Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[HiEverybirdy]

All of the above. It's why I write one needs to wait at least a year, preferably eighteen months before one judges the character. This allows for a full year of seasons independant from their parents. A years worth of experience basically.
It's just that the keeping circumstances are frustrating. Cockerels growing up has been mostly hands off for me in the past, apart from the few I've adopted until they either join, or make their own tribe.
In these circumstances feel I need to be more proactive in getting evryone settled, if they will. I want to add two more hens for one thing and the point of me being there with them is so they can get out of the coop run which I beleive is very very important for both physical and mental health. Much like me getting out of a city flat everyday.

Adding hens will be interesting, particularly with you not being there all the time. Of course a 2nd coop and a few extra feed/water/grit/calcium stations should head off most concerns. Did you replace the Nestera yet?

On them not wanting to range as much: we're seeing a lot of that here! It's been 2 months of them spending an excessive amount of time under cover.

They appear healthy and happy, but even the Adventure Speckles don't leave the safety of the chickenyard for more than a few minutes. We're going through noticeably more commercial feed.

In our case, the culprits may be hawks and feral cats. The wind has also returned after a remarkably windless year, bringing noise they're no longer accustomed to, plus the falling leaves that camouflage hawk dives.

 

[notabitail]

I did as a child, and when we had children.
It’s a celebration in the Netherlands and Belgium for children, when they get presents. A bit like kings day in Spain.

Three Kings Day is one my family does celebrate. We don't do presents on Christmas, we wait until Jan 6th to do them.

 

[BDutch]

The last paragraph in the article is a bit strange For many a few European countries, this simple is a gift-giving day in early Advent helps preserve a Christmas Day focus on the meaning of Christmas itself.

I forgot :
Many people make funny or special personal verses accompanied with the presents. Older children often make surprise/ fun presents.
We have special candy and cookies in the month before Sinterklaas.

Nowadays many people with older children changed the present date to Christmas eve or Christmas day.

My 2 black Pete’s

 

[Shadrach]

was it a TIA? My mum had 9 of them. Sounds frightening, but really is, as called, transient. Cancer got her in the end.

Not a TIA according to the doctors. He did the job properly.
I've been with them this evening. I was with them yesterday. He's better than he was. However, if I look in his eyes... Sure the stroke is damaging but it's the long term effects in the mind regarding attitude that he's going to find difficult. I've been speaking a bit to the eldest about what we can do.
Because he works at the hospital and is liked and respected he's got some of their best doctors in the field to call on so he should get decent advice.
It's like a lot of body stuff that breaks, doctors can often fix the problem but they can't make you work at getting the surrounding damage sorted out. That's down to the patient.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Not a TIA according to the doctors. He did the job properly.
I've been with them this evening. I was with them yesterday. He's better than he was. However, if I look in his eyes... Sure the stroke is damaging but it's the long term effects in the mind regarding attitude that he's going to find difficult. I've been speaking a bit to the eldest about what we can do.
Because he works at the hospital and is liked and respected he's got some of their best doctors in the field to call on so he should get decent advice.
It's like a lot of body stuff that breaks, doctors can often fix the problem but they can't make you work at getting the surrounding damage sorted out. That's down to the patient.

Yeah, whenever there’s the slightest bit of cognitive damage, it’s a bitter shock. I hope he has access to good speech/ language pathologists (might be another term in the UK.) They are fantastically motivating in helping get speaking/ reading/ communicating/ understanding skills back.

 

[kattabelly]

Hope it's obvious that I 'like'd that ^ for the positive bits.

Most Protestant services don’t even have services on Christmas morning (although maybe on Christmas Eve.)

That's definitely not the case here! My mum is very involved with her (CofE) church. She'd probably have a stroke herself at the idea of Protestant churches not having midnight mass on Christmas Eve and then a Christmas morning service.

Religion tax: my Polly parrot pullet wasn't impressed with someone else getting my attention

or with the noisy, fluffy little things that are running around the greenhouse now

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Three Kings Day is one my family does celebrate. We don't do presents on Christmas, we wait until Jan 6th to do them.

Epiphany! That should be the gift-giving day, although notably our modern-day Christian calendar does not correspond to what the narrative says.

(Any Roman census would have occurred in spring, etc. And yes, whenever it was that the beleaguered Emperor Constantine rolled the dice and went with the Jewish/Christian god, his Saturnalia became the new date for Christmas.)

I don’t put up Christmas decos until third Sunday of Advent (Gaudate Sunday) 14 Dec this year), and they stay up until Jan 7, when the 12 Days of Christmas are over. I’m chasing away the darkness, and celebrating the return of light on Winter Solstice, 21 Dec. Note: this makes sense to me, and I don’t expect it to work for anyone else.

Edit to add: Yikes, I owe SOOOO much tax.

 

[notabitail]

Epiphany! That should be the gift-giving day, although notably our modern-day Christian calendar does not correspond to what the narrative says.

(Any Roman census would have occurred in spring, etc. And yes, whenever it was that the beleaguered Emperor Constantine rolled the dice and went with the Jewish/Christian god, his Saturnalia became the new date for Christmas.)

I don’t put up Christmas decos until third Sunday of Advent (Gaudate Sunday) 14 Dec this year), and they stay up until Jan 7, when the 12 Days of Christmas are over. I’m chasing away the darkness, and celebrating the return of light on Winter Solstice, 21 Dec. Note: this makes sense to me, and I don’t expect it to work for anyone else.

We wait until December 25 to start the Christmas celebration.

 

[Shadrach]

Three Kings Day is one my family does celebrate. We don't do presents on Christmas, we wait until Jan 6th to do them.

Kings Day was the main event in Catalonia.

 

[Molpet]

No chickens have been out in days.... 3f and 9 inches of snow

Hard to take a picture. The blur is a pullet, the orange a pumpkin and the black bowl is snow they threw grass on. They have water delivered morning and afternoon but the youngsters need to know snow. A week ago at the first snow 3 pullets ran out and flew when they realized the world had changed. One flew in a bush for a few hours before I got her down.