Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[SimpleJenn]

I wonder what they would pick if I took them shopping at my local supermarket.

Mine would fill their cart with cabbage and pumpkins, the silly biscuits. And tomatoes.

I got to experience the magical sound of a rooster having a good chuckle while dirtbathing. What a happy noise it is! Of course I forgot my phone so I couldn't record it.

 

[BDutch]

I wonder what they would pick if I took them shopping at my local supermarket.

I would love to see you give it a try

Now all we have to do is persuade people not to keep chickens in cages,

You’re actually saying that many people who live in area’s with loads of predators shouldn’t keep chickens. Imo the chickens with 1 m2 coop and 2.5 m2 run space do have a much better life than the chickens in factory farming. Therefore I won’t discourage to keep chickens in confinement 24/7 in a spacious setup.

And even if chickens live in a confined space, you can offer them fresh greenery, compost, etc. to be able to peck and scratch. With HWC or strong netting on top people can try to make the soil fertile enough for worms and other soil life. Chicken poop and so called browns make very fertile soil.

. They contain a good amount of protein, all the electrolyte minerals (calcium, sodium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus) plus some iron, zinc and manganese, plus B vitamins, and the whole suite of essential amino acids.

I agree wild fish is preferred above fish in containers. I always look for the MsC label and gladly pay a euro more for it.

I honestly don’t think chickens need fish when they have good organic chicken feed +free range 1-2 hours daily.

NG studies

?

But, we are told that we should be reducing fat and sugar in our diet if we wish to remain healthy.

Children in general and everyone who has a good weight or has overweight. The no sugar and fat advice is not for people who are very thin.

 

[Perris]

?

NG stands for nutritional geometry. See e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-40039-w

 

[BDutch]

I too have observed the pattern of early morning and last thing in evening foraging. But it puzzles me, because for predators like foxes, those are also peak times.
I was devastated when I lost my first chicken to a fox and an elderly guy who happened to see the fox running past him in the woods with the chicken came and explained to me that I should lock my chickens up before dusk because dusk was peak fox snatching time.
Because it also happens to be peak chicken foraging time, whenever I can, I sit outside at dusk to guard them until they go in. I don't manage that every day by any means, but it is noticeable how active they are digging stuff up and eating in the last 30 mins of daylight.

We have foxes here too. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t free range from dawn till dusk.

I have 2 coops with a large net covered run that connects them. When I want them to go inside I give my chickens a few handfuls with mixed grains (scratch) to fill their crops before the end of the day in a safe way.
In the morning they stay inside the coops/run too. They can eat the commercial chick feed and scratch a little in the run.

 

[Shadrach]

Yes it is confusing, but it is important not to overgeneralize and throw out the baby with the bathwater. Sugar is the fuel for every cell in your body; you need it. So do your chickens.

Digestion converts carbohydrates into sugar (monosaccarides, e.g. glucose, fructose (fruit sugar)), in which form it is absorbed by the gut and travels in the bloodstream to all parts. Glucose is the main product of photosynthesis, and is the main fuel for all lifeforms. So sugar per se is not a bad thing.

High-fructose corn syrup is a sucrose substitute widely used in processed foods and drinks, and the finger is pointing in its direction as the smoking gun of the obesity epidemic.

I'm constantly amazed by what gets put into our food. I'm one of those really annoying label readers that block the way for the rush to get home and throw a pizza in the oven people. I eat some of it, trying to at least pay attention to the traffic light ranking system in place on many products. Some witty nutritionist said don't buy anything with more than five ingedients. I wouldn't want to go to their house for dinner, a bit of salt and pepper on the food and some oil to cook it in and you're only left with two ingredients!

There's a whole list of suspects, corn syrup, sunflower oil, etc etc. Some of the trans fats have been banned; I read somewhere they have been replaced by equally undesirable chemicals.

 

[Perris]

I'm constantly amazed by what gets put into our food.

Try looking at what goes into chicken feed. There's a reason I don't use it.

 

[Shadrach]

During my undergraduate degree, I studied colonial art in Oceania, which evolved into a focus on dogs in Gauguin's paintings.

His Tahitian dogs tended to be the same body style: mid-sized, slender, short-haired, with semi-erect ears and almond eyes, brown or black in color.

I remember unearthing several journal articles deep in the library regarding the natural progression of mixed-breed dogs to return to the body type painted by Gauguin. If you've gone to a shelter to adopt a dog, or been places with unchecked populations of stray dogs, you've seen plenty like it.

Arearea, 1892
View attachment 3971638

Given more time to shed traits provided by colonists' European breeds, there is a theory that dogs eventually shift towards prick ears, mid-length hair, a curlier tail set, like a coyote/Carolina dog/basenji/dingo/New Guinea singing dog/Telomian/Norwegian Lundehund...pick your continent. Besides physical traits, they bark less and only go into heat once a year.

This Wikipedia article on the Indian pariah dog covers some of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_pariah_dog

Anyway, not chickens but seemed relevant. I'll dig up some tax shortly.

It's encouraging how quickly the chickens in Catalonia shape at least, got closer and closer to a median value. Another ten years of watching might have supplied a partial knowledge. My impression was it wasn't just the looks. Their shape and upbringing made changes to their abilities and that influnced their behaviour.
Sylph and Tull are fliers. They can both do a metre and a half off the ground for about 4 seconds. Yes they are pullets and have lots of energy to burn but weighing less makes them more agile than their parents. I'm not sure what has made them unusually trusting of me, I was happy to see the other day when another human came to the field, they ran for cover so it's not a lack of caution in general.

I read some of the Landrace breeding threads. There's some interesting stuff and some knowlegeable comment. What I don't understand is one can't help come to the conclusion that to establish a land race of chickens (feral essentially) the best thing to do is let nature sort the breeding out.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

I wonder what they would pick if I took them shopping at my local supermarket.

This is an easy one. After they pile the cart high with corn on the cob and cartons of blueberries...

• Gentle giant Andre would timidly toss in a packet of cucumbers for himself.
• Stilton would choose one of every variety of pear, then shuffle everybirdy along before the produce manager noticed beak marks in all the peaches.
• They'd make a brief stop at the meat aisle for a moment of silence for the fallen.
• Lil Nugs and Eula would agree to split the cost of a gallon of raw milk (they seldom have milk, but when they do, I have to watch that those 2 don't overdo it).
• Bebe and Merle would be delighted to find a 2-for-1 deal on bags of yellow locust leaves, only to be disappointed when they realized they were potato chips.
• Plumb would snack on a bag of flax seeds on the way to the register.

Unfortunately, they'd have to put everything back when the cashier wouldn't take a chick.

Har-dee har har.

 

[RoyalChick]

This is an easy one. After they pile the cart high with corn on the cob and cartons of blueberries...

• Gentle giant Andre would timidly toss in a packet of cucumbers for himself.
• Stilton would choose one of every variety of pear, then shuffle everybirdy along before the produce manager noticed beak marks in all the peaches.
• They'd make a brief stop at the meat aisle for a moment of silence for the fallen.
• Lil Nugs and Eula would agree to split the cost of a gallon of raw milk (they seldom have milk, but when they do, I have to watch that those 2 don't overdo it).
• Bebe and Merle would be delighted to find a 2-for-1 deal on bags of yellow locust leaves, only to be disappointed when they realized they were potato chips.
• Plumb would snack on a bag of flax seeds on the way to the register.

Unfortunately, they'd have to put everything back when the cashier wouldn't take a chick.

Har-dee har har.

Wouldn’t they stick up on cheese? Mine would definitely include that.

Tax: after 24 hours I think it is fair to say the chickens have defeated poor Mr Pumpkin-head.

 

[Shadrach]

Try looking at what goes into chicken feed. There's a reason I don't use it.

I have. I've even seen it made, right down to spraying the dust with spray guns with the additives in before it gets fed into the pellet making machine.
A major animal feed maker was over the next mountain in Catalonia and for a while I bought feed from them. A much smaller concern opened up in a nearby village and their feed was of noticable better quality, more expensive of course. I saw the place my uncle used to get his feed from in the 1960s. What I remember most was the dust.

My main concern and one of the reasons I'm reluctant to feed it to the chickens is the fats used in the pellet. The types of fat used in the better feeds is apparently what encourages the chicken to eat more than it should. There are plenty of stories of producers spraying the dust with recycled cooking fat on the other hand.
I'm less concerend that they process much of the nurients out of the raw product and then add a lab version into the pellet later. As long as the chemical is in there is what's most important.