Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

@BDutch - on the topic of calendar fame and molting, isn't Janice Miss June 2023 from the BYC calendar? Hope she's doing better with her hard molt.

Peck is on the upswing from her surprisingly hard molt. Here's a photo from just before she finally lost that little upside-down tail feather yesterday. Amazing how much whiter her feathers are with each molt. She's like a ptarmigan ready for snow.

View attachment 4246256

I'm not talking to you anymore. All the pictures you post are disgustingly good and I'm just plain jealous.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

In short, because a great many roosters are killed because their keepers can't be bothered to educate themselves, and often their family as well, and work with the rooster.
I see lots of dog owners getting tugged along by their owners, completely out of control, lunging at other dogs, ignoring the commands of their owners, do you think we should kill those?

Yes, let's send that dog (who we call dumb and bad because we can't understand why another species doesn't inherently understand the rules of our species) right to freezer camp!

Kidding. Dog is my copilot.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

“Conscious harmony” is one of the ways I would describe successful daily interaction with my rooster. As in those who aren’t conscious of him, may get unharmonious results, depending on proximity and whether or not they have on floppy, hot pink pajama pants, which apparently do NOT foster harmony, understandably so:
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Your photo grids are always a treat.

 

[Shadrach]

Three hours today. Almost warmish for a couple of hours at 16C.
I'm aiming to spend at least four hours at the field tomorrow provided the rain forecast is correct. I need to see some stuff.

Found this at the bottom of the field.

It's odd how sometimes looking at a picture of an event that one was present at provides clearer information than ones memory.
In my last diary post there's a picture of Sylph under the coop. Lots of rocks have surfaced under there, which I knew, but hadn't done anything about. I took the back of the stand and raked it out this afternoon. It needs doing again with a finer rake, but it's an improvement.

Glais is filling out and it's happening quite quickly. I wish I had weighed him on his arrival now.

Back to Glais in the middle. It's not cold. A few minutes later it looked like how they were settled for the night.

 

[Perris]

more empathetic and altruistic hominids were more successful

I think this is wishful thinking. Before history gets rewritten, recall what is your impression of the Mongols.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1180246/

I don't doubt one could do the same with most violent expansions in human history. And it's usually Y chromosome DNA that's getting spread far and wide, and that was not because the warrior leaders were empathetic and altruistic towards the conquered females.

And the definition of success in ecological terms has to be reproduction and survival, before anything else.

 

[Perris]

Yes, in broad terms. I'm interested in our perception of the chicken and how it's led and to the current state.

I think we enslave them, and that most people do it with no real thought, like most slave owners before abolition. And I think it is demonstrated along the whole spectrum from being a living productive tool at one end (to provide eggs or meat at least cost possible) to being a living doll (including being doted on and dressed up in cute outfits) at the other.

And as slaves did, some get a reasonably good life from this; most don't; and very few have any say in what happens to them, any freedom to do what they want to do instead of what their owner wants them to do. And in return they impose constraints on their owner.

Having pushed the big red button let's lighten the mood (and prod the brain) with another Diogenes anecdote: (note, ancient Greece was a slave society, based not on colour, but on being a loser in one domain or another). "And he bore being sold with a most magnanimous spirit. For as he was sailing to Ægina, and was taken prisoner by some pirates, under the command of Scirpalus, he was carried off to Crete and sold; and when the crier asked him what art he understood, he said, “That of governing men.” And presently pointing out a Corinthian, very carefully dressed, (the same Xeniades whom we have mentioned before), he said, “Sell me to that man; for he wants a master.” Accordingly Xeniades bought him and carried him away to Corinth; and then he made him tutor of his sons, and committed to him the entire management of his house. And he behaved himself in every affair in such a manner, that Xeniades, when looking over his property, said, “A good genius has come into my house.” Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes the Cynic IX

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

I think this is wishful thinking. Before history gets rewritten, recall what is your impression of the Mongols.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1180246/

I don't doubt one could do the same with most violent expansions in human history. And it's usually Y chromosome DNA that's getting spread far and wide, and that was not because the warrior leaders were empathetic and altruistic towards the conquered females.

I'm well aware that there have been horrible atrocities committed by human beings throughout our history that have spread the genetics of their perpetrators. Unfortunately, most white citizens of my country who take pride in being "__% native American" are products of very similar events.

Edit: to prevent any misunderstanding, the Indigenous Americans are obviously the victims in this situation.

And the definition of success in ecological terms has to be reproduction and survival, before anything else.

For hominids in hunter gatherer groups, altruism is necessary for the survival and reproduction of a species. Those that are harmful to the group are driven off, and lone hominids rarely survive. The greatest piece of evidence for the evolutionary advantage of altruism is the fact that we feel empathy to begin with. The feeling is strong enough that it doesn't just apply to related individuals, but to entirely different species. If we give it enough critical thought, we even begin feeling empathy for our prey. I certainly can't think of any other species that seems to do this. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I don't think it's common.

We seem to think that we are more "evil" than other animals, while simultaneously holding ourselves to much higher moral standards than we hold most other animals to.

 

[Perris]

Those that are harmful to the group are driven off, and lone hominids rarely survive.

But there is a numerical limit to the group size before it splits into two groups, and then it is an 'us' and 'them' situation, which is completely different.

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

I think we enslave them, and that most people do it with no real thought, like most slave owners before abolition. And I think it is demonstrated along the whole spectrum from being a living productive tool at one end (to provide eggs or meat at least cost possible) to being a living doll (including being doted on and dressed up in cute outfits) at the other.

And as slaves did, some get a reasonably good life from this; most don't; and very few have any say in what happens to them, any freedom to do what they want to do instead of what their owner wants them to do. And in return they impose constraints on their owner.

Having pushed the big red button let's lighten the mood (and prod the brain) with another Diogenes anecdote: (note, ancient Greece was a slave society, based not on colour, but on being a loser in one domain or another). "And he bore being sold with a most magnanimous spirit. For as he was sailing to Ægina, and was taken prisoner by some pirates, under the command of Scirpalus, he was carried off to Crete and sold; and when the crier asked him what art he understood, he said, “That of governing men.” And presently pointing out a Corinthian, very carefully dressed, (the same Xeniades whom we have mentioned before), he said, “Sell me to that man; for he wants a master.” Accordingly Xeniades bought him and carried him away to Corinth; and then he made him tutor of his sons, and committed to him the entire management of his house. And he behaved himself in every affair in such a manner, that Xeniades, when looking over his property, said, “A good genius has come into my house.” Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes the Cynic IX

I think that a logical next step with free ranging is simply trying to make sure that animals in one's care can make as many of their own choices as possible. I've been brainstorming ways of doing this beyond free ranging.

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

But there is a numerical limit to the group size before it splits into two groups, and then it is an 'us' and 'them' situation, which is completely different.

Yeah, that's an unfortunate side effect of our psychology. One can't feel empathy for every single thing. With enough persuasion, anything can become an "other" that's undeserving of empathy, which is how some of humans' greatest atrocities to one another and to other species have been perpetrated. But even these events are only made possible by convincing people that the oppression of the "other" will benefit the people they care about, i.e. those they do feel empathy for