Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BDutch]

Well unfortunately, my flock will be contained for a little while. The largest Bald Eagle I've seen came by this morning and tried to attack. Fortunately they were all by the treeline & a large blackberry patch to take shelter. Pedro got 10 home safely, and by the time I got to where they had been the Eagle was perched in the cedar tree about 10' above Annie my Buff Orp who was sheltering underneath. He took off when I got close and Annie fled, wedging herself under a pallet in a nearby barn. It took a while to get her out, but finally I was able to reach her & carried her home to the coop. The last of the 3 missing hens finally came out from the BlackBerry bushes and I escorted her home safely. They're all safe, but very quiet. I wonder how long it will take for the Eagle to give up & move on, and how long it will take for Annie and the more skittish birds to wander far from the coop once I let them out again.

I had a buzzard who probably took one of my bantams a few tears years ago. For bantams some buzzards are a real threat. They are not all just scavengers.

I confined my chickens to the run/coop too. The buzzard came back several times for a period of 2 weeks. Never seen him/her since.

Edited: tears ago

 

[BDutch]

Not so good at roosting time this evening. I had to throw Dig out of the coop again and deal with a cut on his scalp right beside his comb.

It’s a pity Dig doesn’t submit to his father. I presume he could have a good life it he did.
Do you intent to wait and see much longer?

Tax: Tintin.
Maybe a rooster next year!

 

[Shadrach]

Do you intent to wait and see much longer?

I'm trying to rehome him at the moment.

 

[Shadrach]

Two hours today. I could have done it in one. Rained from the time I left the flat until I got home. Just got into the flat and made tea and the rain stopped.
I'm trying to rehome Dig. It's not looking very promising.

 

[Sally PB]

Sending positive waves for a good home for Dig.

 

[BDutch]

I'm trying to rehome Dig. It's not looking very promising.

Do you have a kind of Craigs list in the UK ? where you can offer Dig for a good new home, and complete the announcement with gorgeous pictures, his heritage, upbringing, character and all the good manners he learnt from his father, mother, auntie and the best chicken whisperer in Europe.

 

[Shadrach]

The sale of animals is prohibited on many such sites in the UK.
I don't really want him to go to another keeper I don't know anything about.
Unfortunately he's my problem which I will have to deal with.

 

[BDutch]

The sale of animals is prohibited on many such sites in the UK.
I don't really want him to go to another keeper I don't know anything about.
Unfortunately he's my problem which I will have to deal with.

Strange how laws on keeping and trading animals are so different in each country. How do other people deal with this? Are there other possibilities to trade?

The platform we have in NL allows all kind of trade including chickens. But I think it’s not allowed by the government because of HPAI. People trade nevertheless.

When I have cockerels I never sell them, but give them away for free. I do ask many questions to be rather sure the male chick or cockerel goes to a descent address. But of course I never know for sure.

Whatever the options are: Good luck!

 

[MrsNorthie]

The sale of animals is prohibited on many such sites in the UK.
I don't really want him to go to another keeper I don't know anything about.
Unfortunately he's my problem which I will have to deal with.

I wonder if you took him home with you in the evening for a bit, if he would settled down and be a little better behaved.

 

[Shadrach]

Strange how laws on keeping and trading animals are so different in each country. How do other people deal with this? Are there other possibilities to trade?

The platform we have in NL allows all kind of trade including chickens. But I think it’s not allowed by the government because of HPAI. People trade nevertheless.

When I have cockerels I never sell them, but give them away for free. I do ask many questions to be rather sure the male chick or cockerel goes to a descent address. But of course I never know for sure.

Whatever the options are: Good luck!

It's that never knowing for sure bit.
You may remember about fifteen months ago C suddenly decided to rehome most of the chickens. There wasn't anything I could do about it. C made a terrible job of it. She rehomed the lead hen Matilda (Henry's daughter) with three Ex Battery hens in one lot and the rest went in two lots to people I assume she knew.
Last autumn I got to know a person who lives next door to the second lot to be rehomed. I was at the allotments when they were collected. I tried my best to ascertain a bit about the conditions they were going to be living in and got very minimal and rather brusque responses to my questions. Talking to the neighbour I learnt that these poor creatures got kept in a tiny overcrowded coop with what I gather was a run of about 3m by 1.5m. They never get let out. They never get any affection or medical care, the neighbour recounted seeing one dead or seriously injured in the run for a couple of days. They never felt grass under their feet again. They never ran or foraged. The coop and run stank and it seems all the keeper was interested in was squeezing the last few eggs they could get out of them.
They are all dead now apparently.

Dig and Mow are my responsibility now, as are Henry, Fret and Carbon. I have to try to do what's best for them all. People are in general liars, particularly when they want something they think they'll get for nothing. I would only rehome Dig to somewhere I had inspected. I've taken pairs to be rehomed in Catalonia only to bring them home again because the conditions were not satisfactory. This makes rehoming rather difficult.

Many people rehome because they cannot bring themselves to kill the bird. Out of sight out of mind and the problem for the keeper is over, but in many cases the problems for the rehomed birds are just begining. I'm not that sort of keeper. In my view, Dig would be better off having a quick death rather than a life as a prisoner in the type of conditions I understand the hens above went to. Killing Dig is going to hurt me a lot more than it's going to hurt him; one minute he'll be alive and the next dead. It's not like he'll know he's dead.

When I let Fret sit I made the choice of having to deal with the possibility that I would have to kill any males that hatched. We are not there yet. Dig is still young and as long as he doesn't attack the hens again, which he hasn't to the best of my knowledge, he can live. He's a long way from giving Henry any real problems and as I've often mentioned, I don't really care how he behaves towards me. While he's alive and here we'll work something out.