Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Mother of Chaos]

And here are today's pictures. Getting warmer at 25C and still dry.
View attachment 4194403View attachment 4194404View attachment 4194405View attachment 4194406View attachment 4194407View attachment 4194408

Is August usually this brown where you live?

 

[fuzzi]

And here are today's pictures. Getting warmer at 25C and still dry.
View attachment 4194407

The fluffy butts...

 

[kcan2]

The fluffy butts...

They look like floofs with bustles!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

So. After a very acceptable level of co-existence in the run and the yard, it was time for sleeping.

The Littles have never put themselves back into the run at dusk. They run back and forth, in front of where I’m sitting on the deck, cheeping anxiously. I’ve tried herding them in, and what a PITA.

Tonight I ignored them until it was nearly dark, and the Bigs had already gone into the run. I walked beside them on the walkway, outside the chicken yard, and they took themselves into the run, where I left them, locking the run door but not putting them into their cage/coop.

I went back to the deck and read my phone some more, listening to some muffled bawking and squawking, and gave it 20 minutes. Went back to the run with my flashlight. No one was in the coop (it’s warm tonight), but the Bigs were on one leg of the L-shaped roosts (their new outside sleeping porch), and the Littles were on the other, all asleep.

I guess they’re integrated.

 

[Perris]

Is August usually this brown where you live?

I'll take the liberty of answering this as it's only about 100 miles east of here. No. Grasslands and cereal fields are usually brown by mid August but this year most of England has had an exceptionally dry spring and summer.

We get more rain in the west, i.e. in Wales, and we've also had some coastal fog and mist when England was baking dry in one or another (of now the 4th) summer heatwave, so it's still nice and green here. That's partly why my chickens, sheep and other pastured livestock do well here; green grass all year round.

 

[Perris]

Here's an example of herbaceous (as opposed to shrub) cover here. This was once a veg patch; long since abandoned to the chickens.

I've put in a redcurrant - apart from the currants, the leaves apparently [Hairy Bikers Scandinavian tour] contain lactobacilli, and can be used to start a ferment - and Sassafras - which has that white grid protection as it nearly got killed by something last year - but otherwise this area is populated mainly by giant scabious - a dead-headed big clump of which is centre of picture at the back, yew hedge behind - and whatever flora manages to self-seed here. Janeka's latest secret nest was here between clumps of scabious. There's also a big hemp agrimony to the left. All of it dies down in the winter, leaving a variety of stalks and seed heads that supply forage through winter. And the whole area is buzzing with insects and creepy crawlies at this time of year of course. Besides the two obvious birds in the photo, there is another chicken foraging behind the plantain just in front of Maria, and another one foraging behind the young tree with protection. They are practically invisible.

Here they all are revealed when this little group moved on (though Puffin, left, would've stayed longer I suspect).

I was out with the camera because Xmoor (centre of picture) is 1 today

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Here's an example of herbaceous (as opposed to shrub) cover here. This was once a veg patch; long since abandoned to the chickens.

I've put in a redcurrant - apart from the currants, the leaves apparently [Hairy Bikers Scandinavian tour] contain lactobacilli, and can be used to start a ferment - and Sassafras - which has that white grid protection as it nearly got killed by something last year - but otherwise this area is populated mainly by giant scabious - a dead-headed big clump of which is centre of picture at the back, yew hedge behind - and whatever flora manages to self-seed here. Janeka's latest secret nest was here between clumps of scabious. There's also a big hemp agrimony to the left. All of it dies down in the winter, leaving a variety of stalks and seed heads that supply forage through winter. And the whole area is buzzing with insects and creepy crawlies at this time of year of course. Besides the two obvious birds in the photo, there is another chicken foraging behind the plantain just in front of Maria, and another one foraging behind the young tree with protection. They are practically invisible.
View attachment 4194713
Here they all are revealed when this little group moved on (though Puffin, left, would've stayed longer I suspect).View attachment 4194715
I was out with the camera because Xmoor (centre of picture) is 1 today

Happy Hen Day, Xmoor!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I'll take the liberty of answering this as it's only about 100 miles east of here. No. Grasslands and cereal fields are usually brown by mid August but this year most of England has had an exceptionally dry spring and summer.

We get more rain in the west, i.e. in Wales, and we've also had some coastal fog and mist when England was baking dry in one or another (of now the 4th) summer heatwave, so it's still nice and green here. That's partly why my chickens, sheep and other pastured livestock do well here; green grass all year round.

When we lived in California, our (rental) house was on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. We would go for months without rain, but the fogs kept everything green and cool. Especially in July, when I had to fight myself to keep from turning on the heat. Just a few miles inland, all was tan and brown.

I tried growing tomatoes, but it was too cool for them to ripen.

I really miss living in the Bay Area, but OMG not the traffic.

 

[Labsandchickens8]

Yesterday eleven out of sixteen birds, the two boys included, from the Tsouloufati group turned one .View attachment 4109431 Settled on a name for the mixed rooster. Elrond. Following his mother’s theme, I thought an Elven name from Tolkien’s universe would be a good fitView attachment 4109432

Elrond is gorgeous. I love the blue in his tail.

 

[fluffycrow]

Elrond is gorgeous. I love the blue in his tail.

Thank you. Most of Big Red’s offspring have gorgeous feathers, just like him