Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[HiEverybirdy]

When I first joined BYC (I will refer to BYC as Chicken Town/TC for here on) like many I suspect I wandered the streets looking at the various threads (I will refer to these threads as houses) for somewhere to stay. I stayed at the town pond for a while and sat on a Lily leaf. I moved into the town Cafe for a while, even made the morning coffee on occasions. I visited the various craft shops and started my own. I had a brief look in the various churches and spent a few hours looking around the old peoples home. I met lots of welcoming people, made a few friends in the various places I visited but the desire to have my own home in Chicken Town led me to building my own house, Shadrach’s Ex Battery and Rescues house.

I wanted a house where chickens could come and go, much like my house In Catalonia and most of all, I wanted a house that was rooster friendly.

I built the house made a plan on how to run it and opened the doors. More lodgers than I expected moved in. They came from all parts of the world and the house grew. Some lodgers moved in and moved on, some lodgers moved in and stayed. Overall the house functioned very well. The lodgers paid their rent in chicken tax, bar a few who were to chicken poor to pay and the vast majority of lodgers seemed to appreciate the house atmosphere and evictions were rare.

It seems from the conversations I’ve had with the lodgers that closing the house down has made them homeless and some have said they will not be coming to chicken town as often as they did and others are not looking forward to being back on the streets.

I don’t want that, despite the difficulties I’m having maintaining the house, it’s not the fault of the lodgers. I don’t want to be making people homeless in chicken town.

I’ve reopened the house and hope that the lodgers will help maintain the house while I deal with the problems I have outside chicken town.

That's an apt description of this thread. Long-time lodger here, paying tax. Glad to be here with you all

 

[fuzzi]

This morning with Light View attachment 4285858

Such a pretty girl. How old is she now?

 

[lightm]

Such a pretty girl. How old is she now?

Light will be 5 years old in 2 months! This is how long we've had chickens.

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

I'm a relative newcomer, but I've made no secret of how much this thread and the people in it mean to me. I'm one of those who's been left "homeless" since this thread has been locked; it's the first I check and where I have almost all of my meaningful discussions. I'm glad to be back.

To Shad, I've said it already, but thank you for your role in creating one of the best communities on BYC. I wish nothing but the best for you and your family. Take all the time you need.

Tax:

 

[Shadrach]

A couple of hours on average over the last few days. It's been raining a lot and while it is warmer it's not the sort of weather to be out and doing stuff in.
We sit in the coop extension a lot and eat. I've been taking a vegetable and rice curry with me, or a vegetable soup and surprisingly they don't bug me for what I've got once they been given something to eat. They know the green tubs I use is their treat feed and anything else is mine and seem quite happy with that. Nice to be allowed to eat.

Last couple of evenings at roost time.

 

[notabitail]

A couple of hours on average over the last few days. It's been raining a lot and while it is warmer it's not the sort of weather to be out and doing stuff in.
We sit in the coop extension a lot and eat. I've been taking a vegetable and rice curry with me, or a vegetable soup and surprisingly they don't bug me for what I've got once they been given something to eat. They know the green tubs I use is their treat feed and anything else is mine and seem quite happy with that. Nice to be allowed to eat.

Last couple of evenings at roost time.
View attachment 4286030View attachment 4286031

Yours sound significantly more polite than mine. Mine thought I was a rooster and therefore supposedly I had to share my lunch. Once I had a piece of meat stolen from my sandwich.

 

[Appalachickens]

Pretty Boy!

Thank you! The girls seem to think so too.

 

[fuzzi]

Esther is not doing well.

 

[Shadrach]

While trying to sort out the chaos of my non existent file system I came across this drone picture of the field taken a couple of years ago. A few things have changed but the basic layout is much the same.

The red rectangle is the coop run.
The black shape in the coop run is the coop.
The white part is the coop extension.

The blue rectangle on the left is the old fruit bush plot.
The black rectangle is my plot and the rectangle inside that is now a herb plot.
The yellow line is the extended run. This is a zone just for the chickens now; it used to be shared with the geese.

The greenish line is the fence I put up last year.
The green house in the middle back garden is where Mrs Psycho Chew A Coop lives.
At metre or so further leftwards at the top of the left hand corner of the picture is where the resident vixen lives.

The coop run fence is slowly falling apart and I've been looking at the options for replacing it and incorporating the old fruit bush plot into the run.
Timber has become ferociously expensive and I've been looking at large cage structures like the one half way along the extended run which has lasted at least six years and still looks in good condition.
Something like this. A couple of the 6m x 3m or an 8m x 3m and a six and a small one to make an L shape for coop space at on end.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/13498254...YEcOYSgVg==|tkp:BFBMhuuOi_tm&var=434430276562

It would need a skirt and stock net or weldmesh at the bottom of the fence, say Im high, but even with the cost of these added it still working out a lot cheaper and a lot easier to do then a more traditional build out of wood.
I could build most of it inside the existing run and only need to cut the existing fence to join the sections up.

 

[Marie2020]

Yours sound significantly more polite than mine. Mine thought I was a rooster and therefore supposedly I had to share my lunch. Once I had a piece of meat stolen from my sandwich.

Princess stole half of my sandwich and shared it with the cat