Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[fluffycrow]

I don’t think so. If they realise their eggs are infertile, the hens would not try to hatch them.

I’m not sure that’s true. If that were the case, then we wouldn’t have many people on this thread and on BYC in general reporting that their broodies removed and/or ate the unfertilised eggs in the nest.

Females, hens in particular, are very aware of what’s going on with their eggs. My (rather unscientific) conclusion is that they do know that their eggs are infertile (since they’re also aware that they’ve never mated with a male), but choose to ignore it because their hormones are calling them to express this behaviour

 

[SimpleJenn]

And then you have born and bred broodies, silkie hens. Those poor dears will sit on nothing and lose condition to a dangerous degree. I was constantly fighting with mine. Once they hatched, they did an excellent job co-mothering and went broody again almost immediately after weaning their chicks.
Now that I have more knowledge, if any of my birds go broody I will try for longer to gently discourage her before resorting to "broody jail"

 

[Perris]

and we do indeed have lift off

 

[Sally PB]

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.

Very interesting!

 

[Molpet]

this prompts me to post on something I've been thinking about for a while. It might not make much sense to those without roos, those whose birds are confined, or those whose birds are young, but I think it's worth floating anyway.

So, it concerns chasing and grabbing to mate (often described by novice keepers on byc in what seem to me to be silly inappropriate human terms like rape). There's a lot of it here. And yet, there are very few bare patches on hens, and no wounds to the head area or comb, or for that matter on their backs or sides where roos' spurs apparently can cause injury (though I haven't seen it here).

I am not calling into question other people's testimonies or suggesting that these things don't happen. A few hens here have had bare spots on their heads where overenthusiastic roos have yanked out feathers, and bare spots on their backs from more attention than their plumage can cope with.

But what I now believe, on the basis of watching a lot of this sort of behaviour, in an environment where all birds run free, is that the chase in chickens is like the chase in a lot of species' mating behaviour; the hen is testing the roo's fitness to sire any chicks she may have. And if he can catch her, maybe after the good run/ workout she put him through, he has less energy to expend on harmful and potentially damaging behaviour like aggressive head pecking. Just a thought.

Cockerels here will hang out by a nest box when the rooster is with the rest of the hens 140 ft up the hill. He will try to grab her as she comes out and have his way before the rooster can get there.
Sometimes a bunch of cockerels will get the lowest hen and repeatedly take turns. I found half a DZ holding down a hen that wasn't laying last year. It makes it easier to harvest the cockerels when they are not paying attention and I am mad at them.

I have had an unwilling hen that I put with a rooster I wanted chicks from, expell the rooster's donation... she looked at me with a smug look on her face when she expelled it .
I decided to let her choose after that. BTW no hen was willing with that rooster. So rather than have everyone running from him, he was invited to dinner.

I’m not sure that’s true. If that were the case, then we wouldn’t have many people on this thread and on BYC in general reporting that their broodies removed and/or ate the unfertilised eggs in the nest.

Females, hens in particular, are very aware of what’s going on with their eggs. My (rather unscientific) conclusion is that they do know that their eggs are infertile (since they’re also aware that they’ve never mated with a male), but choose to ignore it because their hormones are calling them to express this behaviour

I think the eggs that are removed are starting to go bad and the hens can smell it.
Mine will brood on golf balls and fake eggs

 

[Perris]

Cockerels here will hang out by a nest box when the rooster is with the rest of the hens 140 ft up the hill. He will try to grab her as she comes out and have his way before the rooster can get there.
Sometimes a bunch of cockerels will get the lowest hen and repeatedly take turns. I found half a DZ holding down a hen

similar here, except it's males per se waiting by coops, and often the dom isn't involved in any way. As it happens I snapped this the other day - when I went to get the camera there were roos either side of each pop door, by the time I got it out the dom and one of his (mature) sons were having a strut and flap (which didn't amount to anything), but left the two youngest waiting to pounce on a layer should they exit the coops then

I also see multiple males on or around a female, but still they are not injured by it, or even apparently bothered by it in fact. They just shake themselves as per normal when the males have finished, and get on with their day. We humans seem to get much more exercised by this behaviour than the hens do.

Mine will brood on golf balls and fake eggs

ditto.

 

[Molpet]

I also see multiple males on or around a female, but still they are not injured by it, or even apparently bothered by it in fact. They just shake themselves as per normal when the males have finished, and get on with their day. We humans seem to get much more exercised by this behavior than the hens do.

Mine have been injured. 2 were dead. one had what appeared to be a broken neck. The cockerel had a horrified look on his face and was much gentler after that.
The other dead one had a big gash on her side under the wing and a different cockerel continued to mate her corpse.
After all this drama I tried a bachelor grow out. But the boy on the bottom didn't fair too well either.

 

[townchicks]

I have only had one hen go broody, my mottled Java Mary Shelley. She would go broody 2 to 3 times every summer. I did put her in broody jail, as I don't have a roo, and she would sometimes take a week or more to break. I did try just locking her out of the coop, that never worked. I felt bad for her, and wished I could put some fertile eggs under her, as I felt she would be a great mom. One of my sweetest hens. I just didn't know what I would do with the boys. I don't have it in me to eat them, and homes are very hard to find here, nobody in town can have roosters, and too many folks end up with them, so the market is saturated with people looking for "pet" homes for their little babies. I just couldn't do it. Old pic of Nevada and Shelley finding something interesting in the garden. Both are gone now.

 

[no fly zone]

Somehow i got the byc friend award

 

[notabitail]

Somehow i got the byc friend award

Congratulations!