Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Mother of Chaos]

My Avian Ecology class () has an 8 am outdoor lab on Fridays.

So with a Thursday overnight low of 13°, the 8 am temp should have rocketed up to, I dunno, 17° or so?

Whew:

 

[Perris]

All I'm asking is for people to be careful of their use of adverbs in particular, have knowledge of the dictionary definition of the words they use in mind because that is what most of us will understand the word to mean and be honest in their reporting.

There is a lot of useful information on this thread and I really don't want people reading the posts that are not honest portrayals of their chickens behaviour and leaving feeling inadequate because their chickens are not the angels a misleading post may suggest.

Hypocrisy is the word that springs to mind.

I consider myself to be as honest as the day is long, and your imputation to the contrary is deeply hurtful. Perhaps you are lashing out because you've lost the argument. In any case, I'm not going to stay around to be insulted like this when my aim is to share what I've learned about keeping chickens in humane conditions. I'll share my thoughts experiences elsewhere henceforth.

A parting photo: two happy, healthy, harmonious roos cruising

 

[RoyalChick]

And that, boys and girls, is how you can tell a fight from a spat, tiff, argument, or disagreement.
It is when someone gets hurt.
No dictionary required.

 

[Shadrach]

I'm going to lock this thread.
One of the unfortunate but less understood consequences of Parkinson's Disease is what it does to the mind. Some people recognize and understand the physical symptoms, but little is understood about the chemical changes in the brain that effect ones personality.
Currently I'm having problems with this; not just here on BYC but also in my personal life.

I've been posting on this thread daily since November 2021. Recently I've been finding it stressful more than enjoyable and recent family health problems have just added to the demands on my time and stress in my life.

My stated aim at the start of this thread was to see Henry and his hens to their graves while trying to provide a better quality of life for them. I have done this.
I adored Henry as did his hens and the death of Henry, Fret and Tull in the space of a few weeks I found incredibly difficult and in hindsight I should have closed this thread after Henry and his family died.

Given my views on the keeping of chickens in confined environments my interest in keeping Ex Battery hens from caged batteries meant to me that I could at least provide a better quality of life for some chickens that otherwise would have been killed because they become unproductive in the view of the commercial enterprises that have abused this species relentlessly for the last hundred years or so.
For all the fields faults it can and did provide a better quality of life for these poor creatures while hatching new chickens or importing so called heritage breeds and even mixed farmyard chickens in most cases probably wouldn't.

I got caught in a fork with my desire to let broody hens sit and hatch, yet knowing that the chicks that did hatch were destined to live as prisoners rather than free chickens. I took the wrong path here letting my convictions on how chickens should live overrule the reality of the miserable life they would lead at the field with a couple of hours of freedom a day.

While I am still able I intend to return to the keeping of Ex Battery chickens and hopefully offer an improvement in life quality compared to what they had and their likely fate.

I have a few chicken things I would like to achieve, finish my book, finish a number of articles, organize the information I have accumulated over the years...
For myself, I want to spend more time outside, return to creating things such as the lamps and sculptures which is good for my state of mind and a lot less time in front of a computer.

I have a blog of sorts where I am able to publish views that are not compatible with the ethos of BYC which has been largely neglected over the past few years. I intend to continue with that.

I would like to offer my apologies to those who have found what I have written offensive.
I would also like to thank from the bottom of my heart those of you who have supported this thread, read my articles and put up with me for the last seven years.