Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[no fly zone]

The latest trailer for The Boys season 4 has super chickens!

 

[Shadrach]

The latest trailer for The Boys season 4 has super chickens!

I haven't finished watching season three yet.

 

[featherhead007]

The latest trailer for The Boys season 4 has super chickens!

 

[no fly zone]

I haven't finished watching season three yet.

Time to catch up then, plus watch Gen V.

 

[Shadrach]

Well, the weather people were right, it was warm today and it didn't rain.

 

[Ladies-Eight]

Ex Batts good morning one and all!

Tea is ready.

Temperature is in the 70s sunny.

Have a great day!

 

[Perris]

A day of mixed emotions here: 4 birds rehomed, 2 dispatched.

Three girls have gone to an experienced elderly couple who have been buying my surplus eggs since the autumn, and a cockerel has gone to a smallholding to take over a flock of 30 free-ranging chickens with guinea fowl, ducks, geese, sheep etc.. I hope they all adjust quickly to their new circumstances. They will be missed here for sure. But their absence will allow a couple of younger hens who go broody to raise little families of their own, which is a higher priority for me than keeping on older birds who have already enjoyed (or endured) that experience.

 

[Shadrach]

A day of mixed emotions here: 4 birds rehomed, 2 dispatched.

Three girls have gone to an experienced elderly couple who have been buying my surplus eggs since the autumn, and a cockerel has gone to a smallholding to take over a flock of 30 free-ranging chickens with guinea fowl, ducks, geese, sheep etc.. I hope they all adjust quickly to their new circumstances. They will be missed here for sure. But their absence will allow a couple of younger hens who go broody to raise little families of their own, which is a higher priority for me than keeping on older birds who have already enjoyed (or endured) that experience.

It reads like you rehomed them well. I liked to keep the elderly and sacrifice the young.
I don't know what I would have done without for example Fat Bird running the show in Tribe 1. Similar in all the tribes really. A senior hen tended to keep things more orderly and of course in my case, I got to know the hen and I could often tell a lot about the overall social health from the seniors behaviour.

 

[fluffycrow]

I liked to keep the elderly and sacrifice the young

It seems I'm doing the same here. I am not enjoying what Kolovos's son is bringing into the tribes. As he's matured, two sub-tribes have formed. All of the birds his age, plus one from the older birds roost with him, while the rest roost with Kolovos.



Unfortunately, he is not maturing as fast as I'd like him, and is dragging Kolovos down the same path. He's very rough with his matings (which are very frequent) and has messed up the feathers on all the females, but one. Kolovos still won't stop him from mating his hens; actually, when Kolovos mates one of his, his son stands next to him and pecks the female's head. This whole thing has made Kolovos way more agitated than before







I might've been more patient with Kolovos's son if I had a separate coop so the groups could properly separate, but I don't. His antics do not only agitate the hens and pullets in the main coop, but every bird on the property I might've been more patient if I didn't already have an excellent rooster, but I have one. His father. Right now the son only brings chaos

 

[Shadrach]

Right now the son only brings chaos

That's what all parents say.
With many cockerels it's a stage and they and everyone elses puts up with it until the cockerel makes a serious attempt at displacing the senior rooster.
It can be a rather long stage unfortunately and the keeper needs options and the more space one has the more options there are.
I had eight coops of various sizes spread around at one point in Catalonia and still found I was short of space with 30 or more chickens from single males to broody mums.
Predation helped. Extremely sad at times but effective population control.
Even with the space and the predators with all the hens going broody at least once a year the possible rate of growth should be obvious.
You can not let the hens hatch, that's one option.
You can limit the number of eggs in a clutch. If one knows roughly how many one loses each year, adults and chicks then one can at least attempt to keep a stable population. Free ranging one tends to lose one at a time rather than the flock slaughters one reads about with confined chickens.
Again I'm talking about free ranging on rural acres, not out in a quarter acre plot.
One can only give away so many.
Eventually one is left with having to kill some and I think one should eat what one kills whenever possible. Let the hens sit and eat what one cannot afford to keep for whatever reason.