Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[fluffycrow]

That's what all parents say.
With many cockerels it's a stage and they and everyone elses puts up with it until the cockerel makes a serious attempt at displacing the senior rooster.
It can be a rather long stage unfortunately and the keeper needs options and the more space one has the more options there are.
I had eight coops of various sizes spread around at one point in Catalonia and still found I was short of space with 30 or more chickens from single males to broody mums.
Predation helped. Extremely sad at times but effective population control.
Even with the space and the predators with all the hens going broody at least once a year the possible rate of growth should be obvious.
You can not let the hens hatch, that's one option.
You can limit the number of eggs in a clutch. If one knows roughly how many one loses each year, adults and chicks then one can at least attempt to keep a stable population. Free ranging one tends to lose one at a time rather than the flock slaughters one reads about with confined chickens.
Again I'm talking about free ranging on rural acres, not out in a quarter acre plot.
One can only give away so many.
Eventually one is left with having to kill some and I think one should eat what one kills whenever possible. Let the hens sit and eat what one cannot afford to keep for whatever reason.

I have no other coops available. I am not opposed to butchering and consuming any "extra" birds (better than eating the supermarket meat, IMO). Right now the Tsouloufates are not self-sustaining, so all their hatches are incubator hatches. I'm raising quite a few chicks right now (some intended for breeding use, some for meat) some of those very possibly carrying the son's genes. While he is (conformationaly) a better choice, I'm not a fan of his behaviour. He is now 9 months old, but I will most likely not wait till he matures more. They have about an acre of free range space, but that doesn't seem to make the situation any better for the hens. Miss Mayhem truly resembles her name right now

 

[Shadrach]

We paid for yesterdays sunshine today. We still managed to get an hour on the allotments before the rain started to tip down. Two and a half hours today.
My initial optimism of Fret getting off her nest on my arrival for food etc has proven to be unfounded; I'm still lifting her off.
Mow is proving to be pretty steady for her age.

 

[Perris]

It reads like you rehomed them well. I liked to keep the elderly and sacrifice the young.
I don't know what I would have done without for example Fat Bird running the show in Tribe 1. Similar in all the tribes really. A senior hen tended to keep things more orderly and of course in my case, I got to know the hen and I could often tell a lot about the overall social health from the seniors behaviour.

I did my best. The sole motivation for the cull was to enable pullets and hens with unfulfilled broody instincts to express that natural behaviour, where we’ve reached carrying capacity of the land on which they live (so buying yet another mobile coop would not solve the problem). Of the 3 broodies currently, 2 are pullets and 1 a hen who raised a chick last year. So hens who’ve already had a shot or two at raising a brood were in the frame, and I needed to reduce the number of males too to keep a sensible gender balance.

I weighed up lots of options, and changed my mind many times about who to keep and who not. In the end, the hens who left were selected because I think 2 of them would prefer to live in a flock without males, and two of them have already raised broods here (one counts on both scores). I also factored in what might be useful / attractive for the new keepers: the three are different breeds laying different colour eggs, so they can easily tell them apart, and know who’s laying. They also vary in age: 2, 3 & 6. They include Maria, the erstwhile matriarch, who has actually stepped back from that role since last autumn (when last year’s cockerels started jerk phase) and I think in her dotage she will much prefer a small, and male-free, flock to run. (Venka has been acting matriarch through the winter and spring, and she’s still here.) The cockerel that’s gone was 3rd in command here and fully ready for a flock of his own, which is what his new keeper wanted, so that was perfect match.

I brought Chirk’s life to an end, after nearly a year living mostly in confinement, afraid of the other males and often, I think, lonely. I still ponder whether what I did last June was the right or the wrong thing to do; would it have been kinder to let him slip away then instead of giving him intensive care to bring him back from the brink? I think maybe it would, but I didn’t know then how it would pan out. The other termination was the ever-unpopular pop door bully, who usually spent the night alone in a coop, leading everyone else to crowd into the other three. Only two, both higher-ranking hens dared share a food bowl with her either. She was a pain in the neck to all, and raised several broods over her relatively long life (6), so I don’t feel guilty about terminating her life now to make way for younger bullied birds to have chicks of their own.

When the two broody pullets break and recover condition, and everyone's settled into the new dynamic (it seems very calm this morning), I'll let someone sit for real, and they can all enjoy the sense that the flock is strong and growing, instead of the current 2 futile incubations.

 

[Perris]

While he is (conformationaly) a better choice, I'm not a fan of his behaviour. He is now 9 months old

Any chance of rehoming him? His behaviour might improve if he finds himself the only male and thus the dominant.

 

[ManueB]

I brought Chirk’s life to an end, after nearly a year living mostly in confinement, afraid of the other males and often, I think, lonely. I still ponder whether what I did last June was the right or the wrong thing to do; would it have been kinder to let him slip away then instead of giving him intensive care to bring him back from the brink? I think maybe it would, but I didn’t know then how it would pan out.

I'm sad to know Chirk is gone, but it feels right. I personally feel like you took the kinder choice to give it a try. I don't think we should only tend to wounds, sickness, disease, when the outcome is certain. And it was also wise to know that the time had come to end his life.

I also hope your four rehomed chickens adapt well ; I suppose life will be very different for them now. Will you have a chance to hear about them ?

I like you have thought more than once that my older hens would be happier in a female only flock, and even maybe a senior female one.

 

[Perris]

I'm sad to know Chirk is gone, but it feels right. I personally feel like you took the kinder choice to give it a try. I don't think we should only tend to wounds, sickness, disease, when the outcome is certain. And it was also wise to know that the time had come to end his life.

I also hope your four rehomed chickens adapt well ; I suppose life will be very different for them now. Will you have a chance to hear about them ?

I like you have thought more than once that my older hens would be happier in a female only flock, and even maybe a senior female one.

thank you for your support

I expect to hear about the 3 hens every week at veg pick up/egg drop off. The couple who now have them are very experienced so I'm optimistic it will work out well once they've adjusted to the new conditions.

I hope Skomer's new keeper will let me know how he's getting on there when he's settled, and I might pester him if he doesn't

 

[RoyalChick]

I did my best. The sole motivation for the cull was to enable pullets and hens with unfulfilled broody instincts to express that natural behaviour, where we’ve reached carrying capacity of the land on which they live (so buying yet another mobile coop would not solve the problem). Of the 3 broodies currently, 2 are pullets and 1 a hen who raised a chick last year. So hens who’ve already had a shot or two at raising a brood were in the frame, and I needed to reduce the number of males too to keep a sensible gender balance.

I weighed up lots of options, and changed my mind many times about who to keep and who not. In the end, the hens who left were selected because I think 2 of them would prefer to live in a flock without males, and two of them have already raised broods here (one counts on both scores). I also factored in what might be useful / attractive for the new keepers: the three are different breeds laying different colour eggs, so they can easily tell them apart, and know who’s laying. They also vary in age: 2, 3 & 6. They include Maria, the erstwhile matriarch, who has actually stepped back from that role since last autumn (when last year’s cockerels started jerk phase) and I think in her dotage she will much prefer a small, and male-free, flock to run. (Venka has been acting matriarch through the winter and spring, and she’s still here.) The cockerel that’s gone was 3rd in command here and fully ready for a flock of his own, which is what his new keeper wanted, so that was perfect match.

I brought Chirk’s life to an end, after nearly a year living mostly in confinement, afraid of the other males and often, I think, lonely. I still ponder whether what I did last June was the right or the wrong thing to do; would it have been kinder to let him slip away then instead of giving him intensive care to bring him back from the brink? I think maybe it would, but I didn’t know then how it would pan out. The other termination was the ever-unpopular pop door bully, who usually spent the night alone in a coop, leading everyone else to crowd into the other three. Only two, both higher-ranking hens dared share a food bowl with her either. She was a pain in the neck to all, and raised several broods over her relatively long life (6), so I don’t feel guilty about terminating her life now to make way for younger bullied birds to have chicks of their own.

When the two broody pullets break and recover condition, and everyone's settled into the new dynamic (it seems very calm this morning), I'll let someone sit for real, and they can all enjoy the sense that the flock is strong and growing, instead of the current 2 futile incubations.

Thank you for sharing your thinking. I am sure it was not easy, and there is probably not a ‘right’ answer, but what you did showed care and consideration for the individuals and for the flock.
I salute you.
I am also curious about your predator load. For you to have to act in loco praedatoris (had to look that up!) suggests you don’t lose many to actual predators while free ranging. I imagine you must have foxes and probably also hawks. Is that right?

 

[fluffycrow]

Any chance of rehoming him? His behaviour might improve if he finds himself the only male and thus the dominant.

Slim. Not many people around here are looking for breeding males. Even if he does secure a flock of his own this year, next year he might end up on the dining table. It's also very unlikely that I find someone with no males who is willing to take him. Most people here have multiple males, leading to both the males looking terrible, as well as the females. A switch in his behaviour worries me, if I'm being honest. Right now I wouldn't put it past him to attack a human. While I am OK with dealing with "aggressive" males, that will surely get him killed some place else

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

Tea is ready.

Temperature is in the 60s sunny.

Have a great day!

 

[Perris]

I am sure it was not easy, and there is probably not a ‘right’ answer, but what you did showed care and consideration for the individuals and for the flock.

Thank you . I've known it was coming for a long time, and have been putting it off until multiple birds actually went broody. Procrastination doesn't make it any easier, but it does give lots of opportunities for re-evaluation of decisions before they're acted upon .

I am also curious about your predator load. For you to have to act in loco praedatoris (had to look that up!) suggests you don’t lose many to actual predators while free ranging. I imagine you must have foxes and probably also hawks. Is that right?

Yes that's right; the flock have got remarkably good at evading or deterring both foxes and hawks (goshawk, buzzard, red tailed kite, owls and kestrel seen here).

There were three disappearances last year, Amadeo, Zimmet and one chick, each at different times, and none of them certainly predated, though predators are certainly around. Neighbours' and walkers' dogs have proved a bigger headache, and I suspect one of them was responsible for Amadeo's disappearance. Zimmet just vanished, without any sign of distress among the flock, and I have wondered if she had gone off on a secret nest, which was in due course discovered by a predator (but that's pure speculation). As for the chick, her broody seemed not to notice she was one chick short, so I suspect it just fell out of earshot and died by cold rather than predation. The flock are visibly nervous after an attack, and people say a predator will keep coming back if it's successful, so I conclude that isolated disappearances without the flock going on high alert are more likely death by misadventure than by predation.