Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Mother of Chaos]

"Midsomer" is pretty bad too. All those beautiful villages and so many deaths, my husband says, "that is why I never lived in a quintessential village." but at least most of the murders are really creative. (my favourite is the 'wine trebuchet' from Hidden Depths.) LOL

I remember reading a mystery set in a Virginia vineyard, and the method of death was to get the victim over/in the fermentation vat, forced to breathe the released carbon dioxide, and suffocate. IIRC, it wasn’t until multiple bodies in the vat started stinking up the winery that anyone caught on.

Something to think about the next time you go wine-tasting!

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

"Midsomer" is pretty bad too. All those beautiful villages and so many deaths

Hands down my favorite. Always have a cuppa with the DCI in your quaint little cottage. Sure beats an interview down at the station!

 

[Molpet]

"Midsomer" is pretty bad too. All those beautiful villages and so many deaths, my husband says, "that is why I never lived in a quintessential village." but at least most of the murders are really creative. (my favourite is the 'wine trebuchet' from Hidden Depths.) LOL

I really enjoy Midsomer.
Death in paradise was another

 

[Labsandchickens8]

@Labsandchickens8, please note this!^^^

This is strictly a boundary fence for the birds, inside our fenced backyard.

We have 1” sq aviary netting over the first pic, the jungle-y area with lots of natural cover. (Currently pulled back while we rearrange things.) There’s a Coolaroo shade sail over part of the raised bed area, about to be augmented with a second sail. Both of these are to deter avian predators, specifically hawks. We are usually outside when the birds are out. We’re retired - we certainly wouldn’t turn them out at 7:30 in the morning, not getting home until 5:30 or 6.

Thank you! Noted.
Still need a stupid fence I guess

 

[Mother of Chaos]

So Trudy the lunatic is back to being Broody Trudy.

She’s been pretty testy the last few days, and this afternoon she started making a strange musical growl whenever she saw the Littles. (This was out in the yard, nowhere close to the coop.) She then moved to the coop and started growling more loudly at them, as they hung out under the coop platform. She raised her hackles and fluffed at them, and went to the nest boxes, trying to roll the two fake eggs from one box to the other, to make a total of four.

So now she’s growling away on her preferred nest of four fake eggs with the camping fan blowing full blast on her, heading into the night. I’m not inclined to mess with her now. I’ll bring out the full ammo in the morning (fan, ice packs in the nest, and if necessary, formal broody jail.)

She is the single worst candidate I have ever seen for hatching and raising chicks. A drama llama with the attention span of a cockroach.

 

[Labsandchickens8]

Thank you Shad and all for helping me with the rooster situation. Big Red is no longer here, which I have needed some time to process.

Along with him, the serama cockerel went to live on an acquaintances farm, where he’ll get to free range. It wouldn’t be a fluffycrow decision if there wasn’t a mistake, ish. Along with Big Red, also went Elrond. To no fault of his own, he was just too big for all but one of the girls here (his mother). That left the pure Tsouloufati rooster, an incredibly respectful, and much smaller rooster. Well, Tuesday morning, he was showing the same symptoms as his father. Couldn’t stand, half the comb purple, very weak. By mid day, he had passed. I’m pretty sure it was heart related, as he had similar symptoms (though not as extreme) once before.

That means that we no longer have roosters here, for the first time in over five years. On the bright side, the hens are feeling much safer. Some have already started growing back feathers. Today I saw one bathing; I have not seen that in months, they refused to sun bathe out of feet of being mated. Not the outcome I had hoped for, but an outcome that has left the hens much more relaxed than before

I'm so sorry for the loss of Tsoulafati rooster! I know you are trying very hard to do what's best for your chickens

 

[Mother of Chaos]

The lunatic is on the grass… Well, actually, on the nest:

 

[no fly zone]

I really enjoy Midsomer.
Death in paradise was another

My wife loves both of those.

 

[Perris]

I discovered the hard way that some varieties of sunflowers are allelopathic toward corn (maize.) Who knew?

(Not the same thing, but falls into the category of plant chemical defenses.)

I think we're only just scratching the surface with this whole area. I learned recently that some mushrooms form in a ring because their mycelium grows outwards from a single point, and exhausts the food supply as it grows, so can only carry on growing outwards as a ring. One goes further: where the mycelium is actively feeding and hoping to fruit, it produces hydrogen cyanide, which kills the grass, because, being a short mushroom, long grass would impede its spore dispersal when it sends up those fruiting bodies we call fairy ring champignon. So, sorry kids, no fairies involved

 

[L-plate chicken mum]

I think we're only just scratching the surface with this whole area. I learned recently that some mushrooms form in a ring because their mycelium grows outwards from a single point, and exhausts the food supply as it grows, so can only carry on growing outwards as a ring. One goes further: where the mycelium is actively feeding and hoping to fruit, it produces hydrogen cyanide, which kills the grass, because, being a short mushroom, long grass would impede its spore dispersal when it sends up those fruiting bodies we call fairy ring champignon. So, sorry kids, no fairies involved

Just fungal fairies