Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

No but it is not a given that because Neanderthals aren’t here and we are that we are responsible for their demise. It’s just as probable that Neanderthal males were “marrying” homo sapien females and that Neanderthals were the physically stronger species but not the most adaptable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inheritors_(Golding_novel)

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inheritors_(Golding_novel)

Not a book about chickens but this will in fact be going on my list

 

[Molpet]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inheritors_(Golding_novel)

Interesting
Mentions this song was inspired by the book

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I haven’t watched this in a long time but here is the episode for reference. Usually I consult my husband on anthropology things because he has a degree in it but he didn’t balk at anything in here.

 

[Shadrach]

Two and a half hours today. Nobody wanted to come out. This, plus the weather (wet and miserable) is probably responsible.
This launcher was right outside the chicken run.

This not much further away.

I hope I don't catch them.
Glais did come out on and off if I was in the extended run but wouldn't venture further than a metre or so from the gate to the field. None of this is helping me find out if Glais is preventing either Mow or Sylph from eating enough. I understand he should eat first, if the hens aren't laying and in other groups I found it quite common for the rooster to insist on eating before the hens in none laying periods. I put this down as normal behaviour albeit inconvenient in these keeping circumstances. When free ranging it isn't an issued.

A confession.
I didn't really like the way he looked when he arrived. He looks better now, partly because of his feather arrangement due to the weather which bulks him out a bit and normal growth combined with eating like a horse. He eats everything. Mow and Sylph are unbelievably fussy compared to Glais.

Take Major the rooster in my avatar. He's got the comb, perhaps not the wattles, but one wouldn't call him boy.
That's Major in the foreground.

He had some gravitas that showed in a lot of what he did. Henry had it as well. I know Glais is still young but I've got at least another six months of watching for problem signs before Glais is Glais, so to speak. Some take eighteen months before the brain is as mature as the body.
When it comes to looks, this chap, Treacle was a stunner I think.

I would also like to see more of their behaviour in the field over a longer period to understand better how the integration is going and the relationships developing.

I did a couple of things in the lighter rain but otherwise we sat and chatted.
They got cooked white fish and beef leftover from a dinner party last night, about 150 grams in total.

 

[NightingaleJen]

I cannot believe the gall of people to set fireworks off near a livestock run, @Shadrach. They wouldn't want me to catch them, either.

 

[Perris]

Since Shad seems to share an appetite for this topic, "For decades, the Neanderthal body has been a byword for strength. Thick bones, broad rib cages, and robust muscle attachments painted a picture of powerful Pleistocene hominins. But a recent study published in Nature Communications1 challenges that image from within, suggesting that some Neanderthals may have had less muscle enzyme activity than modern humans... The Neanderthals may still loom large in the public imagination as burly survivors of the Ice Age, but at least at the molecular level, their muscles may have been running on lower octane fuel. And some of us, quite literally, carry that legacy in our legs."

And that molecular level discussion includes lysine, which dedicated followers of chicken feed threads will recognize as a crucial amino acid for rating chicken feed quality; and Shad has observed several times how unusually-to-him energetic and omnivorous Glais is (but he is like all the rest here, raised on grains and real food, not processed chicken feed and artificial 'nutrients'), so I guess it may have something to do with chickens after all: "All known Neanderthal genomes carry a specific change: lysine at position 287 in AMPD1 is swapped for isoleucine. While this may seem like a minor tweak, the molecular consequences are anything but. The change disrupts a conserved salt bridge within the protein structure, undermining its stability and diminishing its efficiency. This variant made its way into modern humans through interbreeding. Today, between two and eight percent of Europeans carry the Neanderthal-derived form of the gene. While not typically linked to disease, it has been found to slightly raise the risk of varicose veins and is significantly underrepresented among elite athletes."

https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-weakening-muscle-a-neanderthal

I prefer to form my opinions from sources like this than from novels or Planet of the Apes types media.

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

Since Shad seems to share an appetite for this topic, "For decades, the Neanderthal body has been a byword for strength. Thick bones, broad rib cages, and robust muscle attachments painted a picture of powerful Pleistocene hominins. But a recent study published in Nature Communications1 challenges that image from within, suggesting that some Neanderthals may have had less muscle enzyme activity than modern humans... The Neanderthals may still loom large in the public imagination as burly survivors of the Ice Age, but at least at the molecular level, their muscles may have been running on lower octane fuel. And some of us, quite literally, carry that legacy in our legs."

And that molecular level discussion includes lysine, which dedicated followers of chicken feed threads will recognize as a crucial amino acid for rating chicken feed quality; and Shad has observed several times how unusually-to-him energetic and omnivorous Glais is (but he is like all the rest here, raised on grains and real food, not processed chicken feed and artificial 'nutrients'), so I guess it may have something to do with chickens after all: "All known Neanderthal genomes carry a specific change: lysine at position 287 in AMPD1 is swapped for isoleucine. While this may seem like a minor tweak, the molecular consequences are anything but. The change disrupts a conserved salt bridge within the protein structure, undermining its stability and diminishing its efficiency. This variant made its way into modern humans through interbreeding. Today, between two and eight percent of Europeans carry the Neanderthal-derived form of the gene. While not typically linked to disease, it has been found to slightly raise the risk of varicose veins and is significantly underrepresented among elite athletes."

https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-weakening-muscle-a-neanderthal

I prefer to form my opinions from sources like this than from novels or Planet of the Apes types media.

Interesting stuff! I always like learning more about other hominids. I wish Neanderthals/denisovans/any others were alive today. Though based on the racist ideas towards groups within our own species, I'm sure we'd have come up with some sort of advanced racism against Neanderthals :/

 

[Perris]

The proper publication on it is open access I find, so here it is for those who want the full version
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-61605-4

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

The proper publication on it is open access I find, so here it is for those who want the full version
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-61605-4

Thanks for linking this! I read it (at 12:30am from the comfort of my bed ) and found it enlightening even though some of the biochemistry was a bit lost on me. Interesting that all sequenced/partially sequenced neanderthal genomes were homozygous for the mutated AMPD1 gene, and that denisovans and humans (save for gene flow from neanderthals) retain the wild type gene, so it appears that the mutated gene is both ubiquitous among and unique to neanderthals.

I also found the last passage of the discussion especially intriguing:

The reason for the relaxation of purifying selection of AMPD1 remains unknown. One possibility is that the smaller effective population size of Neandertals reduced the effectiveness of selection, making it easier for genetic variants to become fixed. Another possibility is that alternative pathways emerged to replenish ATP during exercise, reducing the need for AMPD1. Additionally, it is possible that cultural and technological advancements in modern humans, Neandertals, and their common ancestor reduced their reliance on extreme muscle performance.