Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BDutch]

I had to look that up. He is funny!

 

[Perris]

an interesting piece on bird evolution this morning: https://www.theguardian.com/science...c-during-age-of-dinosaurs-scientists-discover

Highlight: "Many of the fossils came from toothless birds that may have resembled ducks. That, the team note, is significant because features such as a lack of teeth are a hallmark of Neornithes, the group that includes all living birds and their most recent common ancestor. It suggests the prehistoric birds nesting in the Arctic were close relatives of modern birds."

 

[Perris]

Fez is 2 today. She seems completely recovered from whatever laid her low at the start of the month. Not a good photo, but she was moving too fast for me

And her brood are 8 weeks old today. They're doing fine too; Cadle now looks like a mini-Aberglasny, Edfu is finally growing a tail, Ipo looks like a Campine and Wig is still feathering out.

 

[no fly zone]

Going to have a ton of berries soon.

 

[fuzzi]

Silas may not be "standard" for his breed, but he's still handsome. And he takes care of his gals.

 

[Shadrach]

Found it
View attachment 4135444
They all look like Janeka's. Given that she is 6, how long do you suppose it has taken her to lay this 15, and how likely are the oldest to hatch? How many might be fertile?

When hens choose to make a secret nest rather than lay in the coop, do they plan to brood? I know Shad has long maintained this, but I've not seen or read any arguments or evidence for it.

If the answer to the planning question is 'yes', do they know when to stop laying and start sitting? Which amounts to, do they know when the oldest eggs are reaching borderline viability? I think they can and do expel from the nest any egg they think is dodgy, which implies that they also have some sense that there's nothing wrong with an egg too, though being old or infertile doesn't obviously give out signals like a rotten egg would.

A propos which, I found a nest of Janeka's a year or two back that she abandoned after one egg broke (apparently a defective shell) and contaminated some but not all the others. Evidently she decided it was not worth carrying on in that case.

I think I am sufficiently interested in these questions to let her carry on, and watch what happens, and then deal with the consequences, if there are any, when they arise.

I really do not expect to see another 15 chicks in due course, and it'll be a forced sale if it happens. Though imagine how much inbuilt immunity a chick of a 6 year old would have!

Cheepy collected 24 eggs before we found her. I had no way of knowing how old an egg was. I took 12 eggs and gave them back to Cheepy to sit on, which she did. She hatched 10,
I don't know if Cheepy laid an egg every day because she didn't lay eggs in the coops. She made nests outside.
I've had hens make outside nests after having laid their eggs in the coop and accumulate a dozen eggs before I've put a stop to it for safety concerns and have nests abandoned. Sometimes when I've seen the nest there are broken eggs and the nest it ruined; perdator perhaps. Other times there is no obvious reason why they've been abandoned.
I'll be interested to read what Janeka does.

 

[Shadrach]

I have been reading on the Dutch chicken forum that if you want to keep eggs apart to use or sell as hatchery eggs, the best way to keep them, is not a cardboard egg box but in a bowl or a tray filled with sand/soil. More like a natural nest.

Sounds obvious. Why didn’t I know this earlier?

Other advices to keep eggs as hatchery eggs: Cellars are often good to keep the eggs. A bit cool. Not freezing. Not wet, not very dry. Point down in an angle or sideways, turn 2 x a day.

Now there is an interesting chicken topic; the relationship between the egg and it's environment and the it's effect on hatch rates.

 

[Shadrach]

29/05.
A bit windy but stayed dry in the afternoon. Three and a half hours.

 

[Shadrach]

I'm having a communications technology rearrangement.
I've got two computers downish currently. New phone as you may know. I trod on the wire from a pair of headphones and ripped the wire out of the unit. I went to iron a shirt yesterday to wear out and the iron sort of hissed and went pufff.

I'm disappointed with the google android software on the phone. The phone does a lot but I find there is nothing intuitive there and google bleeds over everything. It makes the phone more irritating than usual.

My much lauded touch like a midwife is in tatters. I daren't pick a chicken up in case I get pecked!

 

[notabitail]

I'm disappointed with the google android software on the phone. The phone does a lot but I find there is nothing intuitive there and google bleeds over everything. It makes the phone more irritating than usual.

Maybe LineageOS or GrapheneOS with just the Pixel Camera and Google Photos apps will be something you would prefer. I use LineageOS and it is good save for some updates. All of the Pixel Camera features seem to work on it.