Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[kattabelly]

but one wouldn't call him boy.

Sorry, didn't mean to offend you or Glais!

I call hulking great bulls "boys" too even when they're getting on in years, it wasn't meant disparagingly.

 

[Shadrach]

Sorry, didn't mean to offend you or Glais!

You haven't.
I may not have made myself clear.
I was trying to point out that compared to Major, Henry and many more, Glais is very boyish and I prefer adult roosters to juveniles in general.
So it is perfectly correct to call him a boy and that is how I see Glais currently.

 

[Perris]

On the topic of food/feed, I noticed this morning that the chickens have been nibbling a clump of self-seeded sorrel (a cultivar I sowed elsewhere, as a very lemony variety of dock)

and this is forage for which nutritional data is available. So, according to MyFoodData, if they ate 100g of it, this is what they would typically be getting from this plant (ignore the %DV figure, that's for human consumption, and the highlight, which is an artefact of the copy-paste process):
Minerals
edited to remove the tables, which don't come out well.
Here's the link instead
https://tools.myfooddata.com/nutrition-facts/170076/100g/1
Note the range of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids.

That is what real nutrients in real food looks like.

 

[Shadrach]

Since Shad seems to share an appetite for this topic

He doesn't, honestly.
I mentioned the book because I have a copy and I've read it. I read the occasional article on the topic in Nature or New Scientist but they're not on my must read list.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

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.
View attachment 4247917

This not much further away.
View attachment 4247918

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.
View attachment 4247928

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.
View attachment 4247929


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.
View attachment 4247919View attachment 4247920View attachment 4247923View attachment 4247924

Hopefully they're just finishing off the last of the fireworks from Guy Fawkes Night. And hopefully this experience doesn't trigger something defensive in Glais during this developmental time (again, it didn't in my cockerels, but I don't guess he was accustomed to many explosions at @Perris' home?).

And hopefully/probably? it's complete ignorance on the part of the fireworks setters that no animals appreciate explosives going off outside their bedroom. Many humans don't think about the experiences of animals other than dogs and cats (if most of us even think that much, I guess).

 

[Mother of Chaos]

On the topic of food/feed, I noticed this morning that the chickens have been nibbling a clump of self-seeded sorrel (a cultivar I sowed elsewhere, as a very lemony variety of dock)
View attachment 4248086
and this is forage for which nutritional data is available. So, according to MyFoodData, if they ate 100g of it, this is what they would typically be getting from this plant (ignore the %DV figure, that's for human consumption, and the highlight, which is an artefact of the copy-paste process):
Minerals
edited to remove the tables, which don't come out well.
Here's the link instead
https://tools.myfooddata.com/nutrition-facts/170076/100g/1
Note the range of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids.

That is what real nutrients in real food looks like.

Do you recall the name of the sorrel cultivar that you sowed?

 

[Perris]

I don't guess he was accustomed to many explosions at @Perris' home?

There is a shoot in the vicinity, so periodic pop-pop-pops during the day are familiar enough not to cause alarm. And a wedding venue a bit further away often has fireworks in the evening, so they're not a complete novelty either. But it's quite different if it was right outside his new home.

 

[Perris]

Do you recall the name of the sorrel cultivar that you sowed?

I think it was tagged 'French', fwiw.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I think it was tagged 'French', fwiw.

Thanks. It has become obvious that my flock of five has exceeded the carrying capacity of our backyard without some aggressive land management on my part, so I’m looking for plants.

Last week we let them onto a patch that had a lot of spiny sow thistle, and they mowed it down in two and a half days.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Not necessarily recommending this particular product, although I order from Johnny’s a lot and have always been happy with them, but this is a reference for germination times etc for anyone interested (it mentions “French type” in the copy):

https://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetab...0uh-0CG3cgVIuSK63koH1QLkACHdyY_NG-eyvWpiitwgS