Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[kattabelly]

More rat tax because just look at them

 

[RoyalChick]

More rat tax because just look at them
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I always feel that any chick that gets into its food bowl has grasped a critical life skill.
They are adorable.

 

[SimpleJenn]

I always feel that any chick that gets into its food bowl has grasped a critical life skill.
They are adorable.

Standing in food and making foot water are important skills!

 

[Shadrach]

Got to the field at one thirty to find the pop door still shut.T he string had broken. It's hard to see how it could have been chewed, no signs of a mouth being on it and no way I can see of getting at it. Anyway, it was broken and there was a pile of plastic on the ramp from the rat chewing the door. Having had two breakages in the past, neither the fault of the unit. there wasn't enough string left to connect it all up.I took the Nestera one apart and used the string from that. It's all very fiddly and dropping one of those tiny screws is inadvisable to say the least.
Anyway, it was all working when I left.

I was sitting quietly on the box in the coop extension, chickens had gone to roost fifteen minutes earlier, listening to the chicken small talk while they properly settled when the rat showed up. I don't think it saw me because it ran into the coop run, realised I was there, jumped in the air doing a one eighty turn and shot out again.

I've got some traps and cover coming and some sticky traps which a friend of mine swears by if one knows the run route. Traps I've found in the past take time. The sticky paper on the door and top of the ramp may just work straight off, especially given the cavalier nature of the rats appearance this evening! I would have to be there in the morning to remove it but I can manage a couple of mornings.

I expected the chickens to be very upset about not getting out as usual but they weren't. Glais was obviously delighted to get out but Mow and Sylph came out a little while after Glais, did a bit of foraging close to the run and went and sat under the coop.

I've mentioned in the thread the concerns I had about whether or not the chickens were eating the overnight food, or rats and birds were going in after the pop door opened and the chickens had gone and eating some, The waste from scattering feed looked to be about the same as the days they got out on time. Looking at the droppings and assuming volume in is close to volume out (they've had about seven hours to eat and digest) so what was on the floor should look something like 400 grams of feed including the waste on the floor. It looked okay to me and it also made it clear that Mow and Sylph were eating, nothing like the quantity they do when laying but enough I think.

I was sitting outside in the extended run. Glai had gone up the apple tree again. When he got down he jumped on to the arm of the chair and to my surprise, stepped onto my arm, stood there for a while, hopped off and went off towards the goose run. He's getting more relaxed around me, not quite Mow's standard who expects me to take avoiding action when necessary rather than move herself.

I didn't have time to take pictures so there's only this. I think my tax credit is sufficient.

 

[NightingaleJen]

I have a version of the same problem, although not (yet) for protection against AI. My problem is daily escape attempts by the Easter Eggers, particularly the younger one, who has literally found her wings.

I’m thinking it will have to be a combo of a minimum amount of poles, at least 7’/ 2+m above ground, with cable linking them.

Ugh. I’d like the yard not to look like an endless construction zone or the exercise yard of a penitentiary. Maybe I can run vines up the poles with a small tree trained against the center pole…

Why did a picture of Shawshank populated by chooks just pop into my head?

Just tell me no one is punished for playing opera, and all will be well.

 

[NightingaleJen]

Wanted to throw in some for taxes.

The new peeps would like to know: Would you listen to this album? (I suspect it's New Wave.)

This was last week; they're happily playing in the brooder now.

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

Got to the field at one thirty to find the pop door still shut.T he string had broken. It's hard to see how it could have been chewed, no signs of a mouth being on it and no way I can see of getting at it. Anyway, it was broken and there was a pile of plastic on the ramp from the rat chewing the door. Having had two breakages in the past, neither the fault of the unit. there wasn't enough string left to connect it all up.I took the Nestera one apart and used the string from that. It's all very fiddly and dropping one of those tiny screws is inadvisable to say the least.
Anyway, it was all working when I left.

I was sitting quietly on the box in the coop extension, chickens had gone to roost fifteen minutes earlier, listening to the chicken small talk while they properly settled when the rat showed up. I don't think it saw me because it ran into the coop run, realised I was there, jumped in the air doing a one eighty turn and shot out again.

I've got some traps and cover coming and some sticky traps which a friend of mine swears by if one knows the run route. Traps I've found in the past take time. The sticky paper on the door and top of the ramp may just work straight off, especially given the cavalier nature of the rats appearance this evening! I would have to be there in the morning to remove it but I can manage a couple of mornings.

I expected the chickens to be very upset about not getting out as usual but they weren't. Glais was obviously delighted to get out but Mow and Sylph came out a little while after Glais, did a bit of foraging close to the run and went and sat under the coop.

I've mentioned in the thread the concerns I had about whether or not the chickens were eating the overnight food, or rats and birds were going in after the pop door opened and the chickens had gone and eating some, The waste from scattering feed looked to be about the same as the days they got out on time. Looking at the droppings and assuming volume in is close to volume out (they've had about seven hours to eat and digest) so what was on the floor should look something like 400 grams of feed including the waste on the floor. It looked okay to me and it also made it clear that Mow and Sylph were eating, nothing like the quantity they do when laying but enough I think.

I was sitting outside in the extended run. Glai had gone up the apple tree again. When he got down he jumped on to the arm of the chair and to my surprise, stepped onto my arm, stood there for a while, hopped off and went off towards the goose run. He's getting more relaxed around me, not quite Mow's standard who expects me to take avoiding action when necessary rather than move herself.

I didn't have time to take pictures so there's only this. I think my tax credit is sufficient.
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Sticky traps might be effective, but it seems a pretty terrible way to go. I think snap traps are more humane

 

[kattabelly]

Sticky traps might be effective, but it seems a pretty terrible way to go. I think snap traps are more humane

I tried sticky traps once in the past, when snap traps weren't cutting it and the next step was going to be the heavy duty poison you need a license to buy (which also seems like a pretty bad way to go - and I was checking the sticky traps really frequently, in the hope of minimising any suffering). Never caught anything with them; the rats just changed their routes. What works best seems to vary a surprising amount between [individual groups / local populations / ??]. Snap traps are working well here at the moment.

 

[kattabelly]

Trap tax

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Trap tax

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Those little feets!!!