Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

Three and a half hours today spent watching chickens. I just did the chores today, nothing else. Chilly, damp and grey.
The door worked this morning so the tribe was out in the coop run when I arrived. They came out to eat. Glais tore around the place for a bit. Sylph whining brought him back to the hens where he mostly stayed. at one point Sylph did return to the roost bar in the coop extension and called for Glais who did respond but then came back out, Sylph followed grumbling. I'm not sure if Sylph is trying a bit of one upwomanship on Mow by trying to demonstrate Glais will do as she wants, I have told her Mow doesn't give a **** and apparently feels quite secure in her position. She gave Sylph a couple of pecks at the final feed before roosting to make the point clear.
They went onto the field for half an hour but then it started to drizzle and they came back inside the extended run and stood under my chair until the drizzle passed.

I saw this Robin a few times before Christmas. Pleased to see it's still alive. Now there is one very territorial bird.

Above is Glais hinting that I should get the treats out which I did. He's got this sorted.

This is the temporary anti chew door cover I fitted yesterday. No new chew marks today.

 

[fluffycrow]

I hope I am not disturbing anyone by butting in.
Wanted to add one thing to this ‘odd’ flocking behaviour.
Shadrach has mentioned time and again that he has observed the chickens somewhat following the saying “birds of a feather stick together”. My observations have been similar.
If we take that to be true, then we have to accept that chickens are incredibly self-aware.

Years upon years of breeding certain traits we have managed to modify (in appearance, at least) the chicken a fair bit. The modern chicken, with which all of us are dealing with is significantly larger than its junglefowl cousins.
If chickens are able to understand what they look like, and choose their friends and partners accordingly, then would it be too much of a stretch to say that during this long process of domestication, chickens realised that they were no longer threatened from things they previously were?

I’m not sure if even the biggest of LF roosters can take on a fox by himself, but I’m sure a group of four can, and I don’t think they’re stupid enough aren’t aware of this. Perris’ flock is surely proof of that. If we can’t yet decide if it’s a harmonious living environment (which is what it seems to be in my uneducated eyes), then we have to agree with the fact that the boys band together in the face of a terrestrial threat.
Big Red regularly charged and actively fought the guard dog, who is a large mastiff type mix.

When I free ranged Lady Gaga and his group, I witnessed quite different behaviour to what I’m used to, which I had documented here. Even though they were technically ranging on Kolovos’ land, they acted much more “tribal” than what I’m used to. They’d stick much closer together, and Lady Gaga’s check-ins were much more regular. Further to that, all the bantams were scared of the feral cats, while all the LFs were happy to dust bathe with the cat looking over them. That to me suggests a level of awareness of one’s own size and strength.

I shall now return to the shadows, after leaving a photo to pay my taxes.
Since HiEveryBirdy has brought up the topic of crowing, and identifying our beloved boys by crow alone, here is the first of the Elven bunch to attempt crowing, days short of his fifth month of life

 

[kattabelly]

I can tell the Light Sussex pullets apart from the others purely based on how loud they are, and the Barred Rocks have quite different than all of the others too (not sure I could tell the three of them apart, but only one talks to me). The other pullets I can identify by voice are all the only one here of their breed (Ixworth, Fayoumi and I can probably recognise the Hyline too)

Only two cockerels are crowing so far that I've heard. They sound quite different at the moment but one only started recently. I can tell the RIR boys apart from the LS by their other sounds too, but not one RIR from the other.

 

[Shadrach]

I hope I am not disturbing anyone by butting in.
Wanted to add one thing to this ‘odd’ flocking behaviour.
Shadrach has mentioned time and again that he has observed the chickens somewhat following the saying “birds of a feather stick together”. My observations have been similar.
If we take that to be true, then we have to accept that chickens are incredibly self-aware.

Years upon years of breeding certain traits we have managed to modify (in appearance, at least) the chicken a fair bit. The modern chicken, with which all of us are dealing with is significantly larger than its junglefowl cousins.
If chickens are able to understand what they look like, and choose their friends and partners accordingly, then would it be too much of a stretch to say that during this long process of domestication, chickens realised that they were no longer threatened from things they previously were?

I’m not sure if even the biggest of LF roosters can take on a fox by himself, but I’m sure a group of four can, and I don’t think they’re stupid enough aren’t aware of this. Perris’ flock is surely proof of that. If we can’t yet decide if it’s a harmonious living environment (which is what it seems to be in my uneducated eyes), then we have to agree with the fact that the boys band together in the face of a terrestrial threat.
Big Red regularly charged and actively fought the guard dog, who is a large mastiff type mix.

When I free ranged Lady Gaga and his group, I witnessed quite different behaviour to what I’m used to, which I had documented here. Even though they were technically ranging on Kolovos’ land, they acted much more “tribal” than what I’m used to. They’d stick much closer together, and Lady Gaga’s check-ins were much more regular. Further to that, all the bantams were scared of the feral cats, while all the LFs were happy to dust bathe with the cat looking over them. That to me suggests a level of awareness of one’s own size and strength.

I shall now return to the shadows, after leaving a photo to pay my taxes.
Since HiEveryBirdy has brought up the topic of crowing, and identifying our beloved boys by crow alone, here is the first of the Elven bunch to attempt crowing, days short of his fifth month of lifeView attachment 4283418

I think one needs to draw a distinction between other know creatures and strangers which initially are usually seen as a threat.
We had dogs in Catalonia and the chickens were quite capable of bullying them to the point of trying to flog them on a few occasions.

No need to sit in the shadows. You're welcome here.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Not quite. I think jungle fowl live as you describe. I know some domestic groups manage multiple males in a discrete group.
There are always exceptions, but in jungle fowl from all I've read large groups (over ten members say, are the exception.

My experience is face saving scraps (very low level fighting) are common with males of another discrete group. I know because I've had a zillion males and up to five groups at one time.

But, reading this post from Perris

and others on other threads, I beleive life is not quite as harmonious as Perris sometimes would have us believe.

This could be yet another semantics problem.
I have these semantics problems with my elder sister who is also of the my chickens never fight persuasion. Even funnier is she only has hens. Yup, they fight to.
Having spent some time with my elder sister and her chickens and seen her hens fighting, when pointing this out to her the response I get is "oh they're just playing."

Fortunately mathematics helps out here. The larger the group, the higher the probability of conflict within that group. There is never zero probability.

The vast majority of fights I see are over in seconds and are no more than face saving displays. It's also worth bearing in mind that the keepers presence often means food or other things of more interest to the chickens than having a quick scrap. So, the time one spends observing ones chickens increases the chance of seeing these scraps.

Males knocking other males off a crouching hen is fighting.
Hens pecking junior hens when they're in a nest box the senior wants to use is fighting.
Juveniles chest bumping is fighting...
Just because it may be a one punch/peck/attempted flog it doesn't mean they're not fighting.

One thing we saw for a while in our all-girl band, for several months I think, was the two Littles flashing hackles at one another. It didn’t occur around food or other resources, just the hackles and chest-bumping and death-staring, and then stomping away only to graze next to each other two minutes later. No beaks or claws. It was pretty funny to watch. This would be my definition of play-fighting: lots of display, but no injury, and no lasting discord.

The background setting was that they were still being periodically harassed by the Bigs in a “get outta my face” (or food) kind of way. My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that they were competing over the “not the bottom” rank. Notably, Trudy (who was sort of the also-ran among the Bigs) was the most aggressive toward the Littles. I took this as “I may not be the boss, but I’ll be damned if I’m behind you two!”

All speculation. I’m not a chicken, and I don’t wish to come back as one, as the odds don’t look good for a happy life!

 

[BDutch]

Is it the right time of year for willow pruning? I've got whips growing and I want o cut them from the tree and plant them.

Winter pruning

February or early March is ideal for most willows. The plant is leafless then, and you can easily see what you're doing. Note: don't prune when it's freezing.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I hope I am not disturbing anyone by butting in.
Wanted to add one thing to this ‘odd’ flocking behaviour.
Shadrach has mentioned time and again that he has observed the chickens somewhat following the saying “birds of a feather stick together”. My observations have been similar.
If we take that to be true, then we have to accept that chickens are incredibly self-aware.

Years upon years of breeding certain traits we have managed to modify (in appearance, at least) the chicken a fair bit. The modern chicken, with which all of us are dealing with is significantly larger than its junglefowl cousins.
If chickens are able to understand what they look like, and choose their friends and partners accordingly, then would it be too much of a stretch to say that during this long process of domestication, chickens realised that they were no longer threatened from things they previously were?

I’m not sure if even the biggest of LF roosters can take on a fox by himself, but I’m sure a group of four can, and I don’t think they’re stupid enough aren’t aware of this. Perris’ flock is surely proof of that. If we can’t yet decide if it’s a harmonious living environment (which is what it seems to be in my uneducated eyes), then we have to agree with the fact that the boys band together in the face of a terrestrial threat.
Big Red regularly charged and actively fought the guard dog, who is a large mastiff type mix.

When I free ranged Lady Gaga and his group, I witnessed quite different behaviour to what I’m used to, which I had documented here. Even though they were technically ranging on Kolovos’ land, they acted much more “tribal” than what I’m used to. They’d stick much closer together, and Lady Gaga’s check-ins were much more regular. Further to that, all the bantams were scared of the feral cats, while all the LFs were happy to dust bathe with the cat looking over them. That to me suggests a level of awareness of one’s own size and strength.

I shall now return to the shadows, after leaving a photo to pay my taxes.
Since HiEveryBirdy has brought up the topic of crowing, and identifying our beloved boys by crow alone, here is the first of the Elven bunch to attempt crowing, days short of his fifth month of lifeView attachment 4283418

So good to hear from you again!

 

[thistlewick]

I think Perris knows exactly what a fight is considering her decades of experience and to intimate otherwise is in bad faith.

I don't think a hen pecking another hen, or lets be real, aiming in the general direction of the sitting hen, on a nest for her to move, is a fight lol

It's communication.

Let's not project too much machismo onto creatures with millions of years of evolution on us.

 

[Shadrach]

I think Perris knows exactly what a fight is considering her decades of experience and to intimate otherwise is in bad faith.

I don't think a hen pecking another hen, or lets be real, aiming in the general direction of the sitting hen, on a nest for her to move, is a fight lol

It's communication.

Let's not project too much machismo onto creatures with millions of years of evolution on us.

It's got nothing to do with machismo.
One of the problems I have with BYC is the presentation of chickens as cute, cuddly, friendly pets. They're not and if people accepted this at the outset of their chicken keeping then we would get fewer posts like,
"my rooster (they're usually cockerels) attacked me."
or
"my hens are fighting what have I done wrong."

All I'm asking is for people to be careful of their use of adverbs in particular, have knowledge of the dictionary definition of the words they use in mind because that is what most of us will understand the word to mean and be honest in their reporting.

There is a lot of useful information on this thread and I really don't want people reading the posts that are not honest portrayals of their chickens behaviour and leaving feeling inadequate because their chickens are not the angels a misleading post may suggest.

I had all this with the youngest and eldest at school. One or the other would come home upset because another child had been bullying them. Confronting the parents of said child usually led to "my child would never do anything like that."
Same with aggressive dogs trying to rip pieces out ones trousers, "oh he's harmless really, just playing" as one mops the blood up.

I wont be taking prisoners on this topic.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I can tell my two roos apart by their crows because one sounds like a Victorian lady who’s seen a mouse. Shrill is too small a word to describe the screeching noise he makes. He’s full grown so it’s not juvenile crowing where he’s finding his voice—this is his voice and it’s just awful. Which is good cause I know exactly which rooster is where