Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

Three and a half hours today. The sun shone for much of the day and there were signs of the ground slowly drying out.
Everyone was a bit calmer today.

 

[Perris]

All the burs

There are lots of different species in the genus Artemisia, so lots of variety in detail, but I don't think burs are part of this plant's structure (the ones that inspired Velcro are burdock); perhaps you're thinking of something else?

 

[Perris]

Worthington is of the opinion that there's a natural coccidiostat in greenstuff but confesses to lacking lab results to support it.

further to this, and his observation that chickens eat soil more often than commonly noticed, and my flock's recent hard working of a patch of lawn/ soil where mushrooms typically appear so must be dense with mycelium, I am pursuing funga.

It turns out that some, including the common oyster mushroom, are predators of nematodes, and the oyster paralyses its prey, using a toxin that is calcium-rich. And this is a highly conserved mechanism (goes deep back in evolutionary time, at least 280,000,000 years), so is probably present in far more species than has, as yet, been discovered. Sounds like a win-win for a pullet or hen looking to keep her worm burden down and make eggshells.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1918473117

 

[Shadrach]

further to this, and his observation that chickens eat soil more often than commonly noticed, and my flock's recent hard working of a patch of lawn/ soil where mushrooms typically appear so must be dense with mycelium, I am pursuing funga.

It turns out that some, including the common oyster mushroom, are predators of nematodes, and the oyster paralyses its prey, using a toxin that is calcium-rich. And this is a highly conserved mechanism (goes deep back in evolutionary time, at least 280,000,000 years), so is probably present in far more species than has, as yet, been discovered. Sounds like a win-win for a pullet or hen looking to keep her worm burden down and make eggshells.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1918473117

I've been convinced for many years that chickens can self medicate given a sufficient diversity of soil conditions and plant life.
As an example, there were a few St Johns Wort plants growing around the edges of the sheep field in Catalonia and most of the time the chickens didn't touch it. But, I've seen chickens dig right by the plant and eat something that looked like ordinary soil and take small amounts of the plant itself.
A similar story for moulting hens who dug around the roots of the walnut trees and a weed which grew only on the edge of the Home Oak woodlands.
Stating the obvious, there's a lot of stuff in unmanaged soil, most of which we know very little about.
The allotment chickens are currently having a worm binge. Two months ago I could dig up worms and they just weren't interested, so I assume it's not just a question of what's in the ground but also the state of it's development.
Rotting natural wood also seems to be attractive at a certain level of decay.
All of the above plus the benefits of the excercise obtained through foraging just add to my belief that keeping chickens confined to a coop and run is a really bad idea.

 

[Perris]

Rotting natural wood also seems to be attractive at a certain level of decay

It is funga that's rotting it, and probably the funga that they're after.

The fossil fuels were laid down before funga evolved the ability to digest lignin; that's why fossil fuels are a finite resource, and also why we're not standing on dead wood hundreds of miles deep.

 

[Molpet]

There are lots of different species in the genus Artemisia, so lots of variety in detail, but I don't think burs are part of this plant's structure (the ones that inspired Velcro are burdock); perhaps you're thinking of something else?

Burs was just an example of what they have cleared out. I noticed that the burdock, cleavers and other sticky stuff. Also ragweed, wild aster, dandelion and plantain are mostly gone. Snake weed and goldenrod are taking over.

 

[Perris]

Burs was just an example of what they have cleared out. I noticed that the burdock, cleavers and other sticky stuff. Also ragweed, wild aster, dandelion and plantain are mostly gone. Snake weed and goldenrod are taking over.

they're eating the good stuff!
what is snake weed?

 

[Molpet]

They aren't eating this either. Google says motherwort.
leonurus cardiaca.

 

[Molpet]

they're eating the good stuff!
what is snake weed?

I guess it's snake root. Ageratina altissima
I also need to get rid of it according to this article.
https://www.wqad.com/article/news/l...ther/526-ae911032-d04b-4360-983e-5783d22b3228

Apparently it's poisonous to mammals but birds can eat the seed and spread it.

ETA it's has a white flower that is one of the last to bloom
Bees like it

 

[Perris]

They aren't eating this either. Google says motherwort.
leonurus cardiaca.

View attachment 3787141

not sure about that ID. Cf. https://pfaf.org/USER/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Leonurus+cardiaca for picture inc flowers; does it look like that when it blooms?