Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Ikslo]

I thought, wow, look at Buff’s comb!! Then I realized it was the shrub rake we use to herd them along.

Same! I had to zoom in to get a closer look at that comb!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Same! I had to zoom in to get a closer look at that comb!

So happy it wasn’t just me!

- I suppose, when I think about it, a rake is a type of comb…

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

View attachment 4279771

As someone from the US: please cancel my subscription. All this and it's only been a week


Tax: here he comes

 

[Molpet]

I know there is a fox near us but I haven’t seen it or had issues with it. Bobcat, yes. Raccoons I get first. But the other night I lost a big fat Orpington who decided to sleep outside on a lawn mower. I followed the feather trail until it disappeared and it went the opposite way the bobcat has taken chickens. How did you know you had a fox? Did you see it? Did it attack during the day or night? I chalked the Orpington up to a raccoon because I saw a paw print in the dirt near the lawn mower but I always thought raccoons just killed and ate in the same spot. I set a raccoon trap just in case and haven’t caught anything so now I’m wondering if it was something else and a fox would make sense. We also have a coyote roaming around but whatever it was didn’t set off the camera so I figure it had to be small and quick.

First fox came around 8 am, pretty red. Next was after 10 am a pale red, the third was in the afternoon, a grayish.

Racoons here are messy eaters. Bits and blobs and feet around. But here they usually run in packs.

 

[BDutch]

I know there is a fox near us but I haven’t seen it or had issues with it. Bobcat, yes. Raccoons I get first. But the other night I lost a big fat Orpington who decided to sleep outside on a lawn mower.

I followed the feather trail until it disappeared and it went the opposite way the bobcat has taken chickens. How did you know you had a fox?

I have seen foxes in broad daylight in our garden a few times. Normally they hunt around daybreak. I don’t know for sure if a fox ever killed any chickens during the day. But I lost a few without a trace over the years.

Did you see it? Did it attack during the day or night?

Once a fox found a way to get in the run at daybreak and killed a hen when the pop door opened and she got out. The chickens panicked and I went outside in my pyjamas to see what was wrong. The fox trapped himself in the run.

I know the risk are higher at night/dawn. More predators and chickens are not alert during the night. So I make an effort to get them inside the run around sunset and from there they go in the coop behind an auto pop door in the night. The run with hwc and netting on top is not as safe as the coop. But it seems okay during the day (after the reinforcements).

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Racoons here are messy eaters. Bits and blobs and feet around. But here they usually run in packs.

This was what I always thought too. It’s possible the raccoon print was not from the night/morning the chicken got taken. The feather trail kind of just disappeared into some thick underbrush after about 75 yards (possibly I am super bad at judging this sort of thing) away. So it could have dragged it to a den. This could have happened in the morning cause I was pretty late getting out there. I will keep my eye out for a fox because where the feather trail disappeared is very near where I know a fox has been spotted.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

So I make an effort to get them inside the run around sunset

These girls are new and had been locked in a stall in the barn all day. They were all in there around dinner time but since the stall was never meant to be a chicken coop it had lots of places they could hop up and out. I am very surprised at the heights the Orpingtons and Brahmas can achieve! Of course a riding lawn mower is never a good choice. She’s lucky my husband didn’t predate her

 

[thistlewick]

It's been 2 years for me keeping chickens -- the first 6 months don't count because they were growing up.

So in 18 months I haven't observed any hierarchy among my chickens yet. No pecking order. No leaders, no followers. If there is one, it changes hourly.

I've done some research into how this is possibly the case and the answer that I have had to conclude is.. space. They have 24 acres to use. They use 6 of those acres. Mostly in the spring and summer but they go far and wide. Their hen house that locks up at night for them is 18 feet X 16 feet - with 60 feet of roosting space (for 50ish birds). I have 5 360 degree feeders.

No one fights over food. No one pecks anyone. No one fights at all. I just don't have fights. The most I get are little neck flares from the baby cockerel who is a spare -- I have 3 older Cockerels who have their little harems and are quite content and chill.

I do not, and let me be very clear here, I do not have a 'head' hen. I never have. No single one of my chickens bosses anyone around, no one "gets first pickings" if I have treats. No one pushes anyone else out of the way if I drop ONE grape. Whoever got to it first gets it. No one steals. No one angles or pushes.

I've purposefully tried to observe this. And I do not.

I just.. cannot possibly have been that "lucky" to have either bought or hatched (because I have done both, from multiple hatcheries and my own chicken's eggs) just "perfectly behaved" chickens.

It's the space. Pecking order and hierarchy is something confined chickens do, and we just love projecting that onto everything and everyone.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Pecking order and hierarchy is something confined chickens do, and we just love projecting that onto everything and everyone.

I am inclined to agree with you to a point but I have lots of acreage as well (mine probably use two or three of what they could) and I have seen some squabbles. Generally it’s between a new girl and an established girl. I only have one cockerel out with the girls right now so I suspect he just can’t keep on top of everything but here’s a fight he quickly broke up

Before I got a rooster I had two older hens that were in charge of things and when I got a couple new ones there was definitely a changing of the guard. Now the rooster is in charge. I think pecking order issues are exacerbated by confinement but also a lot of people can’t keep roosters so the hens have to make do.

 

[Skyeknight]

It's the space. Pecking order and hierarchy is something confined chickens do, and we just love projecting that onto everything and everyone.

The pecking order can even be applied to other animals in captivity. Take sheep for example, they do not have a clear hierarchy when grazing in the field. Put them inside due to winter or lambing and suddenly there is a clear hierarchy. The pecking order in my opinion seem te be a competition for resources. Both chickens and sheep are when not in confinement surrounded by food, so there is no need to bully others away from it. When confined there are suddenly hotspots that are in most cases not big enough for everyone to eat at the same time. If there is a clear pecking order there is not enough of something present, be it space, food or water.

In my own chickens I see pecking occuring due to lack of space, younger pullets get pecked simply when walking by or on the roosts. Doesn't help that they are confined die to bird flu, but even now their coop is bigger than most coops+runs sold here.