Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

Is it a young bird? They don't need to be hung. I keep plucked and gutted older turkeys in the refrigerator for a week to help tenderize.
I have kept old chickens intact until rigor mortise passed or I forgot one for a week before I plucked and gutted. She was good.
Some people have an ick factor about refrigeration or hanging intact birds.

https://honest-food.net/on-hanging-pheasants-2/

Thanks for that link @Molpet; very interesting and useful.
I have no idea how old the offender is, so I plan to refrigerate for the recommended minimum 3 days.

I'm working on the assumption that 'hanging' horizontally is OK, as there is no way to hang it vertically in my fridge. I guess the term comes from historical use when it was easier / more efficient / safer to hang meat from a ceiling than lay it on a shelf in a dedicated meat store, rather than from any biological reason, given that the bird is intact and could be hung up or down ("Hanging your birds by the neck or feet does not matter, as several studies has [sic] shown.").

 

[fuzzi]

I'm working on the assumption that 'hanging' horizontally is OK, as there is no way to hang it vertically in my fridge. I guess the term comes from historical use when it was easier / more efficient / safer to hang meat from a ceiling than lay it on a shelf in a dedicated meat store, rather than from any biological reason, given that the bird is intact and could be hung up or down ("Hanging your birds by the neck or feet does not matter, as several studies has [sic] shown.").

I remember reading about hanging a pheasant, in the book Shogun. Blackthorn explained to the Japanese staff about tail versus neck hanging.

 

[Molpet]

Thanks for that link @Molpet; very interesting and useful.
I have no idea how old the offender is, so I plan to refrigerate for the recommended minimum 3 days.

I'm working on the assumption that 'hanging' horizontally is OK, as there is no way to hang it vertically in my fridge. I guess the term comes from historical use when it was easier / more efficient / safer to hang meat from a ceiling than lay it on a shelf in a dedicated meat store, rather than from any biological reason, given that the bird is intact and could be hung up or down ("Hanging your birds by the neck or feet does not matter, as several studies has [sic] shown.").

I put my birds in a bag and some I propped up. Thinking blood would pool in the breast. I didn't notice a difference from the ones I had on their back.

 

[Perris]

This is really bad news
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/12/research-reveals-24000-megafarms-across-europe

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

This is really bad news
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/12/research-reveals-24000-megafarms-across-europe

Gross. Just thinking about the smell makes me sick.

 

[BDutch]

Gross. Just thinking about the smell makes me sick.

In the Netherlands the farmers need to filter the smell intensely with expensive equipment.

 

[Skyeknight]

Since a few days at least one of my hens started eating eggs, including her own. I don't currently eat that many eggs so not that big of bother. Except that means they will ingest more PFAS and makes it harder to count how many eggs they lay in year. Might try this mustard trick.

Anyways turns out corvids are doing this! found an eggshell outside the coop today. My chickens just eat them when they are already broken. Corvids also seem to be eating the lamb feed pellets, so I had my suspicions already.

 

[BDutch]

Since we are talking about trespassers who come to steal food: this morning I heard a lot of quarrelling noises coming from the chicken run shortly after I scattered some mixed grains in the run to keep my chickens busy for a while.

Inspection at the sight made clear what what was going on. A young magpie came in the run and two hens were chasing the poor kid. Pecking it very hard. The bird didn’t know how to get out again. While I was opening the side panel the magpie seemed half dead after the last attack, lying on its back.

When I came near, the chickens took of and the magpie got on its feet again. I could grab it and take it outside. It wasn’t hurt as bad as I presumed and it could fly away to the area behind our garden.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Since we are talking about trespassers who come to steal food: this morning I heard a lot of quarrelling noises coming from the chicken run shortly after I scattered some mixed grains in the run to keep my chickens busy for a while.

Inspection at the sight made clear what what was going on. A young magpie came in the run and two hens were chasing the poor kid. Pecking it very hard. The bird didn’t know how to get out again. While I was opening the side panel the magpie seemed half dead after the last attack, lying on its back.

When I came near, the chickens took of and the magpie got on its feet again. I could grab it and take it outside. It wasn’t hurt as bad as I presumed and it could fly away to the area behind our garden.

Always an adventure!

Do you have any guesses as to why the magpie didn't just fly out? Did the hens swarm it so quickly? Or is this a covered area of the run, and it was trapped?

We have 1" plastic aviary netting over the shady portion of the "yard-range," and so far it's working to keep them in and other birds out. I regularly have to go rescue butterflies and bumbles who get trapped and confused, though.

Edit to add: Oh, and the cat gets trapped in there too.

 

[fuzzi]

I'm going for a mental health condition, something like that that causes mothers to kill their chicks.
I don't think I've ever had an egg eater. I've had hens eat eggs that have been broken by accident, or broken for them and in those cases they've eaten all the egg, surface permitting.

Someone tried eating my mustard egg. I don't think they liked it...