Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BDutch]

… had so much fun with that!
The free rangers were not interested, they could go out to the woods or field and fill up on different plants.

Tax, some of the free rangers inspecting the puddles when kiddo and I stomped through them.View attachment 4244702

Questions about these 2 things:
Donyou have 2 completely seperated flocks? Why?
How come your soil looks like a desert?

Glais likes the coop and the run to enough of an extent to make me feel less guilty about depriving him of the environment he had with Perris.

First a thanks for the wonderful post. I enjoyed reading it very much.

Just one thing I like to say /ask.
I read a couple of times that the successes of commercial chicken farming were possible bc of the ability of chickens to adjust to new circumstances. In general chickens obviously don’t die from a stressful situation immediately. Even the commercial chickens can live and lay eggs in horrible circumstances, packed together for at least 20 months.

I wonder if Glais has no problems to adapt to his new situation because of this ability to adjust? Or that he is so very pleased to be around his own hen (cant really cant Sylph do I) and your care that he seems very happy.

 

[BDutch]

I wasn’t feeding mixed grains.
The meal they got was all party leftovers/plate scrapings:
- cheeseburger with bun
- corn on the cob
- roasted red peppers, zucchini/courgettes, mushrooms and haloumi
- buckwheat salad with cucumber and herbs
- peach slices
This was a summer BBQ party and I froze the food scraps into pots for the chickens and then forgot I had them. Freezer clear out day.

With the question “joke? “ , I was only referring to “Oh come on - I haven’t seen anyone say that!” But thanks for pointing out.


@Perris , yes I was joking about Janice looking so poorly. I posted her moulting pictures earlier with a more serious text. And thought some of the readers might find it interesting that the food factory recommends a ⅓ scratch for organic chickens.
Fyi, in my country the eggs sold as organic eggs, come from chickens who free range daily and get organic feed.

Janice today eating a little rice left over:

 

[fluffycrow]

he did give me a look that said “you know dudes don’t get pedicures, right?”

Lady Gaga would disagree with him . He sat perfectly still for his pedicures. Even slept a little, but only if his hens were right in front of us.
Chronic genetic SLM meant that any bird of his line needed regular trimmings. I had to quickly learn the best way to go about it, as there had never been a need for me to come near any chicken’s nails in the last decade.

Lady Gaga was by far my best patient. He didn’t complain at all, not once with my trims. He was free to jump off my lap at any time; he was a tribe leader after all, and that needed tending to. He rarely did though

 

[BDutch]

Most people don't assess what they feed themselves, and it doesn't seem to bother them, they just assume it's adequate, so I'm not sure why we should tolerate a double standard with chicken feed.

Im not sure if I understand this right.
Do you mean that most humans, eat without care, and don’t think about how healthy they are eating? And bc most people seem to do fine with what they eat, why bother so much about chickens?

I certainly was flabbergasted what some people here on BYC seem to think is normal food for dinner and even like to share their unhealthy choices.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/hey-grandpa-whats-for-supper-part-2.111095/page-1511

 

[Perris]

Do you mean that most humans, eat without care, and don’t think about how healthy they are eating?

I meant, they don't seem to think about whether they're getting a 'complete' 'balanced' diet or not, or, if they get the sniffles, wonder if they are deficient in one vitamin or other, so should belt down some electrolytes, or selenium or whatever other micronutrient is currently fashionable, etc. etc.

 

[BDutch]

I meant, they don't seem to think about whether they're getting a 'complete' 'balanced' diet or not, or, if they get the sniffles, wonder if they are deficient in one vitamin or other, so should belt down some electrolytes, or selenium or whatever other micronutrient is currently fashionable, etc. etc.

And I wonder why so many people fuss a lot about giving the best possible food to their chickens while they eat so much junk food themselves.

 

[fluffycrow]

This is very much unrelated to all that is being discussed right now, but I wanted to give an update on the fox situation. About two weeks ago there was a huge ruckus at the neighbours house. The next morning, I found an adult fox dead right outside one of the property gates.
After speaking with the neighbour, one of their dogs killed the fox the previous night. It’s possible that both their dogs were involved, but the one that took the fox down is a young dog, around two years old.
The neighbour wasn’t nearly as pleased with him as I was .

It’s late enough in the season that the kits will have left the protection of their parents. Given that one is gone, I’m not sure how the other one has reacted. Maybe they abandoned the territory altogether.
There hasn’t been a fox sighting in a while. Hopefully that means the chickens can get on with ranging soon. The hen with the sprained leg is pretty much back to normal as well, which I’m happy to see

 

[angc11]

Hello, I am a long time stalker of this thread and an avid consumer of all @Shadrach's rooster advice on here. His advice has helped me to work with my bossy, high strung head rooster to form a truce with him so that he can do his job and also not jam his spurs into my forehead.

I am finally posting here after reading all the diet discussions. I was wondering @Perris if you wouldn't mind sharing how/what you feed your flock? I free range mine (17 hens, 2 roosters, all 8 months old), and they have unrestricted movement on 6 wooded acres. They're all old heritage breed mixes and come from a long line of free ranging birds so they're quite resourceful.

Anyway, speaking of mainly bad advice on BYC, it's been nearly impossible for me to find sound advice on how to feed chickens with my setup. Everyone claims you MUST feed bagged feed or your chickens will DIE OF VITAMIN DEFICIENCY. I always assume they're talking about confined chickens which is absolutely not the case for mine. I've read a lot of your posts and it seems as if I am trying to do a similar setup to yours. I currently feed them Grubblies all flock because it's the only bagged feed I've found that has bug protein as the main source. But it's wildly expensive and it feels slightly absurd to pay a bunch of money to feed them bug feed when they're out all day, every day specifically looking for bugs.

So anyway I am just curious what you do in your situation because I'm definitely going to switch to a new system once I run out of the feed I have!

 

[angc11]

Tax:

my bossy rooster with hate in his eyes and in his heart

a few members of the flock looking for said bugs

 

[Perris]

I was wondering @Perris if you wouldn't mind sharing how/what you feed your flock? I free range mine (17 hens, 2 roosters, all 8 months old), and they have unrestricted movement on 6 wooded acres. They're all old heritage breed mixes and come from a long line of free ranging birds so they're quite resourceful.

hello @angc11 ; I have written two articles on it (originally prompted by Shadrach I should add), the initial one here https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...eat-tears-a-calculator-or-deep-pockets.78655/ and an update a year later, and which is what I still do, here https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/wholesome-homemade-feed-2.79307/

Feel free to post questions about either or both there, rather than here, please, so as not to clutter up Shadrach's thread with more feed issues. (edited to fix typos)