Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[kattabelly]

Is cocksfoot grass somewhat like crabgrass, low to the ground and spreading out from a central point?
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If our girls ate crabgrass, we’d all be very happy. But they just seem to want the perennial rye.

It clumps but it's really long and grows very tall, especially if left undisturbed for a few years. This time of year the old growth is dying back and sagging to the ground through a combination of rain and wind but at the height of summer the clumps are tall enough to hide adult large fowl if there's a load of them growing close together. Flower stems can easily reach shoulder height for a shortarse like me.

I'm just guessing some of that is what Shad has, couldn't see clearly from his pics on my phone screen. The Latin name is Dactylis glomerata and stems being flat at the base is a key ID feature. The flowers branch out in a way that sometimes looks like the shape of a chicken's foot, once they start to ripen and set seed.

 

[RoyalChick]

Two hours. It didn't rain while I was there. It felt cold at 9C when I left.

Feathers are coming off. Not exactly a fast, or a thorough moult the way Sylph is going.
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On my plot. I let it do what it wants more or less over the winter. The chickens like the cover from the fruit bushes and what grows up around them. The only thing that really needs taking out is the grass clumps. Once they get a hold one lose a lot of soil getting them out. I know it sounds odd, but we are short of soil on most plots for exactly this reason; grass has grown pretty much all over, the roots go down four inches or so and when one digs them out making sure all the soil gets knocked out of the roots makes the job tedious.
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The usual preferred cover spot.
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Glais in the middle again.
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This lazy gardener's shortcut for dealing with digging up grass is not to try and knock the soil off the roots but to turn it upside down and leave it in place. It is sort of an 'auto-mulching' approach. The blades and roots rot down in place adding organic material to the soil and while they do that they prevent other weeds from growing. Of course, if the grass has already got seeds, then all you are doing is planting them - but with chickens around my guess is the seeds already got eaten.

 

[fuzzi]

This lazy gardener's shortcut for dealing with digging up grass is not to try and knock the soil off the roots but to turn it upside down and leave it in place. It is sort of an 'auto-mulching' approach. The blades and roots rot down in place adding organic material to the soil and while they do that they prevent other weeds from growing. Of course, if the grass has already got seeds, then all you are doing is planting them - but with chickens around my guess is the seeds already got eaten.

I do this, a lot. It's not lazy, it's time efficient.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I do this, a lot. It's not lazy, it's time efficient.

Good for the soil, too, if you can exclude seeds. By letting it rot in place, you’re restoring any nutrients pulled from the soil, plus some carbon from the atmosphere.

 

[Shadrach]

This lazy gardener's shortcut for dealing with digging up grass is not to try and knock the soil off the roots but to turn it upside down and leave it in place. It is sort of an 'auto-mulching' approach. The blades and roots rot down in place adding organic material to the soil and while they do that they prevent other weeds from growing. Of course, if the grass has already got seeds, then all you are doing is planting them - but with chickens around my guess is the seeds already got eaten.

I'll give that a try. Seems like a very sensible approach.

 

[Molpet]

I do this, a lot. It's not lazy, it's time efficient.

I too.
Ruth Stout method of piling pulled weeds, cut grass on top of weeds.

 

[L-plate chicken mum]

It clumps but it's really long and grows very tall, especially if left undisturbed for a few years. This time of year the old growth is dying back and sagging to the ground through a combination of rain and wind but at the height of summer the clumps are tall enough to hide adult large fowl if there's a load of them growing close together. Flower stems can easily reach shoulder height for a shortarse like me.

I'm just guessing some of that is what Shad has, couldn't see clearly from his pics on my phone screen. The Latin name is Dactylis glomerata and stems being flat at the base is a key ID feature. The flowers branch out in a way that sometimes looks like the shape of a chicken's foot, once they start to ripen and set seed.

Tough, tussocky and resilient grass
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/plants/grasses-and-sedges/cocksfoot-grass/

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

You know, before I started reading this thread I never questioned the mainstream attitude to roosters, but now it really ticks me off whenever I see it. I just saw yet another person with a rooster problem be told to "just kill him." Imagine if one had a hen that was a terrible bully and I recommended they "just kill her." I would undoubtedly be ripped to shreds. How could I say that? It's unthinkable and callous! And yet it's the overwhelming response to any inconvenience caused by a rooster. I think people impose their human sexism onto chickens; hens are soft and gentle creatures that must be protected and roosters are aggressive beasts who are only worth what they can provide. Or maybe for others it's because hens can be exploited for eggs while roosters can only be exploited for meat.

I know that all of this is old news and has been rehashed on this thread a million times, but it has me feeling angry again. Sorry for rambling about it, but I figured if I was going to complain somewhere, at least the people here would understand.

 

[L-plate chicken mum]

You know, before I started reading this thread I never questioned the mainstream attitude to roosters, but now it really ticks me off whenever I see it. I just saw yet another person with a rooster problem be told to "just kill him." Imagine if one had a hen that was a terrible bully and I recommended they "just kill her." I would undoubtedly be ripped to shreds. How could I say that? It's unthinkable and callous! And yet it's the overwhelming response to any inconvenience caused by a rooster. I think people impose their human sexism onto chickens; hens are soft and gentle creatures that must be protected and roosters are aggressive beasts who are only worth what they can provide. Or maybe for others it's because hens can be exploited for eggs while roosters can only be exploited for meat.

I know that all of this is old news and has been rehashed on this thread a million times, but it has me feeling angry again. Sorry for rambling about it, but I figured if I was going to complain somewhere, at least the people here would understand.

The other often quoted one is that if you handle male chicks they turn into human aggressive roosters.
“Raised” to the best of my ability from c2 days old, uses me as a perch / foot warmer and I get ‘told off’ every now and again but lovely and what’s more important, the hens really like him and he is pretty good with them considering he had no male role models.

 

[Shadrach]

I know that all of this is old news and has been rehashed on this thread a million times,

It can't be rehashed enough. It isn't like this everywhere in the world.
There are fairly obvious reasons why BYC is like this. One probably doesn't want to look too deeply into these reasons and one certainly doesn't want to make a posted issue of them.
Unfortunately it's not just the rooster issue. There are topics, in fact I have a list of such topics, that are prone to getting very badly informed advice on.
Change comes slowly, especially if one is trying to address topics that are cornerstones of the establishment.
Most of my articles attempt to offer an alternative view. Judging by the response to them, not everyone is taken in by the establishment's view.

There is one thread in particular that I wish I had used video to demonstrate the point I was trying to make regarding rooster behaviour.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/cooperative-behavior.1288804/