Théo and the chickens des Sauches

[BDutch]

only that phone manufacturers will have to guarantee a five years update.

Not the current phones. From 2025 in the EU .

Supposedly the complete loss of any orientation will make her want to look around and dig and forget she is broody . I may just give it a try with Chipie but I'm a bit worried the result would be that she panics and flies off to nowhere !
I've tried locking her up.

I suppose a new environment where a broody chicken feels insecure or uncomfortable is a way to break her. The playhouse seems to work for my broodies.
Locking Chipie up in another shed/ room without access to the coop might break her. I would give it a try.

Lilly looks very bad but it began before she melted,

Did Lilly turn into an ice-cream or an ice-berg after a spell ?

If so, what kind of ice did she turn into?

 

[Shadrach]

Some hens obviously don’t want to eat layer feed if they moult. But could you make any other conclusions from all the entries?

Not really. All the poll shows is that a proportion of hens do get feed fussy during moult. To make the issue clearer one would want to know what exactly it is that they do eat and I have tried to observe and record this a few times now with much luck.

 

[ManueB]

My guess is it will be short lived, and Gaston will resume his place as soon as the worst of his moult (from a whole body metabolic perspective, never mind the feathers) is over.

I very much hope so, because Théo as dominant rooster would not be pleasant for the hens. Although for the time being he is so obsessed with Merle that he doesn't bother the other hens at all.

Laure is demonstrating perfectly how much body mass can change with the moult, as well as just general appearance and shape change.

Yes, but ... I'm not sure to what point her implant induced molt is totally similar to a natural molt. It's only triggered by the hormones, not by decrease of light, or state of feathers, or all the other possible factors.

I'm not sure if it was on this thread or on another that I explained what happened with our first sick hen, Vanille. We knew so little at the time that I followed bad advice given on french websites to put her in a crate in the dark so she could rest. It wouldn't have done harm for a day or two, but we kept her in semi darkness for two weeks and the result was that as soon as she got better she went on a horrible hard molt. She was the only of my ex-batt who molted before two. Is artificially induced molting similar in process and complexity to a natural molt ?

Did Lilly turn into an ice-cream or an ice-berg after a spell ?

If so, what kind of ice did she turn into?

Automatic corrector, another of smartphone's issue ! My phone just doesn't want to hear about molt. It will make a chicken bolt, most, melt, colt, but not molt.

We were supposed to get a storm today but it stayed on the other side of the valley. That's too bad, it's getting very dry and no rain is forecasted for the next ten days. I hope they are wrong!

I had a bad surprise yesterday. After Lilly had surgery in November for an abscess on top of her foot it had remained slightly swollen. The vet wasn't sure if it was just the scar or if there was still something inside. She said she could either open it again, or we could monitor it. Since Lilly had had already two surgeries in three months I really did not want her to have one again that wasn't 100% necessary. Her foot had been fine up to now, but yesterday I saw it's gotten more swollen and it feels hard to touch. I'm going to start giving her warm baths again and use the drawing salve I got wrapped in gauze and vet wraps. Hopefully that will be enough. I bought a small scalpel in January when I thought maybe she would need to have the swelling opened again, so if it doesn't get better I have the option of doing it at home.
When I gave her a footsie bath yesterday I realised that she is covered all over in both new pin feathers and old broken ones- she feels like a porcupine ! I'm afraid it will be very uncomfortable holding her, especially as I'm alone at home this week.

I'm so sorry for these four hens we bought. They just keep having health issues. Though I must say Lilly doesn't seem bothered at all. She runs around all day digging happily and trying to catch flies .

On another subject, I'm questioning myself about how I feed the chickens. Up to now I've been giving them a choice between fermented grains with peas, dry grains, dry layer feed, and a mash made of starter feed. Ideally I would like to stop giving them the starter mash because it's not organic and it has additives in it that I'm not confortable with. But it's what most of my chickens prefer. They don't really like the layer feed and they only eat the solid parts. A few of my chickens, like the roosters, Annette, and Chipie, much prefer the grains, either dry or fermented. But most of them are not so keen on them. Last week they were all shunning the fermented grains. I didn't give any for two days and they began eating it again. But that makes me hesitate to suppress the starter mash as it's the only thing they seem to eat quite consistently.
Maybe I could do it gradually and start by trying to give them progressively less.
I would also like to find a way to give them something like meat. Up to last year our elderly neighbour gave us left overs for the chickens. But now he is too old and careless with food that we don't dare give it to the chickens - for all we know the meat could have been left for ten days not in the fridge. We don't eat meat and we can't really buy some easily on a regular basis. I need to find another neighbour who has left overs .


We were given another wonderful book ! It's made by the local ecomuseum, about old varieties of fruits that grow here, and the local history of fruit tree growing and orchards. It's really cool to read because they have interviewed all the old people we know from around here, like our elderly neighbour with the spoiled meat, or the neighbour who taught my partner to graft, and also we can identify all the fruits species that have been planted in our garden, like the "daluissoune" , a sweet fat red apple... and recognise some old tools that we didn't know the use of.

The bees are still working but there are not many flowers left other than the ones we planted.

Perfect camouflage.

You really thought you would loose me at the other end of the property, hooman ? I obviously have a better sense of orientation than you do.

Lilly

 

[Perris]

Is artificially induced molting similar in process and complexity to a natural molt ?

Jenni and Winkler think there are enough differences to be cautious about results achieved through forced moult.

Her foot had been fine up to now, but yesterday I saw it's gotten more swollen and it feels hard to touch

When I gave her a footsie bath yesterday I realised that she is covered all over in both new pin feathers and old broken ones- she feels like a porcupine ! I'm afraid it will be very uncomfortable holding her,

You might want to consider whether the treatment is worse than the condition, from the hen's point of view. My guess would be the discomfort and potential damage from handling is worse than whatever pain she gets from the foot; given it's gone on a long time already, can't that wait just a bit longer till her moult's mostly over?

We were given another wonderful book ! It's made by the local ecomuseum, about old varieties of fruits that grow here, and the local history of fruit tree growing and orchards.

It sounds wonderful indeed.

 

[Molpet]

elderly neighbour with the spoiled meat

I have rolling boiled for 5 minutes to kill bacteria on questionable food when that was all I had.
https://chefsvisionknives.com/blogs... Does It Take,Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius).

 

[BDutch]

Automatic corrector, another of smartphone's issue ! My phone just doesn't want to hear about molt. It will make a chicken bolt, most, melt, colt, but not molt.

Maybe you should try moult and moulting. Apple autocorrect and Google translate both say moult is the right spelling.

 

[BDutch]

You might want to consider whether the treatment is worse than the condition, from the hen's point of view. My guess would be the discomfort and potential damage from handling is worse than whatever pain she gets from the foot; given it's gone on a long time already, can't that wait just a bit longer till her moult's mostly over?

Good point. It crossed my mind too.

 

[BDutch]

I would also like to find a way to give them something like meat. .

I don’t give meat to my chickens. We don’t/rarely eat meat so leftovers are not in the chickens diet. They get a complete chicken feed (chick or layer) with only dried mealworm as animal protein. Its sort of balanced for chickens without any meat.

Chickens can be fed vegan as wel as humans can eat vegan with a few mineral supplements for a healthy diet.

On top of that , free ranging gives the chickens the opportunity to eat insects and some small animals like frogs now and then. I wouldn’t worry about giving animal proteins.

 

[ManueB]

You might want to consider whether the treatment is worse than the condition, from the hen's point of view. My guess would be the discomfort and potential damage from handling is worse than whatever pain she gets from the foot; given it's gone on a long time already, can't that wait just a bit longer till her moult's mostly over?

The swelling had gotten much worse than it was, and my main concern is that I want to avoid her having surgery again. I'm thinking it needs to be tended to without waiting. And since she keeps plucking her feathers out, growing them back will take a long time.

My guess is that with four hands, we will be able to tend to her foot without actually holding her, just maintaining her standing up. My partner needs to drop by tomorrow evening to filter the grapes they ordered from Italy in the tank. Hopefully we can change her wrapping together then and I will see how it goes.

It sounds wonderful indeed.

Just like you said about the book on birds moulting- it helped us understand so many things we saw but only had hypothesis for.
One thing really interesting was the comparison between old varieties of trees and recent commercial ones. The older people said old varieties took longer to grow, longer to produce fruit, and did not yield fruits every year ; but once they did, the trees lived much longer, produced fruits forever, and the fruits had more different tastes. Recent commercial varieties grow faster, produce bigger fruits, are more sensitive to climate, and die much quicker.
A bit like chickens ?

Maybe you should try moult and moulting. Apple autocorrect and Google translate both say moult is the right spelling.

Oh . Thank you for pointing that out !! Seems my phone is smarter than me !

I don’t give meat to my chickens. We don’t/rarely eat meat so leftovers are not in the chickens diet. They get a complete chicken feed (chick or layer) with only dried mealworm as animal protein. Its sort of balanced for chickens without any meat.

Chickens can be fed vegan as wel as humans can eat vegan with a few mineral supplements for a healthy diet.

On top of that , free ranging gives the chickens the opportunity to eat insects and some small animals like frogs now and then. I wouldn’t worry about giving animal proteins.

I'll begin by saying that if it works for you and your chickens, as it obviously does since they have twice the lifespans of mine, it's great, and dont change it ! No fixing something that isn't broken.
But I disagree with almost all of it, at least for my chickens, and their specific situation.
What we call a complete diet for animals, deserves that name only because of the additives.
Here are the lists of additives from the organic layer feed I give and secondly from the conventional starter feed.
I would be interested, by the way, to know if they are similar to those in your organic layer feed.

I don't have anything against most of these additives. Vitamins and oligo-elements ? Nothing wrong, but just like for humans, I believe it is better when you get them from real food rather than supplemented.
Digestive enhancers ? These are enzymes and looking at their roles in poultry food, their aim is exactly what soaking and fermenting grains does : 1. Reduce the effect of anti-nutritional in cereals and legumes 2. Promote the development of good bacterias and microbes in the gut.
Aromas ? I don't see why the layer feed should taste like grape, unless to make it more palatable to the chickens ? Suspicious, but not dangerous.
Now if you look at the additives in the starter feed, you will also find hydroxy analogue of methionin, that is, a chemical alternative to synthetic methionin.
That is how the starter feed reaches 19.8% protein. Not by the list of it's ingredients. It's not dangerous as far as I can tell reading the safety reports.
But.. the starter's high protein content is one of the main reason I give it to my chickens - to raise the global amount of protein they are getting, since the grains have less. I began introducing the starter mash as a choice in their regular daily feed when I saw how keen they were to steal it from the chicks last summer (though the chicks didn't eat it !) So basically this means I'm supplementing them with synthetic methionin, which isn't something I'm comfortable with. I'd much rather give them real food.

Sure, I agree free ranging chickens will find animal proteins on their own! Yours get frogs. Mine don't, it's too dry here, but they get the occasional mouse (or more often the organs left over by the cats ), sometimes lizard, lots of insects, bugs. But that's from March to the beginning of November. From november to the end of february there's really not much alive to be foraged once it freezes. That is when I think it would be important to give them more animal food.

My flock is diverse. I have four hens who lay nearly every day, five hens who lay two to five eggs a week (two daily then go broody, two who lay all year round), three hens who dont lay at all or less than 30 eggs a year, and two roosters. My smallest hen weighs 800 grams and my heaviest 3kg7. Their nutritional needs are not identical. If I were to give them only organic layer feed, almost half the flock would have a "complete food" not suited to their needs.

My chickens have always had animal proteins on a regular basis, sometimes more often, sometimes less. I give them scrambled egg at least once a week, usually more, and sardines at least once every other week. They used to have meat from our old neighbour once every other week.
They love meat. They go bonkers from it, even more than the eggs and the sardines. Could they do without? Yes, sure. But I think giving them meat once in a while in those months where they won't find animal protein on their own would be good for them.

Humans going vegan is a completely different subject in my view. It's a conscious choice, for one thing. The only vitamin that is absolutely necessary to supplement in a vegan diet is B12. I'm still quite sure vegans who have a diet based on a lot of different whole, real foods, will fare better than those who eat junk or refined foods only and get tons of so called health supplements.
And I wonder how a vegan human- or how any human for that matter- would fare if eating only, or mostly, the equivalent of what we call a "complete food" for our animals.

With all that said, I haven't noticed any real conclusive long term change in my chicken's health when I changed their food. My ex-batts did not live long but I came to believe they did need some commercial layer feed. I don't have proof of that. We will see if the chickens I have now do better.

 

[BDutch]

I'll begin by saying that if it works for you and your chickens, as it obviously does since they have twice the lifespans of mine, it's great, and dont change it ! No fixing something that isn't broken.
But I disagree with almost all of it, at least for my chickens, and their specific situation.
What we call a complete diet for animals, deserves that name only because of the additives.
Here are the lists of additives from the organic layer feed I give and secondly from the conventional starter feed.
I would be interested, by the way, to know if they are similar to those in your organic layer feed.

Online info AR https://www.arwebshop.nl/bio-legkor...MI28jpqcPMiAMVsKmDBx2Xvi_iEAAYASAAEgIrmfD_BwE:

Gegarandeerde voederwaarde/values

Berekende gehalten *
Ruw eiwit (g/kg) /proteine	170 g/kg
Ruw vet (g/kg) / fat	59 g/kg
Ruwe celstof (g/kg) / fibers	60 g/kg
Ruw as (g/kg)/ ashes	126 g/kg
Lysine (g/kg)	8 g/kg
Methionine (g/kg)	2.8 g/kg

Mineralen en sporenelementen *
Calcium (g/kg)	37.5 g/kg
Fosfor (g/kg)	5.6 g/kg
Natrium (g/kg)	1.5 g/kg

Toegevoegde vitaminen *

* Zie afleverbon/productlabel voor de juiste gehalten

View attachment 3946373

I will look if I can find a label of the AR feed I have nowadays later.

I
Digestive enhancers ? These are enzymes and looking at their roles in poultry food, their aim is exactly what soaking and fermenting grains does : 1. Reduce the effect of anti-nutritional in cereals and legumes 2. Promote the development of good bacterias and microbes in the gut.

I often give some soaked feed as a treat. Especially Ini mini and the juveniles love the soaked chick crumble.

Because layer is not good for the youngsters and all who lay few or no eggs I give mostly chick crumble. I fill up one little bowl with layer pellets each day.

In other situations or other times of the year I change their diet to more layer and less chick feed. Or no layer at all.

Sure, I agree free ranging chickens will find animal proteins on their own! Yours get frogs. Mine don't, it's too dry here, but they get the occasional mouse (or more often the organs left over by the cats ), sometimes lizard, lots of insects, bugs. But that's from March to the beginning of November. From november to the end of february there's really not much alive to be foraged once it freezes. That is when I think it would be important to give them more animal food.

In winter I give them more mealworms.

My flock is diverse.

Mine too. 3 juveniles, 3 oldies, 3 younger layers who stop laying sometime in autumn until next spring.
All under 1 kg.

My chickens have always had animal proteins on a regular basis, sometimes more often, sometimes less. I give them scrambled egg at least once a week, usually more, and sardines at least once every other week. They used to have meat from our old neighbour once every other week.
They love meat. They go bonkers from it, even more than the eggs and the sardines. Could they do without? Yes, sure. But I think giving them meat once in a while in those months where they won't find animal protein on their own would be good for them.

Humans going vegan is a completely different subject in my view. It's a conscious choice, for one thing. The only vitamin that is absolutely necessary to supplement in a vegan diet is B12. I'm still quite sure vegans who have a diet based on a lot of different whole, real foods, will fare better than those who eat junk or refined foods only and get tons of so called health supplements.
And I wonder how a vegan human- or how any human for that matter- would fare if eating only, or mostly, the equivalent of what we call a "complete food" for our animals.

With all that said, I haven't noticed any real conclusive long term change in my chicken's health when I changed their food. My ex-batts did not live long but I came to believe they did need some commercial layer feed. I don't have proof of that. We will see if the chickens I have now do better.

My chickens get scraps (food waste) too. If they are lucky they get some animal proteins like cheese crust or fish. But they also love boiled rice, spaghetti , bread, green beans, fruit and much more. If we have much food/leftovers we don’t want to eat ourselves anymore, I portion it over a few days.
We don’t eat salty and prepare most food from fresh ingredients. Only the cheese is probably too salty (limited).

They also get clipped grass if I can’t let them free range, for real fresh vitamins. They love these clippings too.

The first few years I had chickens I worried a lot about the chicken feed. Wanted to do it right. But Im more relaxed now. I do keep in mind that the animal feed factories make feed to supply optimised cheap/ nutritious feed for the chicken-industry and organic famers. Not for hobbyists.
I trust my chickens to choose what is good for them as long as its not delicious. I know they cant resist yummie food like grapes this time of the year (diarrhoea). So I try to limit that a bit. And mealworms are too expensive anyway.

Im not vegan, not real vegetarian either. Don’t like the idea that animals (especially mammals and poultry) have an awful life and get killed for food we don't need.

And I hate factory farming not only bc of the animal abuse but also for polluting the world with the import of lots of poisoned GMO feed. Our drinking water gets polluted too because of all the animal poo the farmers dump on the land. It’s soo wrong.