TundraFang
Crowing
He was pestering a broody so she put him in his place, he stays in the bachelor pen nowWho bit off his points? Is this a new way to deduct tax?
Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.
- Thread starter Shadrach
- Start date
TundraFang
Crowing
Pretty darn cute all peeps are I haver 9 growing in the spare room
- Thread starter
- #94
I’ve been walking to the allotments with containers of feed, various medications and my camera packed in a small rucksack every day for almost three months now. For the first few days I went an hour or so before dusk. Doing this meant I could let the chickens out into the allotment run and be fairly confident I could get them back into the coop run with the help of dusk. It took me a few days to be confident that I had an accurate head count. I did ask C but they didn’t know exactly how many there were. The Red Sex Links I found difficult to tell from each other, the Golden Comets blend into the honey coloured mass which left the only positive identifications of Henry and his daughter Matilda.
Henry was already named and I named Matilda once I discovered she was Henry’s daughter.
There were two other grey hens, neither of which I knew the breed of and four Crested Cream Legbars and two black hens I later got told were Red Rocks.
In the three months I have seen precisely six adults who have allotments, three visitors and C will turn up when they can bringing feed and doing what they can in the limited time they have. Essentially I have an acre of land that nobody seems to use much on the edge of Bristol which is a major UK city. To buy such a place would cost close to a million pounds these days, possibly more in such a quiet location.
Four of the people who visit the allotments for an hour or so at the weekends mostly I’ve got to talk to a bit and from them I’ve learned a bit about the history of the place.
Roughly ten years ago Bristol City Council put forward plans to build houses on this plot. As there usually is, there was a bit of a local outcry against the scheme. A group of local residents proposed to the council that the field should be used for allotments/community farm. The council accepted the alternative scheme. Initially there were no livestock. My understanding is, the person who introduced them who died a couple of years ago already had a few chickens and these chickens got moved to their current location. I have no idea when the geese arrived.
So here’s a point of interest. This allotment/smallholding project wasn’t conceived and implemented by people who wanted to work the land and keep animals; it was started to prevent the council from building houses and one must assume in the participants eyes, ruining the neighbourhood.
From what I’ve been told the person who looked after the creatures here until they died spent a great deal of time at the allotments. Animals got fed, grass got cut, plots got dug etc. Once they died the responsibility fell in theory at least to the “community” that use the allotment plots and of course C who holds the smallholders licence.
What has happened in reality is C who has neither the money nor the time has been left to cope as best they can.
C works full time. By the time travel time to work and back is included C is unable to do anything at the allotment for on average ten hours a day and as I understand it, C works some Saturdays as well. In theory, the other participants in the scheme should pick up the slack but when that involves someone being there every day, rain or shine, warm or cold, inconvenient, or not to ensure the animals they’ve all agreed to keep, everyone has other more interesting and more comfortable things to do.
There is a lesson here for many who dream of the good life and growing their own food and attempting to be more self-sufficient. Farming/smallholding/self sufficiency particularly when there are other creatures involved is a lot of hard work, stress and commitment.
It seems such a shame that many people only discover this after they’ve gone and got whatever creatures they taken a passing fancy to.
Henry was already named and I named Matilda once I discovered she was Henry’s daughter.
There were two other grey hens, neither of which I knew the breed of and four Crested Cream Legbars and two black hens I later got told were Red Rocks.
In the three months I have seen precisely six adults who have allotments, three visitors and C will turn up when they can bringing feed and doing what they can in the limited time they have. Essentially I have an acre of land that nobody seems to use much on the edge of Bristol which is a major UK city. To buy such a place would cost close to a million pounds these days, possibly more in such a quiet location.
Four of the people who visit the allotments for an hour or so at the weekends mostly I’ve got to talk to a bit and from them I’ve learned a bit about the history of the place.
Roughly ten years ago Bristol City Council put forward plans to build houses on this plot. As there usually is, there was a bit of a local outcry against the scheme. A group of local residents proposed to the council that the field should be used for allotments/community farm. The council accepted the alternative scheme. Initially there were no livestock. My understanding is, the person who introduced them who died a couple of years ago already had a few chickens and these chickens got moved to their current location. I have no idea when the geese arrived.
So here’s a point of interest. This allotment/smallholding project wasn’t conceived and implemented by people who wanted to work the land and keep animals; it was started to prevent the council from building houses and one must assume in the participants eyes, ruining the neighbourhood.
From what I’ve been told the person who looked after the creatures here until they died spent a great deal of time at the allotments. Animals got fed, grass got cut, plots got dug etc. Once they died the responsibility fell in theory at least to the “community” that use the allotment plots and of course C who holds the smallholders licence.
What has happened in reality is C who has neither the money nor the time has been left to cope as best they can.
C works full time. By the time travel time to work and back is included C is unable to do anything at the allotment for on average ten hours a day and as I understand it, C works some Saturdays as well. In theory, the other participants in the scheme should pick up the slack but when that involves someone being there every day, rain or shine, warm or cold, inconvenient, or not to ensure the animals they’ve all agreed to keep, everyone has other more interesting and more comfortable things to do.
There is a lesson here for many who dream of the good life and growing their own food and attempting to be more self-sufficient. Farming/smallholding/self sufficiency particularly when there are other creatures involved is a lot of hard work, stress and commitment.
It seems such a shame that many people only discover this after they’ve gone and got whatever creatures they taken a passing fancy to.
- Thread starter
- #95
Let me introduce you to the group. This was taken today and if you count there are only 21 chickens here, four are already dead.
To my eyes they are already looking much healthier & more like chickens should look
- Thread starter
- #97
@Marie2020
May I ask where your Ex Battery hens came from?
What condition they were in when you received them?
What instructions you were given regarding their keep?
May I ask where your Ex Battery hens came from?
What condition they were in when you received them?
What instructions you were given regarding their keep?
- Thread starter
- #98
I think I could accept him as tax.
- Thread starter
- #99
Right! That's the basic history covered and a bit about what I'm doing.
It's going to get a bit grim for a few posts.
There is a picture of the entire coop and coop run in an earlier post. Readers may want to look at that again before they read this.
The main coop has a floor area of 80cm x 1.2m. That's roughly 10.7 square feet.
The nest box on the end is 78cm x 32cm. That's roughly 2.7 square feet.
That's 13.4 square feet in total for the main coop.
There is a broody coop (? It's not big enough to be described as anything else) at the back of the main coop. It's roughly 70cm x 85cm. That's say 6.5 square feet.
Say 20 square feet in total floor area for both coops to make things simple.
According to the recommendations on BYC one should allow 4 square feet per chicken in the coop.
That means between the two coops there is adequate space for 5 chickens.
When I started looking after these chickens there were 25 of them living in this space. Even if one allows 3 or four chickens less because they roosted with Henry outside, that's still 20 chickens with one in the broody coop.
This what the inside of the main coop looks like after a clean out.
This is what it looks like if it gets cleaned every other day on day two.
This is what it looks like after one day.
This is the inside of the broody coop. Usually one hen sleeps in here.
This is what the coop run looks like after a bit of rain.
This is where the chickens go when it rains.
The broody coop.
Under the main coop.
This is what it looks like in the main coop once the chickens have gone to roost in the main coop. I've lifted the nest box cover to take the pictures.
Not surprisng Henry would rather roost outside.
It's going to get a bit grim for a few posts.
There is a picture of the entire coop and coop run in an earlier post. Readers may want to look at that again before they read this.
The main coop has a floor area of 80cm x 1.2m. That's roughly 10.7 square feet.
The nest box on the end is 78cm x 32cm. That's roughly 2.7 square feet.
That's 13.4 square feet in total for the main coop.
There is a broody coop (? It's not big enough to be described as anything else) at the back of the main coop. It's roughly 70cm x 85cm. That's say 6.5 square feet.
Say 20 square feet in total floor area for both coops to make things simple.
According to the recommendations on BYC one should allow 4 square feet per chicken in the coop.
That means between the two coops there is adequate space for 5 chickens.
When I started looking after these chickens there were 25 of them living in this space. Even if one allows 3 or four chickens less because they roosted with Henry outside, that's still 20 chickens with one in the broody coop.
This what the inside of the main coop looks like after a clean out.
This is what it looks like if it gets cleaned every other day on day two.
This is what it looks like after one day.
This is the inside of the broody coop. Usually one hen sleeps in here.
This is what the coop run looks like after a bit of rain.
This is where the chickens go when it rains.
The broody coop.
Under the main coop.
This is what it looks like in the main coop once the chickens have gone to roost in the main coop. I've lifted the nest box cover to take the pictures.
Not surprisng Henry would rather roost outside.
Attachments
Looks athough they are doing pretty good from the care.
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