Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BDutch]

Skipped Symphony Chorus rehearsal b/c I’m exhausted getting my mother transferred to a nursing home. We have about an hour fifteen before dusk, so I’m just enjoying the chickens and a glass or three of Pinot Grigio.

One of those sads moment in life.
I hope the nursing home is just what your mothers needs now.

 

[Perris]

But I do not think that that's what you want, so how much would you mind the Penedesencas Z chromosome getting into your flock and possibly causing defects down the line?

I think that bridge has already been crossed. The survival rate of chicks since 2022 (that roo was sexually active for the first half of that year) suggests that it's not a problem even with a few likely carriers around. In particular, his spitting image grandson turned 2 years old last month, and appears to be in great health despite a little (and perhaps irrelevant) blackening of the back of the comb occasionally.

So I think if there is a defect, it's already in the genetic soup here and there are enough other versions floating around to compensate for it most of the time. Compare humans and the cystic fibrosis gene.

 

[BDutch]

I may have my first broody on my hands. Mrs. B (Bernevelder) was not a roostin’ during nightly rounds. I was scared she got coyote’d! But she was in a nest, back behind the garage work bench, where Ozzy has chosen to lay eggs everywhere but ON the nesting material I so kindly placed in order to avoid the eggs with crack shells from being deposited on concrete. Sigh. Now Mrs. B, apparently in a broody mood, has decided that nesting material is perfect. At least chicks won’t fall from trees or potting benches. But it is a most inconvenient spot. (Imagine a painting pole with a small bucket taped to it so I can kneel, on a dirty workbench, and retrieve a deposited egg from a half inch of dirt instead of the nesting material an inch away behind the bench!) I am not 100% she is broody. Maybe just needing to lay late at night? She got some fresh water nearby and a closed garage door though. Ain’t nobody got time to crawl around back there and fish ‘er out. Ain’t nobody got time for that!

The breeds name is Barnevelder. Named after a place where the breed is developed in the Netherlands about 10 miles from where I live.

Sounds like broody. She must have thought you want her to nest right there.

Are you sure you want her to hatch chicks now, in late autumn? Don’t let her sit there if the place is a not safe at night. If its okay safety-wise for a broody but not for chicks you have a few options:
1. Move her now to a good spot with the risk you stop her broodiness doing so.
2. Move her a few days before the chicks hatch. Little chance she leaves the new nest when the chicks start to peep in the egg. Make a plan (incubator) if she stops being broody.
3. Make a safe enclosure where the broody sits , during the hatching days (panels covered with hwc). After the hatch you can move her with the chicks to a better spot.

 

[Ikslo]

The breeds name is Barnevelder. Named after a place where the breed is developed in the Netherlands about 10 miles from where I live.

Yes, that was a typo I missed, sorry!

 

[Ikslo]

The breeds name is Barnevelder. Named after a place where the breed is developed in the Netherlands about 10 miles from where I live.

Sounds like broody. She must have thought you want her to nest right there.

Are you sure you want her to hatch chicks now, in late autumn? Don’t let her sit there if the place is a not safe at night. If its okay safety-wise for a broody but not for chicks you have a few options:
1. Move her now to a good spot with the risk you stop her broodiness doing so.
2. Move her a few days before the chicks hatch. Little chance she leaves the new nest when the chicks start to peep in the egg. Make a plan (incubator) if she stops being broody.
3. Make a safe enclosure where the broody sits , during the hatching days (panels covered with hwc). After the hatch you can move her with the chicks to a better spot.

I closed up the garage. I do think it is safe for the night. I don’t think I plan to let her stay there. I just wasn’t going to try to get her out last night. As far as do I want a broody hen right now, not especially! A lot to consider.

 

[McChooky]

I went back and checked for the first time I heard a "crow"...

Wait for it...

They were 10 weeks old.

My dogs squeeze toy sounds just like that and its his favorite

 

[BDutch]

NEWS

The Dutch university Erasmus MC designs 'universal' bird flu vaccine that protects against multiple variants

Bird flu Researchers have mapped how the bird flu virus evolves. "There was no global overview of which mutations the virus had undergone."

Spoiler: more

(This is part of the article - behind a paywall)
Virologists at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam have succeeded in designing a "universal" avian influenza vaccine. Unlike all other avian influenza vaccines, the Erasmus MC vaccine protects against not just one variant, but a wide variety of variants. This is evident from a study in which the vaccine was tested on ferrets. The results were published Wednesday in Nature. The follow-up study, which will test the vaccine's safety in humans, began this summer.

Molecular virologist and principal investigator Mathilde Richard calls the publication a "major milestone" in research that has taken more than ten years. This is partly due to the highly complex technique used, known as antigen mapping. The research group created a digital three-dimensional model to map all known avian influenza variants, also known as H5. "There was no global overview of which mutations the virus had undergone over the years," says Richard. “With this model we can see exactly how all existing variants differ from each other.”

The result is a digital model that resembles a solar system, with a center surrounded by virus variants. The further apart the variants are, the more mutations have occurred and therefore the less related they are. "This led us to the idea of designing a vaccine that targets the center of that solar system. If you give that vaccine to an animal that later becomes infected with one of the variants located at the very outer edge of the model, it also appears to protect against that variant," says Richard.

Source NRC