Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Molpet]

I hatch for the freezer so most of the time I don't break them. But the few times I tried to move a chicken hen with her eggs into a " better" spot, she broke

 

[SimpleJenn]

Is that his new name, "Booger"?

Might be, he definitely outgrew "Slowpoke!"

 

[BDutch]

For those of you who have years of observing chickens - and believe in the importance of letting chickens be chickens - what do you think about broody hens in all-hen flocks? I realize that all-hen flocks are unnatural, but it’s what many of us have.

I have hen flock with an occasional young cockerel now and then. Letting a broody sit for 3+ weeks without any chance to chicks to hatch must be harder than take away the eggs and make her, to go on with live imo.

Maybe bc I think as a human I really think this is for the better. Not just for me bc of getting eggs again. But for the hen in question too.

If I compare it with a woman being pregnant I know, partly from experience, that an early miscarriage (say 8-12 weeks) is easier to coop with than a late one (16 -20 weeks) . They both lead to no outcome. So from that point of view I suppose (not know) its easier for a hen to break her asap.

 

[Shadrach]

When I see Henry like that, I just want to gently cover him with a light blanket and let him snooze on my lap in the sun.

Which is the last thing he could bear to put up with, of course, and rightfully so.

But it’s what I did with my 18-year-old cat toward the end, so I guess it’s my default comfort offering.

One just doesn't know how to demonstrate to a chicken that one cares. Worse still is my chicken keeping friend in the next county knows of keepers who will no longer take their birds to the vet for fear of them having some infectious disease and having the vet report the case, which I understand they are obliged to do and conseqently having the birds destroyed.

Two health practices that have largely been farmed out to the private sector in the UK are dentistry and vet care. Even the large commercial concerns that used to be inspected and treated by a council livestock dept are using private contractors.
My eldest needed a filling in one of her teeth. The dentist quoted her £700.00! They're taking the piss and so are the vets.
The dentist I used in Spain charged me three hundred euros for a full lower denture.

 

[RoyalChick]

One just doesn't know how to demonstrate to a chicken that one cares. Worse still is my chicken keeping friend in the next county knows of keepers who will no longer take their birds to the vet for fear of them having some infectious disease and having the vet report the case, which I understand they are obliged to do and conseqently having the birds destroyed.

Two health practices that have largely been farmed out to the private sector in the UK are dentistry and vet care. Even the large commercial concerns that used to be inspected and treated by a council livestock dept are using private contractors.
My eldest needed a filling in one of her teeth. The dentist quoted her £700.00! They're taking the piss and so are the vets.
The dentist I used in Spain charged me three hundred euros for a full lower denture.

Sounds like highway robbery rather than taking the piss (unless he said just joking only £20).

Chicken Tax.

 

[Shadrach]

For those of you who have years of observing chickens - and believe in the importance of letting chickens be chickens - what do you think about broody hens in all-hen flocks? I realize that all-hen flocks are unnatural, but it’s what many of us have.

Is there any benefit to the hen in letting her sit on golf balls or whatever for three weeks? I understand that there is an instinct, an imperative to do so, but is it beneficial to her overall physical and mental health? And is “breaking” the broody therefore harmful to some degree?

I know that broodies can be disruptive to the flock, in terms of hogging the favorite nest box, growling, etc.

Also, I realize that they’re not laying eggs during this time, but I’m asking from the hen side, not the human.


Edit: aaaand of course, I just now found Wild Iris’s thread in the Chicken Behaviors subforum. So I see that broody spells do involve living off stored fat to some degree.

So what happens with wild hens who go broody and for whatever reason, aren’t on fertilized eggs?

Having never kept a single sex group I don't know if broodiness takes on other aspects not dominate in mixed sex groups. Suppose the hens in a single sex group realise that half their species is missing and their genes dead end with their life. There's a thought for the it's just a dumb bird believers to roll around laughing about.

I've never had to use a broody breaker cage (what a terrible expression that is) although I did confine Fat Bird to the house for three days once when she wouldn't take the hints. Given she spent a lot of time in the house anyway, got a lot of fuss and attention, not to mention no competition over the regular meals she was fine. When it was over I opened the door and off she went with the tribe on their next visit.

I'm sure part of successful stress free broody management is to see it coming as early as possible. It gives one a bit of time to decide whether to let the hen sit and hatch, or sit until their egg laying cycle switches off and then deal with the broodiness. With the tribes I mostly let them sit for three days and when they next got off the nest, I raided the nest, took the eggs, made the nest a mess as if a predator had got in, even broke an egg or two at the nest to drive the point home. Some sat for a few hours on the bare nest, I usually put them on a roost bar in their tribes coop at night and that would be it, other took a look at the nest and gave up for a while.

 

[Shadrach]

I guess, in light of the other thread (plus other posts, which I just didn't put together in my head), my concern is that they appear to be under-eating while broody. It doesn't kill them then and there, but it might affect them long-term. Similarly to humans who are malnourished at varying points in their life due to lack of food or terrible eating habits whose lives are weakened or shortened.

Maybe, as with your example of a breeding pair of wild birds, just don't let them have eggs (or golf balls) to sit on in hopes that the lack of stimulus will trigger a change in hormones.

(note that I am dreaming up things to ponder that won't happen for another 6-8 months at the earliest when I'm supposed to be studying for my conservation biology exam tomorrow)

Bear in mind that not only are they expending less energy, they are also not laying eggs and the egg laying accounts for between one third and one half of their nutrient intake. If a hen eats say 120 grams of food a day while she's laying eggs then when she boody she needs less than 60 grams to miantain herself.

 

[RoyalChick]

Bear in mind that not only are they expending less energy, they are also not laying eggs and the egg laying accounts for between one third and one half of their nutrient intake. If a hen eats say 120 grams of food a day while she's laying eggs then when she boody she needs less than 60 grams to miantain herself.

I weighed Tassels last year and she lost a bit more than 10% of her body weight before I decided to call it a day.
I suspect that is not unusual, but she was starting not to eat even when I pulled her off the nest so I got concerned.
Right now she is definitely eating when I take her off the nest but I will have to deploy the dreaded broody cage because I am going on a trip and I worry my chicken sitter won’t make the right call on when to force her to give up.
I really hate putting her in the cage. Objectively though she has twice the space as in the nest box and she definitely eats more in the cage.
I will still take her out for her daily runaround.

 

[fuzzi]

Bear in mind that not only are they expending less energy, they are also not laying eggs and the egg laying accounts for between one third and one half of their nutrient intake. If a hen eats say 120 grams of food a day while she's laying eggs then when she boody she needs less than 60 grams to miantain herself.

Oh. That hadn't occurred to me.

Thank you.

 

[ChaosMom]

Chicken Tax.
View attachment 4088596

For a moment, I truly thought that they were perched on a solar panel array.