Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[HiEverybirdy]

One of the next generation for tax; just love this pic

View attachment 4193319

Adorable bird!

 

[Labsandchickens8]

I've had similar and the discussions to go with it. My view, not a popular view I expect here on BYC is most people just do not know how to keep chickens. I had the chickens on the vegetable plot in Catalonia. One of the people from the main house would shoe then off whenever they saw the chickens in there.
I took them to a few of the local small holdings that had their chickens running around the place. Many of these smallholding used to fence the chickens on the vegetable plot rather than off it so the chickens would do the work cleaning out pests, tilling the soil and fertilizing the ground. Delicate (read chicken favourites) got temporarliy covered with wire cages much like I've used at the field. My plot at the field is the most productive per square metre cultivated. Yup, every now and then a plant gets dug up or some leaves get chewed but if I'm out there with them it's easy to prevent or put right. People at the field ask me how I get so much produce from the area, so they've noticed it's very productive. I tell them it's because the chickns are on it most days for a while. Nope, they won't believe that's the reason it's more productive then their plots which they haul in shop compost to maintain.

You are completely right that most people don't know how to keep chickens. I finally got chickens after 15 years or more of wanting them and I was shockingly ignorant. I spend a ton of time trying to learn. I have one friend who has chickens and knows things but she doesn't keep them like most of you do.
Many many pages back you linked to a breeder who gave people who bought chicks a fact sheet on raising chickens. I think a minimum starting point would be Storeys book. These are living creatures and we need to do better by them.

 

[Labsandchickens8]

I lived in Houston for a few years in Houston as a kid. I don’t ever want to live in that kind of climate again, and I don’t want the chickens (feathers!!!) to, either.

So true. I'm an hour north of Houston with 2 sons who still live there. Our climate is terrible in the summer
We have had tremendous population growth in our county for the last few years. We see license plates from California, Nevada and even Canada. Why? Do they not check the weather conditions?
Actually I know why, but personally I'd move to Tennessee or the Carolinas.

 

[fuzzi]

Depending on the phone, you absolutely have that level of control - my Pixel can capture RAW and you just tap where you want to focus - it's completely manual, with depth of field adjustments and everything. No reason to lug a big mirrored camera around anymore.

Source; professional photographer for a few years, amateur for about 15 years before that.

Anyway - all this Rooster talk!

I removed Chuck and Oscar up to the bachelor pen. Cream and Cracker now have the opportunity to rise to the occasion or.... not -- we will see. They will get a month or so to figure out how to be a leader.

But right now, they're derpy AF and haven't a single iota how to do anything and I am concerned. lol They don't tidbit, they don't escort, they don't mind hens fighting (only at roosting time it seems), they are terrified of the hens LOL

Soooooo, we will see how it goes. If they cannot muster the courage to lead, into the bachelor pen they go, and the next generation will have a chance.

One of the next generation for tax; just love this pic

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That's a lovely picture!

Give them time. With my two cockerels Zaccheus took the dominant roo position, Silas was junior. Silas didn't tidbit or take roosterly duties seriously until he got his own harem.

 

[Shadrach]

Beauty and brains I see, quite rare for the male species

I know some women who don't require either; they just want a man who will do as he's told.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I know some women who don't require either; they just want a man who will do as he's told.

Also quite rare!

 

[Shadrach]

An article from The Garden Professors about “The Dirty Dozen” and its validity. The Dirty Dozen is a list of the top 12 types of produce, ranked by the amount of measurable pesticides. It is developed by the EWG (Environmental Working Group), which also publishes a “Clean Fifteen” list of produce with the lowest residues.

tl/dr summary: the list isn’t useful because it doesn’t evaluate risk
- the pesticide level is meaningless, because it doesn’t address actual harm (toxicity is dose-dependent)
- when dosage (number of servings) is taken into account, it would take many hundreds of servings of spinach or strawberries a day to create a harmful level of exposure
- it can discourage consumption of fruits and vegetables

https://gardenprofessors.com/the-dirty-truth-behind-the-dirty-dozen/

The article makes a fair point. What many such articles don't take into account is accumulative poisoning. Some of these chemicals and particles our bodies are unable to deal with at our present state of evolution.

I've stopped reading the popular media on such topics, mainly because each "discovery" we have known for centuries. Much like chickens, we knew by trial and error what was and what wasn't good to eat and being mainly foragers, everything mattered. It was all good with a wide ranging diet. It's hardly surprising the highly processed foodstuffs and the industrial growing methods are causing us problems. Profit is a dirty word.

 

[Shadrach]

Depending on the phone, you absolutely have that level of control - my Pixel can capture RAW and you just tap where you want to focus - it's completely manual, with depth of field adjustments and everything. No reason to lug a big mirrored camera around anymore.

Source; professional photographer for a few years, amateur for about 15 years before that.

Anyway - all this Rooster talk!

I removed Chuck and Oscar up to the bachelor pen. Cream and Cracker now have the opportunity to rise to the occasion or.... not -- we will see. They will get a month or so to figure out how to be a leader.

But right now, they're derpy AF and haven't a single iota how to do anything and I am concerned. lol They don't tidbit, they don't escort, they don't mind hens fighting (only at roosting time it seems), they are terrified of the hens LOL

Soooooo, we will see how it goes. If they cannot muster the courage to lead, into the bachelor pen they go, and the next generation will have a chance.

One of the next generation for tax; just love this pic

View attachment 4193319

They're still too young and it seems they don't have an example to follow.
While many of the actions of a chicken are built in as standard, it takes time and intelligence to work out when such actions are appropriate. I think much of this is learnt.

 

[Shadrach]

09/08.
Dry, warm with some sunshine.
Leg treatment for both this afternoon. We are getting there. The legs are looking less like a losing entry in a chainsaw carving competition.
I've started taking down, well more like extracting, the old fence. I had hoped the extraction would do less damage to the tall grass that's grown up around it. I need a few bare patches in which to plant hedge type stuff.

 

[notabitail]

Depending on the phone, you absolutely have that level of control - my Pixel can capture RAW and you just tap where you want to focus - it's completely manual, with depth of field adjustments and everything. No reason to lug a big mirrored camera around anymore.

Do you have a Pro model Pixel? Mine doesn't let me do all of the depth of field and all the manual controls until after shooting the photo.

I have a mirrorless camera I lug around when I want photos taken with a real zoom lens.

My old Note 9 had more controls than my Pixel.