Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[no fly zone]

About time.

I'm just here because I love chickens.

 

[fuzzi]

I'm just here because I love chickens.

And we're glad you are.

 

[Shadrach]

One and a half hours. Warmish with a persistant light drizzel.
Henry had gone to roost when I got there. I got him up and put him out with the hens after getting him to eat a little scrambled egg. He stayed out for half an hour. I moved him on gently a couple of times just to get him walking a bit. He ended up with the hens eventually under his own motivation.
I did take more pictures but I forgot to wipe the lens and adjust the settings so they came out even worse quality than those above.

That's Tull in the nest box.

 

[Perris]

Perhaps if we really pay attention, we could figure out some distinct differences between a safe chase and grab and a dangerous one. The answer might be in the hen’s behaviour/response to it

One obvious difference is the mature hens avoidance of it entirely, usually by remaining in the coop till the offending male gives up and wanders off.

I have been seeing that at breakfast since last year's cockerels started trying it on; Maria in particular waits in there till all the hullabaloo dies down, then comes and shouts at the back door to be let in for a private dining experience

Of course that doesn't work for the rest of the day, and typically I see one or other of two behaviours bringing the chase to an end: either squat and mate, usually accompanied by a shake afterwards, so she accepted him, or succeed in running to a preferred roo whereupon the chaser stops, in which case she rejected him.

I re-read Shad's Understanding your rooster article, which is always worthwhile, but it doesn't address the hen's behaviour or motivation in a chase (naturally enough, as the article is all about the roo!). Maybe you have some thoughts to add on it now @Shadrach ?

 

[MrsNorthie]

I swear, keeping chickens is like having newborn babies, I hear everything. 3:51 AM Eastern US Time, I have turkeys hatching, so I am up, re-binging A Touch of Frost, heard an awful racket coming from the main chicken coop, so shoes on, torch in one had .45 in the other, still in my jammies, (glad we don't live in a more populated area.. LOL) and off I go..

Fluff on eggs in the nest box. Sunny under one of the roosts with a freshly laid egg...all's well, she must have jumped down to lay her egg (or just dropped it from the roost, then jumped down)and set off the alarms. As soon as they heard my voice they settled back down. I checked all around to make 100% sure that there were no predators around, gave Spud a little pat and and now I am back on Turkey watch.

1 hatched around 7 PM, 3 more are pipped and I can't sleep. I was reading that turkey hens would not go broody until the spring, after they turn a year old, so when they started laying, 28 days ago, we decided that we would put some eggs in the incubator. 3 days later, the egg thief found 2 turkey ladies sitting on eggs in a nest they made in the middle of the pampas grass. This is going to be a long sleepless few days.

 

[Perris]

we had a little rain overnight, after one of the driest March on record, and I caught a large gang indulging in some mixed sex bathing: 8 hens and 3 roos having a lovely time

no wonder the garden's such a mess

 

[ChaosMom]

I’m going to have to start burying their feed. Clearly, it is preferable to excavate it:

 

[ChaosMom]

Ahhh… my super-wary little skyhawk has succumbed to the lure of Trader Joe’s raw sliced almonds:

 

[Molpet]

Fyi: They sold these chalk as Easter eggs in spring to paint. These eggs have exactly the right bantam size.

The chalk eggs that I found are ex large.
I have one in an outdoor crate that a predator found unappetizing by the tooth marks.

 

[Perris]

The chalk eggs that I found are ex large.
I have one in an outdoor crate that a predator found unappetizing by the tooth marks.

View attachment 4090239

if it was in a crate, what sort of predator had access? beak marks maybe?