Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[fluffycrow]

Sooo what do you all eat, if you eat meat, if you're not eating cockerels?
I want my food to have a good life. That's why I let the broodies hatch.
I have to admit I don't eat extra hens, I sell them. And I have a bunch of retired old hens and roosters that my life would be easier if I would put them in the freezer. But I figured they deserve a retirement.

I do eat meat.

Most regulars on this thread that do consume meat products have much healthier eating habits than me. All the males that are not kept are eaten, and so are some hens. I only recall of one case where I managed to find that bird a home. Still, I eat quite a bit of meat, and red meat too. So far the home grown chickens have not been able to sustain me, or the rest of the people that live here.

I really don’t like buying meat from the supermarket, but I do not have enough self control to limit my meat eating to roughly 5 times annually

 

[MrsNorthie]

Is that a new profile picture?

If you've already had it forever, I apologize - I blame it on my phone! I can see so much more on my laptop.

LOL been there forever. That was our first group, they all liked to roost on me, every chance they got. They still do, just not all at the same time..lol

 

[Mother of Chaos]

LOL been there forever. That was our first group, they all liked to roost on me, every chance they got. They still do, just not all at the same time..lol

Since I can actually see and enlarge it on the phone, it was fun to see the color of their feathers blending so well with your own! Umm, your own hair, that is. Not feathers.

 

[SimpleJenn]

A very snuggled in broody hen last night.

 

[thistlewick]

Re; all the Rooster talk - I could never bring myself to kill anything - I just can't I am the weeniest ween.

But I can sell them or re-home them.

Case in point; Heath - who really is lovely, got re-homed last night because yanno, the hens just don't like him. He wasn't accepted by anyone. It tore at my heart strings but *everyone* seems happier today that he's gone.

He roamed alone all day for the most part, and when everyone was gathered together, he just tried to jump on everyone.


He had a few attempts at courtships, but for the most part, he was shunned

That kind of underdog story really just cuts!! But I also (1) didn't need his egg color and (2) he was gonna be HUGE. I don't like that. I prefer tidy, smaller boys who won't hurt the girls too much. haha

Except for Oscar, every single other Cockerel we have in this bunch is Chuck's baby. Will be interesting to see how it plays out. We plan to keep 5 or 6 total.

 

[BDutch]

Sooo what do you all eat, if you eat meat, if you're not eating cockerels?

Vegetarian mostly. Once in a while/once a week fish like ocean salmon. And maybe once every month/2 months a tiny piece of an organic cow. I don’t eat chicken, pig, sheep, snails, frogs, and goat.

I don’t like to kill animals unless they are a threath or a real nuisance. Mainly insects/ older than prehistoric animals are not highly respected.

My chickens don't get dead animals as feed from me either. With the exception of dried mealworms. They do get the opportunity to kill what comes around in our garden, for their own chicken diner.

 

[Skyeknight]

I also do eat meat, although not that often. I mostly eat beef and chicken. The beef I eat come from cows I have raised myself and I don't buy it in the store. I do buy chicken in the store, but since I have started hatching again I hope buying chicken will get to a minimum. Processing the chickens myself will not be fun and I already don't like thinking about it. But to me it's important to realise that a living being died in order for me to eat meat. And I can raise them outside and encourage their natural behaviours more, so quality of life for meat animals you raised yourself is way better.

 

[Shadrach]

Probably should add his backstory a bit. As far as I am aware he was brooder raised and the only Ayam Cemani cockerel. Don't know if he was raised with other breeds. Got him for free from a friend because he was aggressive towards her family, although not towards her.

I've felt much the same towards a few of my partner's families.

 

[kattabelly]

(Catching up on the thread after being away and offline)

Very sorry for everyone's losses. I had to euthanise a really nice cockerel last week. He was probably going to be a Chuck like yours @thistlewick. He was the only one not quite fully feathered when he came to me and his downy head fluff reminded me of a fledgling blackbird when they're at that dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards stage. The local name for a blackbird is chucket and it seemed to fit his slightly ridiculous face somehow, too.

This! When friends from the city came over made sure that they knew the dangers before getting into the pasture with the cows. Most of the time they are sweet, but can be a little too playfully with their horns or in their fertile period and jump on you with a shopping 500kg.

I used to stay on a farm / campsite / holiday lets place here that had a few highland cows and it was amazing how often you'd find guests just wandering across the field with their kids to go see them, despite the signs on all the gates saying not to They were sweet too but one of them was a big spoiled pet who'd toss her head if you weren't scratching her in exactly the right spot and those horns are no joke.

I try to limit the amount of meat I eat and to have either raised or killed it myself, or at least know exactly where it comes from. It's harder here as we don't have an abattoir, so everything gets sold and then put on a boat and brought back up for the butchers; the farm I used to do a bit of work for down south was able to do direct sales to customers, and I could usually score a load of offal for free since lots of people didn't want it. Getting to know people in the community helps - I've been given fish or a pheasant a few times when someone caught or shot extra. I ate enough coddling moth caterpillars when I was doing work in small, unsprayed orchards that I'm pretty relaxed about seeing insects as just another source of protein too.

 

[Molpet]

Babies today
Hear a lost poult, found it 30ft from mom who had 3 with her. Took 2 and left her one. 2 hrs later I heard the one 50 ft away from mom. She was paying no attention to it. Busy eating grass seed.
She couldn't even take care of one
She had them out in poultry yard. Which was why I took them and gave them to another sitting on eggs in a coop.
Of course I didn't think to take a picture.

Later I heard chicks in the box with the old buff hen. I had given her 8 and a few were added. 4 added an one marked didn't hatch. She has 2 black and 6 white. I gave the 2 black to another hen who had started sitting at the same time in the same coop. She was run off her nest and just started another . She is happy.

Buff butt with some of the chicks.

I moved her to a crate in the coop so she has some room. Why they picked the rollaway nest boxes is beyond me. I guess it's a tight space and they feel secure.