Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[L-plate chicken mum]

If anyone wants to nerd out I found this article when looking up diosmectite. Seems it also helps fight loose poop caused by Sars-CoV-2 & slow the progress of infection. Sometimes simpler, older treatments are best

Helps if I attach the link! https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01217-2

 

[Perris]

some thick caramel, some hot fudge, some green goo

these sound like ice cream toppings! (well, maybe not the last, though I can imagine it appealing to a certain segment of the market )

 

[LTAY1946]

Helps if I attach the link! https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-01217-2

Trying to read it scrambled my few brain cells left.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good afternoon one and all!

Very good articles for care of chickens.

Temperature is in the 90s with rain coming.

Have a great day!

 

[RoyalChick]

I don't have a clue as to what a few of mine find to eat when they are out and out of sight. Some have normal firm poop, some thick caramel, some hot fudge, some green goo. None appear sick from anything so I don't worry to much. When fall comes with temps that will allow me to keep them in a spacious coop for a couple of days maybe they may a get normal again.

I recommend red cabbage. The chickens love it and the brilliant neon green that emerges at the end is shockingly artificial looking!

 

[LTAY1946]

I recommend red cabbage. The chickens love it and the brilliant neon green that emerges at the end is shockingly artificial looking!

I'll have to plant some red cabbage with some savoy cabbage this fall.

 

[RoyalChick]

I'll have to plant some red cabbage with some savoy cabbage this fall.

Enjoy!

 

[Shadrach]

I'm going to keep him and Toby around for another few weeks or longer. They are learning a lot from the Tina and Patucha (the senior hens and mothers) about behavior and from watching Lucio as well.

I will definitely move one of them, probably Segundo since he came off worst in the fighting. I think if I give Segundo -- or Toby -- his own group right now, especially if they are young pullets, he will have free reign with them and become a spoiled playboy rapist.

Four years, I had a big white rooster named Claudio. He came with my original group of point-of-lay pullets and was the same age. Now that I know a little about cockerels and roosters, I can see that he grew up with them, probably not with a senior rooster or older hens around. He was a nightmare. Not aggressive to me or Juan, but horrible with the ladies. They were ragged, deplumed, and exhausted. Two had bleeding wounds on their backs. I found blood on the ground, in the coop -- finally I was able to examine them at night and disinfect their wounds. That was my first chicken experience, so in addition to them all having bronchitis and/or bumblefoot on arrival, you can imagine how trying it was. Anyway, I gave Claudio back to the seller after two months because the girls were literally hiding in the forest and wouldn't roost at night they were so terrified of him.

So, yes, absolutely, I think cockerels need older birds of both sexes to guide them in their crucial development time.

But I'm glad I'm giving the rooster experience another try, with a bit more seasoning on my plate. It's well worth it.

The boys fight. Mostly it's been face saving short scraps with the boys I've looked after. Bloody combs, torn wattles, black eyes etc are all in taken in their stride usually. I patch them up give them a day or two with me at home or in a spare maternity unit and let them get back to their tribes.
Rogue cockerels that upset a senior rooster by trying to mate the senior roosters hens can make for a serious fight, as can a younger rooster taking on the senior rooster.
I don't keep rogue roosters as a rule. I'll take on orphans and house them seperately if necessary. Rogue cockerels are those that do have a tribe but refuse for whatever reason to follow the tribe or work underneath the senior rooster or get driven out of their tribe. I had a couple in Spain and a couple on the farm in Hertfordshire. I eat those at whatever age they start to make everyones life a misery.

 

[Molpet]

I had a dark Cornish rooster and one son in one coop. Another son was in another coop with an old rooster that didn't mate anymore. Both coops had over a dz hens 2 other coops had pairs of roosters and cockerels.
The son with the old rooster apparently wanted his father's flock. I heard a fight and found the 2 sons battling and the father hiding in a nest box. I grabbed the son and took him back to the flock he belonged. He never bothered the other flocks again.
Father had a broken foot and had problems mating after that.

 

[TropicalChickies]

Well..you are reading on the internet, but about real life stories .
My partner is getting totally fed up when I start telling him "I read on BYC..."

That was also my treatment as a kid . And one I was very glad to be given for a whole week in Casablanca when I was 19, if a moroccan lady cook from a cheap downtown hotel hadn't taken pity on me I would have probably died !

Also the most commonly used OTC remedy for diarrhea here is made from diosmectite, a type of white clay. (I don't think it exists in the US or GB.) Sometimes when I would like to find more solid poops from my chickens, I put a spoon of white clay in the chicken's water, I can't find pure diosmectite so I use kaolin. (Green clay works also, but is more mineralized).

We have kaolin here in the stream bed. I smear it on my face as a facial mask. Good for drawing the venom out of bug bites and stings too.