Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[fluffycrow]

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

Not sure what that means either. My above post could be interpreted as "local farming practices". Another thing I was told and have mentioned before is how they moved the birds from the winter grazing grounds to the spring-summer grazing/foraging grounds that were also much larger. I guess that can also count as a "local farming practice"?

 

[Shadrach]

well done you! It's been shown time and again that gardening is good for body and soul, and growing things you can eat is good for the guts too!
What did he think of the commute?

We were lucky in that buses arrived on time so the journey didn't seem that arduous.
It's the cost of the journey that would be the problem for this man until he gets it together to get a bus pass. He doesn't do the internet so the bus pass application would need to be done by post and one has to provide a passport style picture which requires some effort and some expense.
I've planted the seed. hopefully it will grow.

 

[Molpet]

We were lucky in that buses arrived on time so the journey didn't seem that arduous.
It's the cost of the journey that would be the problem for this man until he gets it together to get a bus pass. He doesn't do the internet so the bus pass application would need to be done by post and one has to provide a passport style picture which requires some effort and some expense.
I've planted the seed. hopefully it will grow.

Glad you reached out and got him to go. I bet you will help him with the bus pass.

 

[Perris]

I thought the concept of ‘landrace’ was essentially locally adapted. Sort of the opposite of ‘pure bred’.

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.

"village chickens"

My understanding of the concept is based on the Swedish Flowers, which apparently survived on farms in 3 villages in southern Sweden. To try to preserve them the Swedes developed/use the concept of a living gene bank, which uses certificates to track the lineage of a bird back to the members of the surviving flocks when the scheme was started. It is described here https://www.kackel.se/den-levande-genbanken/

I understand the motivation and the desire to preserve local village chickens, wherever they are, especially their genetics, but this approach seems to turn them into a pseudo-pure breed. It excludes all Swedish Flowers that do not have a paper trail back to birds in the villages of Vomb, Tofta or Esarp but otherwise look and live like them, as mine do [an excerpt from the page translated by Google is relevant and fun: "The gene bank hens must be allowed to live and bounce on people's manure piles and this is not so remarkable, this with gene bank. It is actually possible to help preserve a unique little remnant of our cultural heritage by having something as straightforward as a small flock of chickens that basically takes care of themselves"], and it's not obvious to me that a certified paper trail helps preserve them better than wide distribution in a lot more little flocks in a lot more places, where they can potentially evolve to suit those conditions just as well as the originals did in southern Sweden.

 

[MrsNorthie]

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.

Letting the tribe raise these chicks has been a good experience. We had to interfere a little bit, for an inexperienced mama that did not want to give up with egg sitting, but returned them to the group as soon as they were feathered and mama along with several other girls, welcomed them back like they were never away. Next time she goes broody,(and we let her sit..) she will have more experience.

The chicks are far more confident, when we give treats, like scramble (which we are doing more right now while the babies are still under 2 mo/old.) they nip right in and grab the scramble and all of the adults let them in, no agro. Spud loves them, getting to watch my sweetest Roo be a daddy is beautiful. Squeaky also seems to be very engaged with them.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Bats good morning one and all!

Tea is ready.

Temperature is in the 70s partly sunny.

Have a great day!

 

[fluffycrow]

My understanding of the concept is based on the Swedish Flowers, which apparently survived on farms in 3 villages in southern Sweden. To try to preserve them the Swedes developed/use the concept of a living gene bank, which uses certificates to track the lineage of a bird back to the members of the surviving flocks when the scheme was started. It is described here https://www.kackel.se/den-levande-genbanken/

I understand the motivation and the desire to preserve local village chickens, wherever they are, especially their genetics, but this approach seems to turn them into a pseudo-pure breed. It excludes all Swedish Flowers that do not have a paper trail back to birds in the villages of Vomb, Tofta or Esarp but otherwise look and live like them, as mine do [an excerpt from the page translated by Google is relevant and fun: "The gene bank hens must be allowed to live and bounce on people's manure piles and this is not so remarkable, this with gene bank. It is actually possible to help preserve a unique little remnant of our cultural heritage by having something as straightforward as a small flock of chickens that basically takes care of themselves"], and it's not obvious to me that a certified paper trail helps preserve them better than wide distribution in a lot more little flocks in a lot more places, where they can potentially evolve to suit those conditions just as well as the originals did in southern Sweden.

That sounds sort of what I'm afraid will happen with the line of Tsouloufates I have; landraces in name only. If I have to keep using an incubator to keep numbers up, then they become exactly that. A pseudo-breed. In my eyes, that's a worse fate than introducing some "new blood"

 

[LaurenRitz]

A landrace can be either human created or natural. It is simply a highly diverse population that is adapted to the particular area and has been for some time. Generations, generally.

Human populations generally add the "useful to humans" tag, but it's not necessary.

 

[no fly zone]

Their little personalities rope you in...

Today I realized I had run out of oyster shell flakes in the run, so I went into the shed to get some more. The new unopened box was in a paper bag, to catch spillage. As I pulled the box of flakes out of the bag I heard a scurrying sound. Inside the bag was a thumb-sized brown roach (they live outside here). I brought the bag into the run, called "Chick chick chick!" and as the hens came running I dumped the roach out of the bag.

STAMPEDE!!!

One of the Dominiques got the roach and managed to evade the others, went in the back of the run to savor her prize in private...

Any time my wife encountered a roach in the garage, Skeksis would be brought in for bug removal. She excelled at it.

 

[BDutch]

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.

When I encountered your posts and threads here on BYC several years ago, I thought you t a kind of hermit. But over the years I got very clear my first impression was very wrong.
You are a one of the greatest socialising persons I have ever met. I hope your friend had such a great time that he will join you more often/ on many trips in the future..

I find it terribly sad that we consume chickens so frequently, but know nothing about them

Please don’t count me in. And I bet there are more people on this forum who don’t eat chicken.

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

Love this!