Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[HiEverybirdy]

LOL I don't really want to know how much it costs us per dozen.. We just bought them a bunch of corn on the cob, water melon, we grew all the kale they will ever want, and I have been buying fish for them too, as little bonus treat. The Egg Thief is already a little salty that they eat better than we do, without actually tracking what it costs.

Life would certainly go on if I didn't know our cost-per-egg. It's important to note egg cost is vastly different than our annual cost-per-chicken, which I don't want to know

After all, rooster AGC's glucosamine costs around $50 annually, and he's never laid an egg.

But besides satisfying my curiosity and providing a neat talking point, knowing cost-per-egg has been great for reviewing chicken spending at a granular level, which inspired measures to reduce waste, e.g., buying pans to keep spilled feed edible longer.

As I type this, I'm realizing it would be good to track eggs next year again to review the effect of layer age and a few more years of keeping experience. I prorate housing costs over 10 years and less durable items like feeders/waterers/fans/heaters over 3 years, so it's easier to isolate variable annual costs of feed, supplements, vet care, yada yada. Anywho.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

13/06, I think...View attachment 4148675View attachment 4148676View attachment 4148677View attachment 4148678View attachment 4148679View attachment 4148680

Looks like your camera courteously incorporates the date in the first part of the filename, which is handy if the camera date is set correctly.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

14/06, possibly.
I'm on one day at a time as you may be able to tell.View attachment 4148704View attachment 4148705View attachment 4148706View attachment 4148707View attachment 4148708

Is Fret perhaps starting to come out of broodiness? She looks slightly less homicidal.

 

[lightm]

Further on the soft-shelled egg discussion, Heck writes something I found very interesting: “[soft-shelled eggs] may be the result of diseased organs of reproduction and especially of the oviduct. Excessively fat hens are liable to lay soft-shelled eggs when the layers of fat are so abundant as to force the egg out before it can receive a sufficient coating of shell. Heavy laying birds are also thus afflicted, by reason of the egg passages being weakened by continual strain and not being able to retain an egg after the shell begins to harden. In exceptional cases it may be lack of shell forming elements in the food.”

Which makes me think modern, high-production birds are more prone to this issue and lack of range time/exercise exacerbates it. I have never dealt with an egg bound chicken but I also tend to favor heritage breeds and I have a very hard time keeping them in a coop. Not because they escape but because I hate everything about it lol

Very interesting indeed.

Does this mean giving Calcium pills are not very useful for hens laying soft-shelled eggs in most cases?

 

[Perris]

As I type this, I'm realizing it would be good to track eggs next year again to review the effect of layer age and a few more years of keeping experience. I prorate housing costs over 10 years and less durable items like feeders/waterers/fans/heaters over 3 years, so it's easier to isolate variable annual costs of feed, supplements, vet care, yada yada.

Wow! Very thorough. I think I have it easy by comparison (no fan, heater, supplements, vet bills at least). But how do you value any chicks that your flock produce?

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Very interesting indeed.

Does this mean giving Calcium pills are not very useful for hens laying soft-shelled eggs in most cases?

I think in those cases calcium citrate is used (so calcium with vitamin d) to stimulate contractions. In that case you are giving much more in a single dose than the hen would get from her daily diet. The author of this particular book doesn’t discuss calcium as a treatment for an egg bound hen, just putting oil to try to remove it. He talks about homemade feed being made of oats, corn meal, bran, wheat middlings, clover meal, meat meal or cut “green bone” for hens who are not allowed to free range. 10 lbs of a 50 lb batch of feed is clover meal, which is high in calcium and all kinds of vitamins so my thinking is that the calcium in clover is more bioavailable than that found in oyster shell. That is just my hypothesis. @Perris might know more about that

 

[Perris]

my thinking is that the calcium in clover is more bioavailable than that found in oyster shell. That is just my hypothesis. @Perris might know more about that

I wish I knew, but sadly I don't. There is plenty of clover in the lawn here - actually it's increased with chickens on it, counterintuitively, since they do graze it. And most hens and roos help themselves to oyster shell as and when they wish. My go-tos when more calcium seems advisable are sardines, yogurt, pigeon peas or fennel seeds. Brown mustard seeds are high in Ca too, but my flock don't really like them.

 

[Shadrach]

I feel this so much right now. No one left to ask the questions and more questions keep coming up! The neighbor used to keep chickens and “fed them a few scraps” and still got eggs. I wish that neighbor was still around to talk to. I feel like I’m piecing things together but it won’t be a whole picture and it will take a whole lot longer than if someone with generations of experience behind them were here to ask.

The most outstanding problem for the chicken kept by many backyard keepers is they want the chicken to be something it isn't. Old school keepers, I got to know a few when I lived in Catalonia, were much better at accepting the chicken for what it is.

 

[Shadrach]

It's one of the trickier tasks to explain to chicken sitters, that before they secure coops for the night, they need to open a specific gate for one speckled hen so she can burgle shells from her neighbors

That's like me explaining to someone who was going to open up the chickens for me one morning that Fat Bird expected to be carried to the food station and would be waiting at the human door at the back of the coop. She would be fine after that and didn't need carrying home at night.

Yup, I'm afraid it's true, bucket boy carried Fat Bird to Tribe 1s feed station every morning for a few months.

 

[Shadrach]

Of course one would have to be able to analyze each situation as a whole and be able to compare and contrast that information, to their own circumstances to decide what would be of value to them.

This is a problem when giving any advice or explanation regarding behavior to people who post on chicken forums. With experience, given enough information, one can often give an explanation of many behaviours. It's getting the right information that's the hard bit and frankly is often a very time consuming and torturous process.