Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[TropicalChickies]

The last pic ever taken of her & I.
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Better times:
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I still miss Cleo and visit her burial spot in the garden almost every day. All chickens are beautiful or interesting in some way, but then there those that are somehow wiser, more empathetic, full of life and infectious joy. On days where I leave the farm for a day or even a few hours, I still catch myself looking forward to seeing Cleo run to meet me ...and then I remember she's not here anymore. Sometimes I get teary, like right now. Even with all the hustle bustle of broody hens and hatching chicks and cockerels' first crows, it's not the same.

 

[TropicalChickies]

I too am stymied and heartbroken by certain human behavior. Just don't want it to be my own. That karma is a b*tch.

Thats the best I can come up with myself some days, planting saplings when I'm listening to the chainsaws cut down the forest around me because greedy corporate honchos want more cheap sugar, cheap chocolate, cheap palm oil to keep poisoning people with at ridiculous profits.

Thank you for your dedicated and inspiring work repurposing ocean trash. I just built up an earthen wall in the new coop for the youngsters with a bunch of trash embedded into the cob and topped off with salvaged bottles that I know would not have been recycled. (Folks, just an fyi, just because a bottle or container or packaging etc says "recyclable" doesn't mean it actually is. In most countries, recycling is more of a scam promoted by the same companies that want to avoid pressure for making "single use" products in the first place.

 

[TropicalBabies]

Thats the best I can come up with myself some days, planting saplings when I'm listening to the chainsaws cut down the forest around me because greedy corporate honchos want more cheap sugar, cheap chocolate, cheap palm oil to keep poisoning people with at ridiculous profits.

Thank you for your dedicated and inspiring work repurposing ocean trash. I just built up an earthen wall in the new coop for the youngsters with a bunch of trash embedded into the cob and topped off with salvaged bottles that I know would not have been recycled. (Folks, just an fyi, just because a bottle or container or packaging etc says "recyclable" doesn't mean it actually is. In most countries, recycling is more of a scam promoted by the same companies that want to avoid pressure for making "single use" products in the first place.

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I have been admiring your walls for a bit now ♡ Bravo!
Yeah, that is so overwhelming... the greed that is. When is enough, enough?

I do my best to avoid single use plastics, or at least reuse them several times till can no more. Here in the states they pretty much make it impossible to not buy single use. It's depressing... deep sigh

 

[TropicalChickies]

Tobias, Segundo, and Prima have started to go to sleep in what I'm now calling "the Hooligan Coop" -- thanks @TheFatBlueCat for that apt name. Given that I was using existing beams and a good metal roof, I was able to get the space ready in short time. Downside -- or upside depending on your POV, is the area is adjoined to our shower, so now showering is yet another a life activity performed in the company of chickens...

Quick rundown on converting the space (which was the laundry area) into a chicken space

Bamboo, when it's properly treated with boric acid, is much less prone to mites than wood because it's much less porous. But for good measure, first I swept and scrubbed off all the dust and fungi from the bamboo, then coated it with linseed oil.

Toss down several wheelbarrows of sand mixed up with a little lime.

Install moveable eco-plastic roost bars (and hooligans).

Meanwhile, yesterday Segundo the Mascot Underdog gave his first crow!

Segundo... Still a contender.

The old coop feels a lot more spacious and tranquil now without the evening tussle and the hooligans love practicing their creaky crows while Im in the shower. Got them moved just in time too, because their lovely mama Tina is broody again -- and this time she has three of her own eggs to sit on.

I just made a nice shaded area and put down damp soil and sand and put her eggs in a shallow depression. She took right to it. This morning she widened it out a bit and brought in a few leaves and twigs. It's only been 3 months since she hatched the hooligans, but she really seems happiest being a mom and she did an excellent job. I need some pullets for this gang of cockerels I ended up with, so -- as much as I love their crowing and feuding and following me everywhere, cross your fingers I get a few more pullets this time, huh?

With Queen Tina zonked out on her nest, Rusty sure is happy to have the less divided attention of her man back too

I have been admiring your walls for a bit now ♡ Bravo!
Yeah, that is so overwhelming... the greed that is. When is enough, enough?

I do my best to avoid single use plastics, or at least reuse them several times till can no more. Here in the states they pretty much make it impossible to not buy single use. It's depressing... deep sigh

There's all kinds of stuff entombed in our walls, I just let the bottles show because, for trash, they are pretty. Dead batteries, smashed plates, rusted jar lids, a busted lawn chair, rubber gloves with holes in them, combs with most of the teeth gone, broken guitar strings...hopes and dreams.

I like to speculate on the confusion this discombobulated heap will cause some earnest future archaeologist and the erroneous academic papers that will result.

 

[Little Tala Bug]

Thank you for your dedicated and inspiring work repurposing ocean trash. I just built up an earthen wall in the new coop for the youngsters with a bunch of trash embedded into the cob and topped off with salvaged bottles that I know would not have been recycled. (Folks, just an fyi, just because a bottle or container or packaging etc says "recyclable" doesn't mean it actually is. In most countries, recycling is more of a scam promoted by the same companies that want to avoid pressure for making "single use" products in the first place.

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We also save bottles on the homestead! Folk think I'm crazy sometimes but they are great for building. Here is a garden wall I built with bottles and cob.

I used the clay that I dug out of the garden bed behind the wall to build it. I feed the chickens and throw their scratch on the path in front of it so I never have to strim the grass and weeds ☺

 

[TropicalChickies]

The thing is, when people first learn how to make cob, they love it. They ooohh and ahhhh, "it's like a sculpting a house!" Ooolala. Wait until you stomp out like fifty batches of the stuff, I say. The really great practical thing about stuffing bottles and trash into a cob wall is that it takes up space, and that's one less batch of mud to mix and stomp.

Also, did you know you can stuff at least sixty plastic bags inside a 1.5 liter bottle? When I put plastic bottles in the walls, I stuff them with as many bags and wrappers as I can. Makes them more like "bricks" and compacts a lot of trash.

We also save bottles on the homestead! Folk think I'm crazy sometimes but they are great for building. Here is a garden wall I built with bottles and cob.
View attachment 3589880

I used the clay that I dug out of the garden bed behind the wall to build it. I feed the chickens and throw their scratch on the path in front of it so I never have to strim the grass and weeds ☺

 

[MrsNorthie]

Would you be so kind to share the name of this company? We are buying all of our meats from this one local farm 2 hours away now, but I am still curious.

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It is called Agridime. https://agridimestore.com/pages/about-us We would like to find something local, but it means talking to people..lol

 

[MrsNorthie]

I too am interested.
I don’t eat much meat but try to buy from farms near me when I do.
A guy has recently started a service that will deliver to your house from the local farms. You order what you want and from which farm and he drops it by on Thursday afternoon. I have signed up but haven’t ordered anything yet.

It is called Agridime. https://agridimestore.com/pages/about-us I have pretty much gone carnivore, for health reasons, so this has made it easier. I would prefer to find something local, but they don't advertise and I prefer keeping myself to myself.

 

[Shadrach]

Took awhile to sit back down. Birds needed water.
Crawled up a ladder searching for why my new coop leaked so d*mn bad.
Found 2 screws not connected to wood, I had sealant in one pocket and a power drill in the other. Yes I hope I resolved the issue.
My birds I talk to them I like to put water in the freezer drawer out in the run.
It is full of mud they great joy is to stand it drink it have fun. I do this because I can.

The ones you talk of are the reason some should not pro create but do.

You be careful climbing around on that roof.

 

[fuzzi]

For the same reason that many people will grieve for their family and friends loss, feel sad for their neighbors, and not care for the thousands that die..elsewhere.

Years ago I read The Thorn Birds. There was a part that I've not forgotten, your thoughts, above, just reminded me of it. Someone was worried about how the sheep on the ranch were being handled:

"Out here it's different. You'll never see man, woman or child in need of help go ignored out here, yet in the city those same people who dote on their pets will completely ignore a cry of help from a human being...

...We all have contempt for whatever there's too many of. Out here it's sheep, but in the city it's people."