Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

Glais will put an end to such nonsense!

We shall see.
What Glais has got to do is get the hens to like him. Nature taking it's course often isn't any hen or rooster/cockerel will do. The little feckers have preferences, even when it comes to the most gorgeous looking feather displays.
He's got to want to live there. At his age he'll make the top of the fence easily from the coop or the shade box.
He's going to have to work out that although I'm not the hens rooster they will act as if I am. He's then got to decide whether I'm threat or an asset.
He is going to have to learn to deal with confinement and this may be the most difficult thing for him to achieve. I'm hoping the two to three hours a day they get out and having his own hens will be enough compensation.

 

[Shadrach]

"Things aren't that bad Sylph.You're not thinking of jumping again are you?"

 

[no fly zone]

 

[tranquiliti]

She's not tried to lay outside in the past.

View attachment 4228479

“Maybe if I lay here, I’ll have some chicks!”

 

[Perris]

@Perris how is Glais properly pronounced?

As it is a Celtic name, I fully expect it to be Worpsfliggle or some such.

Boringly, this one is wysiwyg: the -ais is pronounced 'ice', as in ice-cream, so as if spelt Glice.

 

[Perris]

What Glais has got to do is get the hens to like him.

He is going to have to learn to deal with confinement

He found his voice yesterday. It's more tenor than soprano I'm pleased to say I hope they like him, and that he succeeds in winning them over, and navigating the chap in charge.

Apart from being the most eligible bachelor here, he's one of the 4 cockerels who chooses to roost in coop - and goes in early and without fuss, taking a place on a roost (and keeping it; some of the males [and females] are in and out like yo-yos before they all finally settle), so confinement may not be so unattractive an idea, especially with two such beauties for company and a boss who understands him. And who brings walnuts! what's not to like?

... er, your feed possibly; it will be different from what he's been getting to date, and interesting to hear how he gets on there.

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

I've seen a lot of talk about upping the protein content for adult chickens, but relatively little talk on chicks. I know that various sources say that red junglefowl chicks consume mostly--if not almost exclusively--animal matter, and I just read a very interesting study by Savory et al. 1978 which observed that feral chicks would consume about 65% invertebrates for their first month of life. This would translate to protein percentage in the high 20s at the very least, more likely 30% or more. Most chick starter is closer to 20-22%, which seems quite low in comparison. And that isn't even mentioning the amount of extra fat in many insects, including termites (a cornerstone in RJF diets). Fats are essential for brain development, and chicks go through some very important cognitive milestones in the first few weeks. Should we be throwing chick starter out the window and using game bird feed instead? Or homemade feed supplemented with a ton of fish?

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

I am not advocating shirking chick starter in favor of game bird food per say, at least not without due research. I am however playing with the idea of timing hatches to coincide with peak ant and termite nuptial flights, to give broody raised chicks access to that protein source. That's what red jungle fowl do in the wild, according to a study from the sixties that I'm too lazy to cite right now (but can in the morning if anyone wants)

 

[Perris]

I know that various sources say that red junglefowl chicks consume mostly--if not almost exclusively--animal matter, and I just read a very interesting study by Savory et al. 1978 which observed that feral chicks would consume about 65% invertebrates for their first month of life.

I've read this too, in a more recent publication. It even applies to bird species where the adult diet is essentially vegetarian; the adults catch insects to feed to their chicks in the nest. Many altricial chicks have an entirely insectivore diet, irrespective of the typical adult diet for that species. I'll try to find the reference for that (can't remember it offhand).

Should we be throwing chick starter out the window and using game bird feed instead? Or homemade feed supplemented with a ton of fish?

I last used it in May 2020. Every brood since then has eaten homemade feed. The chicks here get (a lot of) extra mealworms.

From hatch live mealworms are offered, and the broody enthusiastically teaches her charges that this is food, above all other offerings. Nothing else I give elicits such a response. The chicks eat them with gusto within a day or so. (They also like sardines, tuna, and other fish, but they don't get offered that on a daily basis. Chickens' natural diet must be terrestrial, given their lack of waterproofing and avoidance of large bodies of water that might contain actual fish.)

The broodies learn early that if they bring their brood to a door when it is quiet (no adult birds around to crash the party) and I spot them (sometimes they spot me through a glass door and hurtle over, with chicks flying in pursuit ) they get offered a tub of live mealworms, and as long as she doesn't screech so loud as to attract everyone else, they will get their fill. The chicks continue to employ the same tactics once they're on their own (in the wilderness teen months). And they wean themselves off in their own time.

Please note that last sentence. My doorways are not permanently under siege by chickens, despite the fact that they all know live mealworms are available on demand - they've known it since birth. Few adults come to ask for some, and only when they need them. Chicks really need them. Juveniles need them sporadically. Adults need them occasionally. Maria comes marching in for them when she's laying, but is not now she is moulting. I'm not sure whether her being 8 has anything to do with it or not (Venka is also 8 and also lays - though not as many as Maria - and she has never come for them).

So I would say yes, offer chicks plenty of animal protein, while they want it. They will self regulate if they know it will be available again and they don't need to hoard. (I would also dump the processed chick feed, but that's an independent issue.)

Here's the latest bunch thriving on them

 

[Perris]

This from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Ornithology 1991: 247-8

"Nestling birds are reared on protein-rich diets even where the adults themselves may take lower quality diets. Although the diet of adult house sparrows consists of 97% vegetable matter, the nestlings receive foods that are 68% animal matter and only 31% vegetable. Young mallards fed on low protein diets grow more slowly than do ducklings on high protein diets... Pigeons, flamingos and seabirds address such problems in a different way: the adults consume their normal foods but concentrate its products into 'pigeon milk', oesophageal fluids or crop fluids, or into stomach oils.

Some evidence suggests that young birds require a fairly diverse diet to meet all their needs during growth...several studies have shown birds apparently deliberately diversifying the diet they rear their young on...many species engage in this behaviour in the early days of the nestling period when tissue synthesis is intense; diet breadth narrows as the nestlings grow older and energy needs become dominant. Several studies have shown that nestlings deprived of these 'special' items develop pathological symptoms." (Emphasis added because the contrary advice is often offered on byc.)