Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[fluffycrow]

A follow-up on the lost cockerel incident.

It has given me a lot to think about, especially with the landraces. The whole thing has led to a change of heart, if you will.

I was not too open to the idea of crossing them. All the crosses I had produced this year would have been given away, or eaten. After the disappearance of the chockerel I took a step back and observed them all from a new perspective; I realised that many of these birds are just as capable, if not more capable, at foraging and free ranging. Their mother (the brahma mix) is a wonderful bird (she is also inspecting and pecking at my phone as I'm typing this). While she doesn't cope as well with the summer heat, she has a far more agreeable temper compared to all my other Tsouloufates, with the exception of the girl Cruella raised, the pro tree hugger.

As long as I don't let other breeds into the group, I will be left using the incubator, hatching, and having them under a brooder plate to grow up. This is neither what I want to do, and certainly isn't what is best for the chickens. They deserve to be raised by a broody, and shown the ropes from day one; not this nonsense I'm doing now, when the chicks get to free range at 2 months old for the first time.

I don't know why this incident got to me so much. It's certainly not the first time I've lost a bird, not even the first time this year, but I'm sort of glad it did. Even if it doesn't lead to the complete shift of the free range group, I am no longer of what benefits the "pure" group, but focusing more on what benefits the group as a whole

 

[MaryJanet]

I took a guy I talk to at the flat complex to the field this afternoon. I'm trying to entice him into taking a plot at the field. He's done a bit of veg growing and did share an alltment plot with someone a while ago. He's having a few problems currently and spends too much time in his flat by his own addmission. I got him bus tickets and having talked about coming with me for a while he managed it today.
It was good. He did a lot of weeding and the more he did the happier he looked.
I know it's a long way to travel but he's been on the waiting list for a local council allotment for five years. He's old enough for a bus pass. he's also reasonably fit.

27C today. Too hot for me and the chickens who kept in the shade until early evening.
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Good on ya Shad! Neighbourliness is awesome.

 

[MaryJanet]

A follow-up on the lost cockerel incident.

It has given me a lot to think about, especially with the landraces. The whole thing has led to a change of heart, if you will.

I was not too open to the idea of crossing them. All the crosses I had produced this year would have been given away, or eaten. After the disappearance of the chockerel I took a step back and observed them all from a new perspective; I realised that many of these birds are just as capable, if not more capable, at foraging and free ranging. Their mother (the brahma mix) is a wonderful bird (she is also inspecting and pecking at my phone as I'm typing this). While she doesn't cope as well with the summer heat, she has a far more agreeable temper compared to all my other Tsouloufates, with the exception of the girl Cruella raised, the pro tree hugger.

As long as I don't let other breeds into the group, I will be left using the incubator, hatching, and having them under a brooder plate to grow up. This is neither what I want to do, and certainly isn't what is best for the chickens. They deserve to be raised by a broody, and shown the ropes from day one; not this nonsense I'm doing now, when the chicks get to free range at 2 months old for the first time.

I don't know why this incident got to me so much. It's certainly not the first time I've lost a bird, not even the first time this year, but I'm sort of glad it did. Even if it doesn't lead to the complete shift of the free range group, I am no longer of what benefits the "pure" group, but focusing more on what benefits the group as a whole

That's a lot of food for thought.

 

[fluffycrow]

That's a lot of food for thought.

Indeed. But this time I'll let the chickens decide what they want to do, and try to support them

 

[Perris]

A follow-up on the lost cockerel incident.

It has given me a lot to think about, especially with the landraces. The whole thing has led to a change of heart, if you will.

I was not too open to the idea of crossing them. All the crosses I had produced this year would have been given away, or eaten. After the disappearance of the chockerel I took a step back and observed them all from a new perspective; I realised that many of these birds are just as capable, if not more capable, at foraging and free ranging. Their mother (the brahma mix) is a wonderful bird (she is also inspecting and pecking at my phone as I'm typing this). While she doesn't cope as well with the summer heat, she has a far more agreeable temper compared to all my other Tsouloufates, with the exception of the girl Cruella raised, the pro tree hugger.

As long as I don't let other breeds into the group, I will be left using the incubator, hatching, and having them under a brooder plate to grow up. This is neither what I want to do, and certainly isn't what is best for the chickens. They deserve to be raised by a broody, and shown the ropes from day one; not this nonsense I'm doing now, when the chicks get to free range at 2 months old for the first time.

I don't know why this incident got to me so much. It's certainly not the first time I've lost a bird, not even the first time this year, but I'm sort of glad it did. Even if it doesn't lead to the complete shift of the free range group, I am no longer of what benefits the "pure" group, but focusing more on what benefits the group as a whole

Thank you for sharing your thought processes on this. I used to think - and still think - that preserving landraces was important, but over time realized that the 'purity' of lines raises more than a few issues, some practical (e.g. relatively tiny and often dodgy gene pool), some theoretical (e.g. why are we trying to preserve in aspic (so to speak) something as it was in one particular place and time?).

Some of my hybrids are all round excellent birds, and the June chicks are turning out rather pretty (to my eye at least) to boot. Sully is I think the prettiest at this stage (5 weeks old today)

(I have no idea where that barring came from! Reminds me of the silver Brakel, but that didn't live long enough to reproduce.)

Meanwhile Nefyn is a confident but relaxed young cockerel - the only one obviously so far, but it's early days. I can't believe I'd be lucky enough to get 1 boy and 4 girls

 

[MaryJanet]

why are we trying to preserve in aspic (so to speak) something as it was in one particular place and time?

Yes! Especially as we're talking breeds, not species.

 

[RoyalChick]

Thank you for sharing your thought processes on this. I used to think - and still think - that preserving landraces was important, but over time realized that the 'purity' of lines raises more than a few issues, some practical (e.g. relatively tiny and often dodgy gene pool), some theoretical (e.g. why are we trying to preserve in aspic (so to speak) something as it was in one particular place and time?).

Some of my hybrids are all round excellent birds, and the June chicks are turning out rather pretty (to my eye at least) to boot. Sully is I think the prettiest at this stage (5 weeks old today)
View attachment 3905152
(I have no idea where that barring came from! Reminds me of the silver Brakel, but that didn't live long enough to reproduce.)

Meanwhile Nefyn is a confident but relaxed young cockerel - the only one obviously so far, but it's early days. I can't believe I'd be lucky enough to get 1 boy and 4 girls
View attachment 3905153

I thought the concept of ‘landrace’ was essentially locally adapted. Sort of the opposite of ‘pure bred’.
I assume what that means in practice is let the chickens breed as they will and not overly interfere to favor specific traits.
I guess that also means some natural predator and environments pressure so that the adaptations that survive are the fittest.
I say not overly interfere because I don’t think landrace is the same as feral or wild. Landrace animals had human involvement to develop them, but with an eye to them thriving in the local environment, rather than conforming to a set of standard rules.

 

[fluffycrow]

Thank you for sharing your thought processes on this. I used to think - and still think - that preserving landraces was important, but over time realized that the 'purity' of lines raises more than a few issues, some practical (e.g. relatively tiny and often dodgy gene pool), some theoretical (e.g. why are we trying to preserve in aspic (so to speak) something as it was in one particular place and time?).

Some of my hybrids are all round excellent birds, and the June chicks are turning out rather pretty (to my eye at least) to boot. Sully is I think the prettiest at this stage (5 weeks old today)
View attachment 3905152
(I have no idea where that barring came from! Reminds me of the silver Brakel, but that didn't live long enough to reproduce.)

Meanwhile Nefyn is a confident but relaxed young cockerel - the only one obviously so far, but it's early days. I can't believe I'd be lucky enough to get 1 boy and 4 girls
View attachment 3905153

I too, still think that landrace preservation is important, dare I say more important than "normal" breed preservation.

Unfortunately, I don't know for how long I can keep calling my birds a landrace; being able to keep the population going on their own is the alpha and the omega of a landrace, and mine just aren't doing that. Landraces exist because they found something in their environment that they could use to survive, or the other way around. This all happened away from human hands, with natural brooding. If you take away natural brooding, you take away the landrace, in a way. All the issues you mentioned are very real, especially on the gene pool front. Most landraces are forgotten, and finding "new blood" is very rare

Your (hopefully) pullet reminded me of a Brakel too. It's very interesting what these mixes pop up on the colour front

My mixes are the same, all around good birds. The last few days in particular I've noticed one pullet who is very good at catching rose chafers. She catches and consumes about 4 in the span of one hour. I don't know if other people would find this typical, but in my eyes it's impressive

 

[RoyalChick]

I too, still think that landrace preservation is important, dare I say more important than "normal" breed preservation.

Unfortunately, I don't know for how long I can keep calling my birds a landrace; being able to keep the population going on their own is the alpha and the omega of a landrace, and mine just aren't doing that. Landraces exist because they found something in their environment that they could use to survive, or the other way around. This all happened away from human hands, with natural brooding. If you take away natural brooding, you take away the landrace, in a way. All the issues you mentioned are very real, especially on the gene pool front. Most landraces are forgotten, and finding "new blood" is very rare

Your (hopefully) pullet reminded me of a Brakel too. It's very interesting what these mixes pop up on the colour front

My mixes are the same, all around good birds. The last few days in particular I've noticed one pullet who is very good at catching rose chafers. She catches and consumes about 4 in the span of one hour. I don't know if other people would find this typical, but in my eyes it's impressive

I don’t think landraces developed away from human hand. The definition that I read specified development using local farming practices (whatever that means).

 

[fluffycrow]

I thought the concept of ‘landrace’ was essentially locally adapted. Sort of the opposite of ‘pure bred’.
I assume what that means in practice is let the chickens breed as they will and not overly interfere to favor specific traits.
I guess that also means some natural predator and environments pressure so that the adaptations that survive are the fittest.
I say not overly interfere because I don’t think landrace is the same as feral or wild. Landrace animals had human involvement to develop them, but with an eye to them thriving in the local environment, rather than conforming to a set of standard rules.

In a way, yes. I'd say human interference was little to none.

Simply put, people didn't care that much about the birds, as long as they would give something (e.g. eggs, meat) to them. That's the case for this landrace, at least. What I was told is that culling was at large, random. Whenever people wanted to eat chicken, they just caught whatever bird they could, and cooked it. In other words, people didn't really cull for something specific. They did want some sort of egg production out of them, but did not invest much time in figuring out how to achieve that. In most cases the most attention to detail they would give would be "I haven't seen this bird in the nest for two weeks, let's eat it".

What was often mentioned to me in stories about these "village chickens", was that the hens would go missing, and three weeks later show up with chicks. For the most part, that means that they could not control which bird got to pass on its genes. Most hens that went broody in or around the coop were broken (the methods they used were inhumane, IMO), so most of the gene pool was chickens that existed because they stayed away from humans