Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

How top hens establish themselves in a starting group I don't know having never seen it, or read much reliable about it.

As someone who has, and who has kept a written record of the 'who what where' variety with the flock since the start, I guess I should chip in here.

I brought Maria here 20 April 2018 with her sister as Araucana POL, to join a lone young RIR acquired a month before as POL and whose sibling had collapsed and died within a month of arriving 10 March. It was apparent within another month that the RIR, though bigger than them and here before them, was below Maria and her sister in the pecking order. Maria bossed the RIR and let her sister be, and retained top hen position thereafter, despite being smaller than any other hen in the flock.

Then this is my record for 9 November 22:
Paprika fought back when Maria went for her around tea time, and chased Maria across the lawn! Never seen anyone stand up to Maria before. Whole flock watched with great interest. Later the two of them just passed by one another as if nothing happened.

This is the same Paprika that was raised by Maria in 21, was the young broody who raised Venka's clutch so successfully from July 22, and had left them to their own devices late August-early September. At the time of this challenge, she was fully reintegrated back into the flock and Maria was in the process of separating from her August chicks and starting to reassert her place in the flock.

Since then, Maria's behaviour has changed and I would no longer describe her as top hen, but then I'm not sure I would describe any of them as such. I think we are in a state of flux. As a single flock with multiple males, my flock is not typical of BYC flocks, but it is more natural than most since I interfere very little with them.

I am now wondering if the lack of an obvious top hen is why they are staying closer together than usual when they move from one area of the garden to another.

 

[no fly zone]

@ManueB it is Chippy and Skeksis

Skeksis Jr is not a frizzle

 

[RoyalChick]

But I have french and English.
I did the french in 3 yesterday the word was Harem! Funny how the mind works, I'm much better at games with letters than with numbers even when they have nothing to do with math or writing just like it's the other way around for others.

Getting it in 3 is very satisfying - but I bow down to you for being able to do it in two languages!
In French do the accents create separate letters or is it just the same letter regardless of different accents?
So is è different from é, or do they both count as e?

Tax: chickens in rafters.

 

[ManueB]

As someone who has, and who has kept a written record of the 'who what where' variety with the flock since the start, I guess I should chip in here.

I brought Maria here 20 April 2018 with her sister as Araucana POL, to join a lone young RIR acquired a month before as POL and whose sibling had collapsed and died within a month of arriving 10 March. It was apparent within another month that the RIR, though bigger than them and here before them, was below Maria and her sister in the pecking order. Maria bossed the RIR and let her sister be, and retained top hen position thereafter, despite being smaller than any other hen in the flock.

Then this is my record for 9 November 22:
Paprika fought back when Maria went for her around tea time, and chased Maria across the lawn! Never seen anyone stand up to Maria before. Whole flock watched with great interest. Later the two of them just passed by one another as if nothing happened.

This is the same Paprika that was raised by Maria in 21, was the young broody who raised Venka's clutch so successfully from July 22, and had left them to their own devices late August-early September. At the time of this challenge, she was fully reintegrated back into the flock and Maria was in the process of separating from her August chicks and starting to reassert her place in the flock.

Since then, Maria's behaviour has changed and I would no longer describe her as top hen, but then I'm not sure I would describe any of them as such. I think we are in a state of flux. As a single flock with multiple males, my flock is not typical of BYC flocks, but it is more natural than most since I interfere very little with them.

I am now wondering if the lack of an obvious top hen is why they are staying closer together than usual when they move from one area of the garden to another.

There is no top hen in my group now that Vanille is dead either.
It's why I think it's much more complicated than the simplified pecking order explanation. Settings and the chicken's history together can make a huge difference, and so can individual personality.
But I think an other possible explanation for the fact that they stay together is having a relatively recent hawk landing ? It doesn't necessarily make sense, but whenever we had attacks or close alerts the chickens stayed in very close group after.

Getting it in 3 is very satisfying - but I bow down to you for being able to do it in two languages!
In French do the accents create separate letters or is it just the same letter regardless of different accents?
So is è different from é, or do they both count as e?

Tax: chickens in rafters.
View attachment 3368289

The accents do not make a different letter, which would make things much harder. We have the same number of vowels as in english.
It's much more difficult for me to play in english, I don't think I will ever get down to three ! I'm good at playing scrabble in french so I know quite precisely how frequent or rare different letters and combinations are in our language. In english I have to really think about it.

Wordle tax :

 

[Perris]

It doesn't necessarily make sense, but whenever we had attacks or close alerts the chickens stayed in very close group after.

it's a bit paradoxical that there's safety in numbers, suggesting stick together, but if the alarm goes up they all scatter in different directions. I guess from the flock perspective it's deterrence in the first case and spreading the risk if deterrence fails.

Gaston has really filled out and grown into those long legs! Are you coming around to the idea that some of us have long had that actually he's quite a handsome chap?

 

[Perris]

I must owe some wordle tax too, so here's Chirk doing his best ladies' shampoo advert impression

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

57 sunny 60% humidity feels like 53 rain 0%.

Have a great day!

 

[Molpet]

Sorta tax

https://fb.watch/hU1bj9z7cC/?mibextid=NnVzG8

 

[Solanacae]

I've never seen a rooster have any influence on who is the top hen.
How top hens establish themselves in a starting group I don't know having never seen it, or read much reliable about it.
A couple of studies go by body weight; the heavier the hen the more likely she is to be top hen.
With a rooster introduced to an existing group, I believe the hen who is top when the rooster arrives stays top.
In established multi generational groups it's usually the eldest hen who is top ime, but different keeping arrangements may change this.

I have limited chicken keeping experience, but my oldest hen Fuzzy the Marans is my top hen. It’s notable to point out that she’s also one of my largest hens too. What is interesting is that she was given to me as a 2 year old bird from some friends after half of my original flock was killed by a dog. They were a year old at the time, but Fuzzy quickly established herself as top hen and brought a lot of peace in doing so. Caramel was the head hen before this but she wasn’t a great leader - always hopping the fence and wandering off. I think she’s much happier as the No. 2 hen.

 

[Sequel]

Sorta tax

https://fb.watch/hU1bj9z7cC/?mibextid=NnVzG8

That’s great!