Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[fuzzi]

Someone on FB shared this but couldn't remember where they found it and didn't have any answers to questions of particulars
View attachment 4268843

Interesting. Someone who had been raising chickens for decades told me that feeding collards to chickens can facilitate egg laying.

 

[Shadrach]

A dry and chilly day with light winds. Two and half much more enjoyable hours than yesterday. Everybody came out and stayed out.
Sylph has almost finished her moult; sort of filling in now.
Mow is still chucking out feather quill coats and the occasional feather.
Glais charged around obviously enjoying being out from under the coop.

 

[no fly zone]

Interesting. Someone who had been raising chickens for decades told me that feeding collards to chickens can facilitate egg laying.

collards are a good source of calcium, which is the main reason i'd feed them to my tortoises. the chickens would get some too.

 

[Perris]

Do your flock like to come and "help" when there's people digging holes with heavy machinery?

They vanish when anyone turns up. I like it that way; it might save their lives one day.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I started a new thread over on Chicken Behavior: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/molting-moulting-only-down.1681645/#post-28957105

Trudy the bizarre barred Rock seems to be molting, or at least losing, only down. Is this normal? Not that she’s particularly normal.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

- I’m trying to get a picture of her butt, but after my attempted inspection, she’s under the rhododendron, glaring at me.

 

[kattabelly]

Not that she’s particularly normal.

My rocks are very "downy" / fluffy (not just the actual down feathers). That looks like most of the lost feathers I see from them.

 

[Labsandchickens8]

Meanwhile, just another day in Western North Carolina…

“Its insides were outside”:
https://wlos.com/news/local/north-c...cident-viral-story-shattered-highway-incident

That's horrifying.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

My rocks are very "downy" / fluffy (not just the actual down feathers). That looks like most of the lost feathers I see from them.

So is that from a molt, or do the down feathers frequently replace themselves outside of/ separately from a classic molt?

She’s always been a “shedder”, to a light extent, but this is crazy. When I set her back on the ground and all the down exploded, it was like a glitter bomb going off in the face of a porch pirate (people who steal deliveries from front porches.)

(I haven’t migrated to the actual thread yet.)

Edit to add: Demeter replied, and apparently these are typical body feathers. I thought they’d all be either butt fluff or flight feathers!

 

[Labsandchickens8]

@kattabelly , I just finished reading Ann Cleeves’ newest Jimmy Perez mystery, The Killing Stones, set mostly on Westray but some on Orkney proper.

Her late husband was a birder, so I kept an eye out for mention of katabellies (or Matabele, as my iPhone prefers), but no joy.

A good read, but I was crushed that on all the multiple ferry trips the characters took, there was no mention of a resident toting chickens with them.

I haven't read the books but did watch the show, Shetland. A lot of the attraction for me was the shots of the beautiful scenery. It is a place I'd love to go, but DH doesn't want to go visit a place where people are constantly washing up dead. (Kidding - maybe some day.)