Thank you Manue for sharing Nougats life with us.
Théo and the chickens des Sauches
- Thread starter ManueB
- Start date
That was a wonderful read, Manue. Thank you for writing it.
Thank you for sharing that Manue. Some lovely pictures of her doing her chicken things.
I know you think she wasn’t as beautiful as the others, but to my eye she was a lovely looking hen.
lightm
Don't Peck On Me
- Thread starter
- #2,745
Here are the pictures of the last days.
While Nougat was still alive the chickens were very inquisitive as to what she was doing. I think only Gaston was actually sad, but no one bothered her.
Once she was dead it seems they did not miss her. Once again I get the feeling they knew she was dying.
Most of the hens have either stopped laying or slowed down a lot. Hope it's due to the past heat.
For us it's been busy days. We are trying to make the most at preserving fruits and veggies as the summer has been unusually late to start.
Chronological but not logical order
18/08
19/08
20/08
21/08
Today
While Nougat was still alive the chickens were very inquisitive as to what she was doing. I think only Gaston was actually sad, but no one bothered her.
Once she was dead it seems they did not miss her. Once again I get the feeling they knew she was dying.
Most of the hens have either stopped laying or slowed down a lot. Hope it's due to the past heat.
For us it's been busy days. We are trying to make the most at preserving fruits and veggies as the summer has been unusually late to start.
Chronological but not logical order
18/08
19/08
20/08
21/08
Today
- Thread starter
- #2,746
Thoughts on four years and a half keeping ex-batts...and if I would do it again.
I've been struggling trying to write this post for a few days because it feels like a conclusion, and that makes me melancholic. I'm prone to be overemotional about my chickens as everyone probably noticed.
I don't know how significant my observations are since I made them on one group of ex-batts only. It's always hard to know what can be generalised and what happened in singular circumstances.
And our experience isn't typical because we got the six ex-batts when they were around three months old. So in many ways we were more like beginner chicken people getting high production hybrids layers, as was the case for @lightm and RC I think, than people getting spent ex-batts aged 18 months to two years old, when the damage that has been done to them by life in a battery may be hard to reverse.
Were our ex-batts different from our other chickens ?
When they arrived they were physically healthy as far as we could tell. They were very shy and afraid of everything, and it took them two weeks to just get out of the coop. They had never been outside, but on the other hand they were used to roosting on a perch, even if they chose the one that was closest to the floor the first week, and I think they dustbathed two or three days after their arrival. If I compare their arrival to what happened when we brought in four point of lay pullets bought from a breeder, Lily, Kara, Alba and Nieva, I can't say the ex-batts did worse acquiring usual chicken habits.
During their lives, and once I saw other chickens and chicks growing here, I think in most ways, they were just like other chickens. So I am just going to point out a few of the differences I noted and how it would impact chicken keeping.
Food : The ex-batts were and always remained much pickier foragers than most of my other chickens. Compared to all the others, they tried very few type of weeds from all the stuff growing in their yard. They also were more picky about the bugs and insects they ate. After they saw other chickens eating different stuff, they did enlarge a bit their diet, but never as much as the other chickens. They did scratch and search for buried stuff just as much as the others but I think they had more reluctance to try new things. On the subject of "treats" it took them about a month to start eating fruits and veggies we brought them but once they did, they were certainly as greedy as all my other chickens, if not more ! On the other hand the six of them kept eating a lot more commercial feed than the others, especially layer feed.
This, I think, explain why I didn't see worms in chicken's poop until my first batch of chicks reached one year old. The ex-batts did not eat flies or snails, for example. Some of my other chickens are tremendous flies hunter. Even after when we had a real worm infestation with both round worms and tape worms the ex-batts were the least affected. And reflecting on how chickens should be fed, I think it may be best for ex-batts that are still laying eggs, to keep them an access to layer feed, which would not be necessary for other hens. Mybex-batts always seem to prefer it over the other type of feed I provided, which is definitely not the case for the other chickens. And they never got the hang of regularly eating eggshells or oyster shells.
Chicken relationships:
I've said it before but for the almost two years they remained as a six ex-batt group, they were all rather meek compared to the aggressive behaviours I've witnessed beneath the hens since. I never saw them fight ; I only saw hackles raised once. They had recognised the dominant hen from about a month after they arrived here, Vanille, and she remained so until her death. Nougat remained on bottom of the group, and Cannelle who was right after Vanille, did not really become leader after her death. Hierarchy only showed around food and at roost time when they all wanted to be on the higher bar of the ladder. I can't say they were truly friends, there was some drama and quarrelling, but it didn't go beyond a few pecks here and there. However, that was over when we introduced new chickens. They were always horrible with the new comers. This was especially true for Nougat and Blanche who never tolerated any of the new hens even when they had been around for more than a year.
One other specificity of the ex-batts is that they never really got used to having a rooster. Eventually they would come when Théo , or Gaston, tidbitted for them, but they still always ran from the males or/and tried to hide from them. Once or twice I saw Brune and Cannelle standing ground to one of the roo, but this remained exceptional. They had overall a very different attitude than all the other hens do toward my roosters. They certainly never tried to become the rooster's favorite, although that did happen unwillingly to Nougat.
It's hard to say how much of this is due to genetics, to selected induced behaviour to be fit for life in a battery, to having been brought up for a few months in a very tight space, to being for two years in a closed up group, or to personality.
As a chicken keeper, this has me thinking that the best way to keep ex-batts is how we did it first, with a group of ex-batts only. One could argue that they would not learn or see more natural chicken behaviour. I think it would be best then to have ex-batts before and introduce other chickens afterwards, like we did. I believe it would be fairly traumatic for ex-batts getting out of the battery in the usual way at 18 months to suddenly be among a group of chickens already functioning as a tribe, unless that group was especially gentle.
Health : of course this is where the main difference lie for the chicken keeper. The fact that they lay so much in their first two years change a lot for their bodies. Out of my six ex-batts, five died directly or through human intervention of reproductive disorders, whether it was EYP or cancer. That's 83% and although statistics on such a small number mean absolutely nothing I guess it's coherent. Especially as otherwise, the ex-batts were rather healthy chickens. This doesn't only mean that keeping ex-batts will necessarily make the chicken keeper have to deal with that kind of issue. It also means that not only do ex-batts have a short life span, they age much quicker. At two years old, I could already see their bodies and behaviour changing, and in their third year they were beginning to act like senior hens. This meant for example that they weren't as daring, they spent a lot of time in the coop when temperatures were under 0/32 which they were not doing at all before, they were less agile, and some began having mobility issues.
This is what it means. If one gets ex-batts that are two years old, some may likely die just a few months after. If not, one is getting chickens that will be old very soon after making themselves at home, in a year or so. So if one does it in the interest of the chickens, it has to be seen as offering them retirement and a different end of life than the terrible transportation and waiting at the slaughterhouse.
Since I stay home and spend a lot of time with the chickens I saw them a lot when they were going through their last days and was physically present when three of them died. Two others I found dead, one during the night and one while I left her for twenty minutes. Only Caramel died where I could not see and be with her at the vet. I hated most of it, seeing them dying, except maybe with Blanche who was fun even then. But it made me realise that it was a very important thing to give space for each hen, both physically and figuratively, to get to the end in her own individual and singular way.
I am now of the opinion that it would make sense if one wants to keep ex-batts either to be able to pay for an implant so they could stop laying and gain six months to a year of life, or to accept that one is taking them in to walk along with them for the end of the path. I think no beginner chicken keeper should do that. They definitely require very quickly more experience on some of their health problems. Sure, they won't bring in IB or Marek's like backyard chickens could, but having such a first experience is bad luck and not the norm. While if exceptionally an ex-batt could make it to six or seven, the large majority will start having health issues in their third year.
Will I do it again ? I'm not sure. One thing that's really important for me, but it's personal, is that while I'm always wondering if i'm doing right by keeping chickens with all the parasites in the environment and the fact that I seem to keep making stupid mistakes, with ex-batts the doubts are over-ridden by knowing they got out of the worse possible end and are enjoying every single moment of it. I do miss having red chickens in my yard. So we'll see in two or three years.
I've been struggling trying to write this post for a few days because it feels like a conclusion, and that makes me melancholic. I'm prone to be overemotional about my chickens as everyone probably noticed.
I don't know how significant my observations are since I made them on one group of ex-batts only. It's always hard to know what can be generalised and what happened in singular circumstances.
And our experience isn't typical because we got the six ex-batts when they were around three months old. So in many ways we were more like beginner chicken people getting high production hybrids layers, as was the case for @lightm and RC I think, than people getting spent ex-batts aged 18 months to two years old, when the damage that has been done to them by life in a battery may be hard to reverse.
Were our ex-batts different from our other chickens ?
When they arrived they were physically healthy as far as we could tell. They were very shy and afraid of everything, and it took them two weeks to just get out of the coop. They had never been outside, but on the other hand they were used to roosting on a perch, even if they chose the one that was closest to the floor the first week, and I think they dustbathed two or three days after their arrival. If I compare their arrival to what happened when we brought in four point of lay pullets bought from a breeder, Lily, Kara, Alba and Nieva, I can't say the ex-batts did worse acquiring usual chicken habits.
During their lives, and once I saw other chickens and chicks growing here, I think in most ways, they were just like other chickens. So I am just going to point out a few of the differences I noted and how it would impact chicken keeping.
Food : The ex-batts were and always remained much pickier foragers than most of my other chickens. Compared to all the others, they tried very few type of weeds from all the stuff growing in their yard. They also were more picky about the bugs and insects they ate. After they saw other chickens eating different stuff, they did enlarge a bit their diet, but never as much as the other chickens. They did scratch and search for buried stuff just as much as the others but I think they had more reluctance to try new things. On the subject of "treats" it took them about a month to start eating fruits and veggies we brought them but once they did, they were certainly as greedy as all my other chickens, if not more ! On the other hand the six of them kept eating a lot more commercial feed than the others, especially layer feed.
This, I think, explain why I didn't see worms in chicken's poop until my first batch of chicks reached one year old. The ex-batts did not eat flies or snails, for example. Some of my other chickens are tremendous flies hunter. Even after when we had a real worm infestation with both round worms and tape worms the ex-batts were the least affected. And reflecting on how chickens should be fed, I think it may be best for ex-batts that are still laying eggs, to keep them an access to layer feed, which would not be necessary for other hens. Mybex-batts always seem to prefer it over the other type of feed I provided, which is definitely not the case for the other chickens. And they never got the hang of regularly eating eggshells or oyster shells.
Chicken relationships:
I've said it before but for the almost two years they remained as a six ex-batt group, they were all rather meek compared to the aggressive behaviours I've witnessed beneath the hens since. I never saw them fight ; I only saw hackles raised once. They had recognised the dominant hen from about a month after they arrived here, Vanille, and she remained so until her death. Nougat remained on bottom of the group, and Cannelle who was right after Vanille, did not really become leader after her death. Hierarchy only showed around food and at roost time when they all wanted to be on the higher bar of the ladder. I can't say they were truly friends, there was some drama and quarrelling, but it didn't go beyond a few pecks here and there. However, that was over when we introduced new chickens. They were always horrible with the new comers. This was especially true for Nougat and Blanche who never tolerated any of the new hens even when they had been around for more than a year.
One other specificity of the ex-batts is that they never really got used to having a rooster. Eventually they would come when Théo , or Gaston, tidbitted for them, but they still always ran from the males or/and tried to hide from them. Once or twice I saw Brune and Cannelle standing ground to one of the roo, but this remained exceptional. They had overall a very different attitude than all the other hens do toward my roosters. They certainly never tried to become the rooster's favorite, although that did happen unwillingly to Nougat.
It's hard to say how much of this is due to genetics, to selected induced behaviour to be fit for life in a battery, to having been brought up for a few months in a very tight space, to being for two years in a closed up group, or to personality.
As a chicken keeper, this has me thinking that the best way to keep ex-batts is how we did it first, with a group of ex-batts only. One could argue that they would not learn or see more natural chicken behaviour. I think it would be best then to have ex-batts before and introduce other chickens afterwards, like we did. I believe it would be fairly traumatic for ex-batts getting out of the battery in the usual way at 18 months to suddenly be among a group of chickens already functioning as a tribe, unless that group was especially gentle.
Health : of course this is where the main difference lie for the chicken keeper. The fact that they lay so much in their first two years change a lot for their bodies. Out of my six ex-batts, five died directly or through human intervention of reproductive disorders, whether it was EYP or cancer. That's 83% and although statistics on such a small number mean absolutely nothing I guess it's coherent. Especially as otherwise, the ex-batts were rather healthy chickens. This doesn't only mean that keeping ex-batts will necessarily make the chicken keeper have to deal with that kind of issue. It also means that not only do ex-batts have a short life span, they age much quicker. At two years old, I could already see their bodies and behaviour changing, and in their third year they were beginning to act like senior hens. This meant for example that they weren't as daring, they spent a lot of time in the coop when temperatures were under 0/32 which they were not doing at all before, they were less agile, and some began having mobility issues.
This is what it means. If one gets ex-batts that are two years old, some may likely die just a few months after. If not, one is getting chickens that will be old very soon after making themselves at home, in a year or so. So if one does it in the interest of the chickens, it has to be seen as offering them retirement and a different end of life than the terrible transportation and waiting at the slaughterhouse.
Since I stay home and spend a lot of time with the chickens I saw them a lot when they were going through their last days and was physically present when three of them died. Two others I found dead, one during the night and one while I left her for twenty minutes. Only Caramel died where I could not see and be with her at the vet. I hated most of it, seeing them dying, except maybe with Blanche who was fun even then. But it made me realise that it was a very important thing to give space for each hen, both physically and figuratively, to get to the end in her own individual and singular way.
I am now of the opinion that it would make sense if one wants to keep ex-batts either to be able to pay for an implant so they could stop laying and gain six months to a year of life, or to accept that one is taking them in to walk along with them for the end of the path. I think no beginner chicken keeper should do that. They definitely require very quickly more experience on some of their health problems. Sure, they won't bring in IB or Marek's like backyard chickens could, but having such a first experience is bad luck and not the norm. While if exceptionally an ex-batt could make it to six or seven, the large majority will start having health issues in their third year.
Will I do it again ? I'm not sure. One thing that's really important for me, but it's personal, is that while I'm always wondering if i'm doing right by keeping chickens with all the parasites in the environment and the fact that I seem to keep making stupid mistakes, with ex-batts the doubts are over-ridden by knowing they got out of the worse possible end and are enjoying every single moment of it. I do miss having red chickens in my yard. So we'll see in two or three years.
interesting reflections ManueB; thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. You are right - I had production breed chickens from a young age, and only Maggie survived to 4 years.
Thanks also for the pictures. They were indeed a pretty bunch and certainly had a better life with you than they would have had otherwise.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this Manue. I share your views, however while I don't choose this type of hen for myself any more, I don't turn them away when they need a home (Sandy, Joyce, and Christa - all three found a home at my place and all three have been out-lived by Mary who came here before they did).
lightm
Don't Peck On Me
Great reflection. I enjoyed reading it.
The videos and pictures are adorable. Chickens are just so lovely. The production birds, may look plain and dull in a way, but I always thought they look super cute.
I regret getting production birds because I did not know anything about chickens when I ordered chicks in a store. I would like to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about them.
-- Four ex-batts looking hens (called Golden buffs). I guess I am lucky only one (Ginger) has left us. The three living ones are 3 years and 5 months old now. Ginger was rehomed and died in her new home when she was about 2 years old. Ginger was the smartest chicken I have seen and she left us too soon. My husband thinks it is possible that she may still be with us if she stayed here.
So maybe there is a difference if raised from day old chicks?
-- Two Rhode Island Red. Neither of them are with us. Tina died at 2y3m and Wendy died at 3y3m. Even as production birds, they were supposedly not as egg-productive as the golden buffs and were expected to live longer.
-- Two Rhode Island Blues. One turned out to be a rooster and forced to be rehomed. The other, Inky, is the most feral chicken we have and guaranteed to be broody multiple times a year. I suspect she is something orpington and got mixed up in the order.
We also have two barnyard mix that are doing well so far. They are both 2y3m old.
Edit to add: The last egg we got from "ex-batts" is from Light this May. But then she had egg problem and is now on implant. Only Inky and the 2 younger ones are laying.
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