Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[HiEverybirdy]

One just doesn't know how to demonstrate to a chicken that one cares.

Offerings of delicious food and simply being present seem to go a long way toward communicating admiration.

Stilton and Raisin might add that it's good to throw a wing over your best good friend when the moment calls for it. Walked in on this scene at roost time tonight. Note their toes are linked, too

 

[Shadrach]

Offerings of delicious food and simply being present seem to go a long way toward communicating admiration.

Stilton and Raisin might add that it's good to throw a wing over your best good friend when the moment calls for it. Walked in on this scene at roost time tonight. Note their toes are linked, too

View attachment 4088672

They can be such empathetic and kindly creatures at times. Course, there's the other side when they are complete barbarians.

 

[Shadrach]

Warmish, dry if a bit grey at times.
They all went out on to the field. I had to encourage Henry, but once out he moved around the field, occasionally with the hens, but mostly on his own. with Sylph made regular visits. He had something in his crop but not much.

It seems rather morbid reporting on the very sick and dying. This however is as much a part of chicken keeping as the cuddles and struts. I have tried in this thread to portray day to day the lives of ordinary chickens. Of course, the pictures you see are taken when the chickens are let out of the coop run. Lots of chickens never get out of their coop and run. The run, while untidy is 6m x 6m, roughly nineteen feet by nineteen feet givng a square footage of three hundred and sixty square feet. There are five of them. Thats seventy two square feet per bird. Even stuck in the run, they would have much more space than many I read about.
I'll take some pictures if I remember of what they look like in the run. The contrast is startling.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

...The run, while untidy is 6m x 6m, roughly nineteen feet by nineteen feet givng a square footage of three hundred and sixty square feet. There are five of them. Thats seventy two square feet per bird.
View attachment 4088694

I'm really impressed that there is anything green in the run at all.

 

[BDutch]

…

Chicken Tax.
View attachment 4088596

What do I see here besides 2 chickens?

 

[RoyalChick]

What do I see here besides 2 chickens?

Not sure what you mean. It is just them on the outside of the Chicken Palace unless I am missing something.
They are standing in top of one of their run areas. It is a favorite hang out spot.
When they are locked inside they are often to be found under the part they are standing on in this picture. Because it does not have a solid roof, and is down hill, it gets quite wet and has a rich fauna of worms and other wriggly things to snack on.

 

[BDutch]

Suppose the hens in a single sex group realise that half their species is missing and their genes dead end with their life.

I don’t think so. If they realise their eggs are infertile, the hens would not try to hatch them.

Hens without a rooster act the same when it comes to wanting to hatch a clutch of eggs. Once I lost a hen for a day or two and then I saw her coming to the coop to eat. I followed her on the way back to a hidden nest under ‘bushes’ with blackberries. I took away the eggs and locked her inside the coop/run for a while bc I didn’t want to loose her (fox or weakness)

Besides the hens don’t care much about genes. My hens have learned that once, twice or even more often in their lifetime they were allowed to sit and did have eggs that hatched. They love (care for) the unrelated chicks just as much as their own blood.

 

[BDutch]

I've never had to use a broody breaker cage

Neither have I. I take away the eggs, lock the nestbox area in the evening and take the silly hen out of the nestbox to join the others whenever I can.
If I forget to close the nestbox area, and I find the hen in the nestbox after dark, I put her on a roost.
It takes a few days with most of my Dutch bantams, and up to week with Katrientje to break their broodiness.

 

[Perris]

They can be such empathetic and kindly creatures at times. Course, there's the other side when they are complete barbarians.

this prompts me to post on something I've been thinking about for a while. It might not make much sense to those without roos, those whose birds are confined, or those whose birds are young, but I think it's worth floating anyway.

So, it concerns chasing and grabbing to mate (often described by novice keepers on byc in what seem to me to be silly inappropriate human terms like rape). There's a lot of it here. And yet, there are very few bare patches on hens, and no wounds to the head area or comb, or for that matter on their backs or sides where roos' spurs apparently can cause injury (though I haven't seen it here).

I am not calling into question other people's testimonies or suggesting that these things don't happen. A few hens here have had bare spots on their heads where overenthusiastic roos have yanked out feathers, and bare spots on their backs from more attention than their plumage can cope with.

But what I now believe, on the basis of watching a lot of this sort of behaviour, in an environment where all birds run free, is that the chase in chickens is like the chase in a lot of species' mating behaviour; the hen is testing the roo's fitness to sire any chicks she may have. And if he can catch her, maybe after the good run/ workout she put him through, he has less energy to expend on harmful and potentially damaging behaviour like aggressive head pecking. Just a thought.

 

[fluffycrow]

Talking of broodies, Fez is clucking quietly... I think we're go for launch... View attachment 4088314

I’m jealous ! Although being a bit realistic, this isn’t the best time for a broody right now. But soon enough…

I do hope Galadriel decides to go for round two this year, hopefully this time successfully. With recent events, she’s now fourth in the rankings, only below the three remaining senior hens. Not too shabby for a hen that’s not even two years old; should give her chicks more protection from the other hens and pullets as well.

Not if I’ll let any broodies in the bantam group sit. No one’s broody currently, not even Cruella. I think she shares my sentiments on the new cockerel; far too young to sire her chicks. I don’t think she’s completely over Lady Gaga