Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Labsandchickens8]

It appears that a snake killed Confetti, but was unable to swallow him.

That's horrible. My nightmare.
I have pictures of a giant rat snake on top of me nest box coop about 6 weeks ago. Second snake in the run in 5 days. It's now Fort Knox around that door - so bad the wire snags me most of the time - but hey, no snakes.
If you want to see a picture of a snake that swallowed 3 wooden eggs and maybe some real ones, let me know. I can post it, but I'll have nightmares again.

 

[Labsandchickens8]

That's horrible. My nightmare.
I have pictures of a giant rat snake on top of me nest box coop about 6 weeks ago. Second snake in the run in 5 days. It's now Fort Knox around that door - so bad the wire snags me most of the time - but hey, no snakes.
If you want to see a picture of a snake that swallowed 3 wooden eggs and maybe some real ones, let me know. I can post it, but I'll have nightmares again.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Talk about a food coma

 

[no fly zone]

didn't know corn snakes ate eggs

 

[kattabelly]

Last thing I'll say on the subject of sheep

Spoiler

Wish I hadn't mentioned the sheep! It was only meant as a throwaway anecdote, not a full on case study, but I can see how not giving more detail has led to people jumping to conclusions without the full picture and it's hard not to feel like I need to jump to their defence after misrepresenting them initially. Anyway, last point I'll make - Australia isn't all scorching, arid outback. Parts of the southern states have a climate that isn't nearly so different from the UK, and British and European sheep breeds played a big part in creating many of the breeds developed for those areas.

I decided to make a note of what insects I saw without going searching for them this afternoon, just during the short walk up to the plot and while I was there topping up food and collecting an egg. Didn't take the time to try and get proper IDs, but:
Honeybees
Bumblebee at least 2 species incl great yellow
Hoverfly 2 sp.
Wasp
Butterfly 3+ sp.
Caterpillar 2 sp.
Flies 5 obviously different species, in reality probably loads more
Moths 3+ sp.
Midges
Crane flies
Harvestman
Spider 2 sp.
Woodlice
Springtails
Millipedes
Slugs 2 sp.
Snail
Earthworm (nice to see as we supposedly have a lot of New Zealand flatworms here, although I've never seen one)

Sheep tax

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Last thing I'll say on the subject of sheep

Spoiler

Wish I hadn't mentioned the sheep! It was only meant as a throwaway anecdote, not a full on case study, but I can see how not giving more detail has led to people jumping to conclusions without the full picture and it's hard not to feel like I need to jump to their defence after misrepresenting them initially. Anyway, last point I'll make - Australia isn't all scorching, arid outback. Parts of the southern states have a climate that isn't nearly so different from the UK, and British and European sheep breeds played a big part in creating many of the breeds developed for those areas.

I decided to make a note of what insects I saw without going searching for them this afternoon, just during the short walk up to the plot and while I was there topping up food and collecting an egg. Didn't take the time to try and get proper IDs, but:
Honeybees
Bumblebee at least 2 species incl great yellow
Hoverfly 2 sp.
Wasp
Butterfly 3+ sp.
Caterpillar 2 sp.
Flies 5 obviously different species, in reality probably loads more
Moths 3+ sp.
Gnats
Crane flies
Harvestman
Spider 2 sp.
Woodlice
Springtails
Millipedes
Slugs 2 sp.
Snail
Earthworm (nice to see as we supposedly have a lot of New Zealand flatworms here, although I've never seen one)

Sheep tax
View attachment 4195950

Yeah, I kind of wondered where the ancestors of those Australian/NZ sheep came from…

 

[BDutch]

But it's a very data poor area - new species are being identified and described all the time.

The Germans have been counting insects since about 35 years ago and found a decline in 2017 of 76% in 27 years.

Summary in English on page 3. :
https://www.wur.nl/upload_mm/4/6/d/...ederland-trends-oorzaken-en-kennislacunes.pdf