do the same.

Well, I think, by now, you all know how I feel about 99% of the human population. It is just sad, to see so many kids growing up without ever getting dirt under their nails, skinned knees, building imaginations by inventing imaginary scenarios for amazing adventures, never learning how to try, how to be responsible. That is why I prefer animals.

 

[MrsNorthie]

Today I have a colleague who chose to have a baby without a man involved. This is tough. And I don’t recommend it to anyone who has no backups to care for the young child.

Probably not ideal, but if her biological need to have a child is that strong and as she does her best for the child, is attentive, kind, nurturing, willing to provide all the love and lessons they need to grow up healthy, respectful and capable, so they can build the best life possible, then she is doing better than most, these days.

Ini Mini is looking lovely!

My tax: Blue teaching Pip how to supervise.

Blue showing off a couple of his ladies.

 

[BDutch]

Probably not ideal, but if her biological need to have a child is that strong and as she does her best for the child, is attentive, kind, nurturing, willing to provide all the love and lessons they need to grow up healthy, respectful and capable, so they can build the best life possible, then she is doing better than most, these days.

Ini Mini is looking lovely!

My tax: Blue teaching Pip how to supervise.

View attachment 3698104

Blue showing off a couple of his ladies.
View attachment 3698105

You are absolutely right. She is a wonderful and caring mother.

And your flock and garden look amazing.

 

[lightm]

Without implying that this holds true for any other keeper with high production breeds, I will say that every ISA brown I've ever had (and they've all been with me since before their very first egg) didn't have a serious molt until after being done with laying, at 2-3 years old, and as such never truly stopped producing eggs up until that point

I have three ISA browns, all are 2 year and 8 months old. Here are their situations:

-- Honey had her first molt this August. She had life-threatening infection about two month ago from egg laying issue. We did not know if she was going to make it but she bounced back after being on Baytril and now she lays one egg EVERY DAY. Her egg shell are thin though.

-- Light also had her first molt about this June. She then gone through a persistent crop issue lasted more than a month, and finally got better after a vet visit. She now lays about one egg every two days. Her egg shell are good.

-- Poopy haven't had a noticeable molt but I see she has grown some feathers recently so perhaps a very very soft molt. She has sort of stopped laying but occasionally lays very thin shell or soft eggs.

I hope my sweeties will have more years of quality time.

 

[lightm]

With all the discussion around finding an optimal mix of feed, I have found a few sources in the US for whole grains, in bulk:

• https://shop.honeyville.com
• https://bulkfoods.com
• https://www.redhillgeneralstore.com

Honeyville and Red Hill both include the nutrition labeling, which is really handy. View attachment 3696855

I really need to act like an adult and do the maths to figureout how much of everything I would need equal or improve on what they are eating now.

I have bookmarked your links. Thank you.

 

[Perris]

Paprika's clutch are 12 weeks old today, and last night for the first time they all slept on the roost; no poo in the nest boxes. They’ve had a coop to themselves as a family this last week, since I noticed Paprika was setting them the example and had moved onto it – I’ve had to chase Eve out a couple of times, as she attempted to crash that coop and bully them at bed time – and each night more of them have moved out of the nest and onto the roost.

I can understand people wanting to get chicks out of the nest box asap to avoid poo in there, and some no doubt take pride in having precocious chicks like precocious kids, but 12 weeks is an example of how long it takes when a very competent broody is left to raise her chicks without interference from people. Of course other flock members like Eve may have delayed things.

 

[Perris]

Turning from chicken parenting to human, I would say that single mothers/absent fathers is not just an issue of finances and maintenance, or addiction to the current tech fad, though they both play a role no doubt.

It has long term negative impacts on the kids, and on the mums, and on the dads.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3904543/

Lonely old men, single mums, and young people with issues of all sorts are all connected. They used to say it takes a village to raise a child. Nowadays we seem to think one person can do it on their own. Progress eh? We're so clever eh?