Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[kattabelly]

I must put some effort into identifying the grass types at the field.

IDs are always harder from photos but happy to try and help if you want.

 

[notabitail]

She said that her traumatic experience with being told to not be broody gave her a inspiration to start the Broodiness is Life Organization. She sends her sob story to everyone on Beakbook with exaggerated details.

Agathae is making me post this:
"Look at how alive and beautiful I am! #broodinessislife

"

I, on the other hand, do not endorse going broody. Not unless I've got some real chicks for the crazy beast to raise.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Agathae is making me post this:
"Look at how alive and beautiful I am! #broodinessislife
View attachment 4154384"

I, on the other hand, do not endorse going broody. Not unless I've got some real chicks for the crazy beast to raise.

Preach, Agathae!! Your sisters are listening!

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Agathae is making me post this:
"Look at how alive and beautiful I am! #broodinessislife
View attachment 4154384"

I, on the other hand, do not endorse going broody. Not unless I've got some real chicks for the crazy beast to raise.

She’s glowing

 

[notabitail]

She’s glowing

She claims it's glowing with life but I feel it's glowing with red hot rage at my attempt to convince her out of the nest.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

She claims it's glowing with life but I feel it's glowing with red hot rage at my attempt to convince her out of the nest.

#NourishTheRage

 

[Perris]

I'm not sure. Some minerals, maybe?

I do know that not all pollen is equal. At a bee meeting, the lecturer told us that early blooming trees, like maples, had what the bees were looking for. Other trees' pollen was eaten only in case of extreme emergency and had as much nutrition for honeybees as sawdust would have for us.

Trees can have as much forage for bees as an acre of wildflowers. For urban beekeepers, a flowering tree is a huge asset.

I knew I'd read something about this recently, but only just re-found it. Lau P, Lesne P, Grebenok RJ, Rangel J, Behmer ST. 2022 Assessing pollen nutrient content: a unifying approach for the study of bee nutritional ecology. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 377: 20210510. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2021.0510

A useful quote from the conclusion: "It is now well established that significant variation exists in the amounts of individual nutrients contained within different pollen types [5]; protein ranges from 10 to 60%, lipids from 2 to 20% and carbohydrates from 1 to 40%. However, as we document in the current study, a significant proportion of this variation could likely be attributed to the use of different methods to estimate any single nutrient class. Progress in our understanding of the nutritional ecology of bees and other pollen feeders would thus benefit from a unifying approach for characterizing the multidimensional nutritional content of pollen. This is essential to allow comparisons among different studies...

Pollen also contains a full suite of micronutrients important for pollinator health. These can be present as biomolecules (which can be arduous to identify and quantify) and as free ions (e.g. PO4 3−,Na+,K+,Ca2+,Mg2+,Cl−,Fe2+,Zn2+ and Mn2+). A relatively straightforward approach to measure these micronutrients is at the elemental level [18]. We currently know little about which nutrient-linked elements in pollen— especially those that serve important physiological and maintenance functions (e.g. Na, K, Ca, Mg), or structural purposes (e.g. Fe, Zn, Mn)—might affect bee health...As shown in table 3, we recorded high concentrations of: (1) phosphorus (P), linked to nucleic acids and energetic nucleotides; (2) sulfur (S), a key element in sulfur-containing amino acids (e.g. methionine and cysteine) linked to longevity and overall performance [100]; and (3) potassium (K), calcium (Ca) and magnesium(Mg), which are all linked to important physiological and maintenance functions. Interestingly, sodium (Na) was recorded at generally low levels, which raises interesting questions about how bees meet Na requirements given the importance of Na in nervous system function [102,103]. Perhaps this explains the observation that honeybees drink ‘dirty water’ as a way to supplement their Na intake [103–105]. The metals zinc (Zn), iron (Fe) and copper (Cu), which are all linked to structural function, were found at generally low concentrations (table 3)." The article ends with a plea for "the development of a collaborative pollen nutrient content database", so maybe the information, at least for plants used by bees, will be forthcoming before too long.

 

[L-plate chicken mum]

this is quite a good site for IDing UK grasses etc.
https://www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife-explorer/grasses-sedges-and-rushes

Or, if you want the definitive guide to grass identification books in the UK and some online resources: https://bsbi.org/grass-id plus at least a x10 folding hand lens / loupe or, if like me your eyes are not what they used to be, x20

 

[Shadrach]

Good.

If one of the others went broody would you get them some eggs to set?

Not at the moment.