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the local battery farm liberation group won't let me join their hen-saving team because i'm not a vegan and cannot commit long term to the vegan lifestyle  hopefully they'll let me have a few ex-batts when i finally get a chook-friendly yard, if i can convince them that my craving for flesh is manageable and won't put the chickens in danger
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May 22, 2019 22:41
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Wow, what a bunch of self-righteous assholes. I'm sorry nankeen, I'm sure you'll find another place to save ex-batts from if they reject you. Edit: Wait, if they are vegan, then they are not only afraid that you crave your chicken's flesh, but their eggs too? Oh boy...
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May 22, 2019 22:59
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nankeen posted:the local battery farm liberation group won't let me join their hen-saving team because i'm not a vegan and cannot commit long term to the vegan lifestyle What?! That’s asinine.
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May 22, 2019 23:17
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Vegans being smug and self righteous? I nevah
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May 22, 2019 23:47
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tbh our government has swung so right that liberating chooks from our proud aussie battlers is now considered an act of war, i don't blame the liberators for needing solidarity from their team mates, i just hope they'll let me give some chooks a happy home
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May 22, 2019 23:51
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in short if you save chooks from battery farms you're a hero to me even if you're a militant vegan! now that i've had a bit of experience with various species of domestic poultry i'm going to start harassing scientists and conservationists so i can get into restricted native groundbirds, starting with the brush turkey, which seems in temperament and upkeep more or less like a guinea fowl, and looks like this: 
nankeen fucked around with this message at 10:33 on May 23, 2019 |
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May 23, 2019 10:30
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So just tell them you're vegan? gently caress them.
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May 23, 2019 17:05
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Ghostnuke posted:So just tell them you're vegan?
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May 23, 2019 23:01
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Yes, and that's why they behave
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May 23, 2019 23:13
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I looked up what chicken noises mean, and I've learned that they can 'purr.' I think my chickens purr a LOT when they're digging a small ditch to roll around in the dirt.
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May 24, 2019 01:30
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5er posted:I looked up what chicken noises mean, and I've learned that they can 'purr.' I think my chickens purr a LOT when they're digging a small ditch to roll around in the dirt.
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May 24, 2019 10:04
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The first time I heard one of my chickens purr was such a wtf moment for me
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May 24, 2019 12:29
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Personalities are really starting to develop among my chickies. I love how inquisitive and alert Muldoon is whenever I'm hanging out with them, and I love how Bulldozer just runs everybody over so she can be the first one to investigate something new. Second week photos will be shared this weekend! I hope you all don't mind me journaling about them here; it's really fun to share.
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May 24, 2019 14:20
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Please share lots (especially pictures) It's been great seeing them go from eggs to tiny fluffs 
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May 24, 2019 19:25
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Enfys posted:Please share lots (especially pictures) Exactly!
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May 24, 2019 21:16
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Enfys posted:Please share lots (especially pictures) Thirdly!
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May 25, 2019 14:08
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Second week class photos!! Here is the first week album if you want to do some comparing: https://imgur.com/a/htMFny7   i can't with that mohawk it kills me i love her    "rowdy"   Pausing a moment to discuss little Foghorn -- she's runty. What started out as a cute underbite has developed into scissor-beak. It also looks like her upper bill is significantly smaller than her lower bill. I don't have a problem with keeping her beak trimmed and cleaned, but I do have concerns about how little growth she's made compared to everyone else. Has anyone had success stories with scissor-beaked chickens? I've been reading up and as I understand it there isn't a whole lot of "treatment" I can try (beyond some scary-sounding experiments with tape and forced beak/jaw adjustments).   still so cheeky     They're way less cooperative about photos, now. It took some real wrangling! My husband helped.
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May 27, 2019 03:51
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Oh. My. God.
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May 27, 2019 04:20
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Butternut's mohawk and fierce eye paint are amazing
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May 27, 2019 11:07
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I've got pictures of my girls! They're around five weeks, maybe six, so they're in a weird place where they look almost grown up, but they're not near as cute as mcin's babies. Further influencing the quality, these fuckers don't hold still for poo poo, they just love hauling rear end everywhere. And I didn't resize these stupid things after offloading them from my phone, so timg it is.  Fluffy, or 'Fluffbutt'.  Zilla.  Sam, with Ella apparently at a Slayer concert.  Ella.  Bonus Ella, getting curious about the camera.  Bonus Zilla, hunting mosquitos in my lap.
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May 28, 2019 04:19
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Aww poor little foghorn. She looks adorable though!!
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May 28, 2019 11:46
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ZILLA!  Man, only a few more weeks and my girls will be so big! I'm looking forward to it, and to getting them outside. Yours are all hens, right?
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May 28, 2019 12:19
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5er posted:
That face 
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May 28, 2019 12:21
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my cat is norris posted:ZILLA! They better be, my county has a no-roosters ordinance.
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May 29, 2019 00:48
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Hi guys, I'm interested in becoming a first time chicken-haver at some point soon-ish depending on when I can fit it into things financially (it's super tempting to use savings to just do it now, but I'm being a responsible adult). I'm interested in Silkies for a first time breed as I've read they're quiet, affectionate, small and less destructive while still producing a reasonable amount of eggs in between broody phases. I just read something about the males not being as aggressive as other breed males typically are. I wondered whether there are pros/cons to whether I include one male with several females or just go for an all female flock? If I did include a male, how does that work in terms of offpring? Do you automatically get inundated with chicks, or do you just have to keep on top of locating eggs and removing them if you don't want more than say one or two to hatch? Or do silkies typically not have success in hatching their own eggs?
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May 31, 2019 11:49
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Breeds are breeds. Everyone will have stories about how every breed is an rear end in a top hat, and simultaneously not an rear end in a top hat. Just get what you want.
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May 31, 2019 13:36
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One of my hens has been taking a really long time to lay recently, she was in the nesting box all yesterday afternoon and evening and again this morning, laid an egg, I let them out to free range a little while ago and just saw her sneaking back into the coop. I was a little worried she might be having some trouble laying or something because her eggs have been a little weird and lumpy recently, but... she's just going broody, yeah? She's nearly a year old (Welsummer bantam.)
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May 31, 2019 14:09
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My experience with two silkies is that the rooster was not very aggressive, and the hen was a good mother but broody to the point of just wanting to sit in the coop most of the time.
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May 31, 2019 16:24
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my only experience with silkies is that they taste good to raccoons 
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May 31, 2019 16:30
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Plate posted:I'm interested in Silkies for a first time breed as I've read they're quiet, affectionate, small and less destructive while still producing a reasonable amount of eggs in between broody phases. I just read something about the males not being as aggressive as other breed males typically are. I wondered whether there are pros/cons to whether I include one male with several females or just go for an all female flock? If I did include a male, how does that work in terms of offpring? Do you automatically get inundated with chicks, or do you just have to keep on top of locating eggs and removing them if you don't want more than say one or two to hatch? Or do silkies typically not have success in hatching their own eggs? silkies are literally never a bad idea. they lay small eggs but still a good number of them. i've never kept them myself but i'm told they're good mothers. hens will apparently go broody without a rooster around, but obviously if you don't have a rooster the eggs will be infertile - you know when they're broody because they lay themselves flat across the eggs and growl at you when you try to remove them (it's hilarious) but if that does happen you can just take most of the clutch the hen is sitting on and leave her one or two eggs to hatch, she'll be perfectly happy with that. making sure you don't have eggs lying around is the best way to control their broodiness, something about the sight of a big pile of eggs sets them off - luckily chooks usually choose a single place or small number of places to lay and will keep laying there every day, so it's pretty easy to keep on top of unless you have a ninja chicken who decides to go off and make a secret nest, but in my experience the ninja chickens are usually solitary and the majority of the flock prefer to lay together. i've also heard that silkie roosters are less aggressive and they make the best pets of any breed.
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May 31, 2019 23:41
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Silkie roosters are gentler and calmer than other roosters, but they are still roosters and can get mean. On average though a Silkie boy will be lovely and nice. The girls doubly so. As for eggs and babies: Silkies LOVE to sit on eggs and hatch babies. Silkies are often used to hatch eggs of other breeds. It's not uncommon for a hen to be perma broody and love nothing but sitting on eggs all day every day. However, if you steal her eggs and she doesn't get smart enough to hide them, you should be able to eat them. Make sure to check what size Silkies are in your area. Almost all Silkies in the US are bantams if I recall, while most UK Silkies are full size, and in Australia both are common enough. This will determine how big their delicious eggs will be as well as how many you can comfortably keep and what size you'll need to build their pen and fittings to.
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Jun 1, 2019 04:32
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CROWS EVERYWHERE posted:As for eggs and babies: Silkies LOVE to sit on eggs and hatch babies. Silkies are often used to hatch eggs of other breeds. It's not uncommon for a hen to be perma broody and love nothing but sitting on eggs all day every day.
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Jun 1, 2019 05:46
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my lavender araucana was the loving worst parent in the world and it was as hilarious as it was tragic because she was a great brooder, but as soon as the chicks were out of the egg she'd be sprinting them all over the yard at a hundred miles an hour so they were constantly getting lost and scattered or just dropping from exhaustion and being picked off by the goshawks. as soon as the last one vanished she'd strut back to the nest and get started on the next lot. she was completely deranged
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Jun 1, 2019 05:50
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nankeen posted:i didn't know they were that broody! do they make good mothers? They are. When you get the bantam versions they will happily sit on regular sized eggs and act as loving mothers to giant regular sized rooster babies. They are also used to hatch duck eggs because ducks are terrible mothers. (Except for muscovies, which are a different species to regular domestic ducks. Regular ducks are mallards whereas muscovies are their own species native to the Americas. This is why they have different incubation periods.)
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Jun 1, 2019 11:11
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CROWS EVERYWHERE posted:They are. When you get the bantam versions they will happily sit on regular sized eggs and act as loving mothers to giant regular sized rooster babies. They are also used to hatch duck eggs because ducks are terrible mothers. (Except for muscovies, which are a different species to regular domestic ducks. Regular ducks are mallards whereas muscovies are their own species native to the Americas. This is why they have different incubation periods.) (i'm desperate to get a muscovy but my own mother legitimately has a phobia of ducks due to past psychological trauma, she likes them but can't bear to be close to them)
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Jun 1, 2019 11:52
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i can't imagine what goes through a hen's mind when a duckling or a keet hatches out of her egg but it really does just seem to be "my baby. my baby"
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Jun 1, 2019 11:54
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My hen Courage is definitely broody! She's sitting on four eggs right now, I moved her from the solely-used nesting box to one of the unused ones for a little more peace and solitude and she seems to be sticking there. I'm quite pleased, as I just finished expanding their run in anticipation of someday growing the flock a bit. Their coop is about 16" off the ground and they have to jump up, and the nesting boxes are raised off the floor in that, so I'm definitely going to have to move her to somewhere more appropriate when the chicks come along, likely a dog crate in the run. But I'll wait a couple of weeks before getting that set up.
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Jun 1, 2019 13:17
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I can't speak to roosters, but in my experience Rhode Island Red hens tend towards being highly strung, squawky and racist to other breeds. (Yeah, I'm talking about you, Pickle, you bully.)
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Jun 1, 2019 13:27
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ynohtna posted:I can't speak to roosters, but in my experience Rhode Island Red hens tend towards being highly strung, squawky and racist to other breeds. (Yeah, I'm talking about you, Pickle, you bully.) They definitely are. Also the girls are very butch and can grow spurs and even sickle feathers sometimes.
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Jun 1, 2019 14:23
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the sweetest birds i had were plymouth rocks (also known as barred rocks but that name is less common here) and australorps. due to getting my first eggs from a friend, my first clutch were all half pedigree plymouth rock rooster, half 15th-generation semi-feral free-range outback mongrel chicken exquisitely honed by natural selection for survival in the desert. they all looked like tiny stripy velociraptors and they had the weirdest little personalities, they were simultaneously super-friendly and basically wild, like cats. zeborah was the most normal-looking one, she ended up raising the keets and training them to perch in the peppermint tree i'm excited to try out a silkie now. one silkie and two rescue hens sounds perfect for my needs, and i want to see how silkie mothering compares to that of the anti-breed described above
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Jun 2, 2019 09:17
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