Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Skyeknight]

I have sheep - they just eat the good stuff on our pasture. But they are not at all stressed in the pasture. 4 sheep are on 2.7 acres and they don't even LOOK like they are eating anything, so plenty of forage for them to nom.

Yeah, they generally only eat stuff they can actually eat. Never really had any problems with poisoning from plants in the field. You will notice when they are out of grass when they start to eat nettles for example. If Google is not failing me 2.7 acres is about 1 hectare, which should be able to sustain about 10 sheep.

The problem lies in that if I introduce a plant they won't or can't eat out grassland will lose value very quickly, and I would have to get rid of the plant. Meaning at that point I should have just avoided introducing it alt all.

 

[Shadrach]

The tasty and healthy plans for chickens didn’t survive having chickens free ranging for 10 years.

This is one of the problems with low diversity and not enough room. If chickens ate nettles and the other weeds that flourish at the field in the extended run I wouldn't be trying to introduce plants that haven't naturally adapted.
One partial solution is to plant one vegetable crop for for the chickens and one for oneself.
The extended run is big compared to many runs but even so, the field lot at all the different population sizes have stripped it of edible plants each year.

 

[SimpleJenn]

She's a leghorn mix of some sort (they called her a White Sapphire). She's full of piss and vinegar and "isn't supposed to go broody". She 4, first time broody, and clearly has no problem telling others to BACK OFF (with a few expletives in the middle). She also got dubbed PITA (yes, it stands for what you think) and is 3rd in the whole goup.

Please tell PITA I love her. She's so sassy!

 

[SimpleJenn]

Did I tell y'all I'm finally going to free-range birds? Not the little decorative ones, real chickens that can stand up for themselves haha. The pet birds will remain in our coop and run setup for kiddo's sake.

We're turning my old playhouse into a chicken mansion. It needs just a bit of work like hardware cloth, turning the cabinets into a brooder cage, and making a folding ladder roost.

Hubby is very excited because he can keep the little cochinXamericana boy he loves so much.
Owl

 

[Perris]

Did I tell y'all I'm finally going to free-range birds?

that's wonderful news!

We're turning my old playhouse into a chicken mansion. It needs just a bit of work like hardware cloth, turning the cabinets into a brooder cage, and making a folding ladder roost.

It looks just the job; what lucky chickens!

 

[Perris]

Killay has lost his remaining spur

while Gwynedd's lost 1 of 4 has regrown

Gwynedd will be 2 in September; I wonder if there will be a change of dom sooner rather than later. I saw him challenging Killay the other day. (Tintern incidentally has fallen back behind Gwynedd and will not contend I suspect.)

 

[BDutch]

bluebottles, greenbottle

What a lovely names for what we call meat flies (sometimes called poop flies, but these are yellowish).

We're turning my old playhouse into a chicken mansion.

What a lovely coop to be!

This is one of the problems with low diversity and not enough room. If chickens ate nettles and the other weeds that flourish at the field in the extended run I wouldn't be trying to introduce plants that haven't naturally adapted.

The plot my bantams roam in, isnt just our garden. Its quite big for 6-8 bantams if I include the wild municipality field. > 1000 m2.
The problem with the decline of plants is partly bc we have an overload of NOx where I live, from traffic, farmers and industry. Nettle and blackberries grow abundant at the municipality field while the good herbs have a hard time to survive.

In our garden its different. One reason of the decline in the number of species are the chickens who eat certain plants and leave others alone. But we also stopped buying plants from the shop bc al these wonderful flowering plants contain too much poisons.

In the meantime I’m looking forward to the day you can obtain a few spoiled hens to add to your ladies to love and nurture.

 

[MrsNorthie]

Will you stop eating potatoes, tomatoes and aubergine then? (Because they are same family as deadly nightshade and other toxic plants.)

LOL my point was, @Skyeknight said that he read it was toxic, I was just suggesting that it was being lumped into the toxic category because it may have toxic twins. This seems to be a common line and of course, the safe option if you are not 100% sure of your identification.

 

[Labsandchickens8]

It rained a bit this morning then the sun came out this afternoon and it didn't start raining again until I got back into the city.
Everybody came out. Henry found another spot he wanted to sit in.
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Fret
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Inspection.
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Henry isn't facing the wall here!
Sorry if everybody comments on this later. I've been silently lurking and trying to get caught up for a really long time.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Welp.

I get home late from a choral rehearsal (Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony, go vaguely-Welsh composers!!) way down yonder in Brevard NC, and the girls were locked in the run, not yet ready for the coop. Lil and Buffy were together, looking worried, and I couldn’t find Trudy until I heard a strange growling from the Nestera coop. She’d spent two hours laying this morning, and sure enough, she was in a nest box.

I removed the lid to see if she was ok, and when I felt underneath her, she bit me! Lil and Buffy were hovering outside the coop door, apparently reluctant to go in. But Trudy left the nest box, so I went inside to wait for full darkness.

When I went back 20 minutes later, she was back on the nest, growling, and Lil and Buffy were huddled at the far ends of the perches (we’re talking less than 30” away) staring at her. I locked them up and left them.

They are six months old tomorrow. The new pullets come Tuesday.

This is what I get for asking about broodies! Noooooooooooooooooooo


Edit: freakin’ iPhone autocorrupt