Keeping hens and ducks chat.

Cheery_Daff

Oh edwink thank you SO much for sharing pics of your new ladies :j bless their little beaks, it makes me want to cry when I see some of the poor little things looking so downtrodden I remember the bare patches some of ours had, and I often shed a tear thinking of Bessie when I first put her on the ground and she looked so bewildered and immediately started scratching the soil and dust bathing. Poor little thing had probably never encountered soil before

I do wonder though - where do chicks grow before they start laying and are put into cages? Will they have had some taste of the outside before? Almost can't think about it, it's too awful

Anyway my ladies are fine - slightly perturbed today no doubt as they've been shut in the run all day while I've been at work. Oh well. Mr Cheery is home tomorrow so they can maraud(?) about the place as much as they like :rotfl:

I'll try to get some pics on here myself st some point :j

MysteryMe

It's lovely to see the photos of the new flock, they are very lucky hens. Sounds like you'll be cooking up mega batches of porridge. We used to boil up potato peelings and add in bran and then form into a ball and our chicken loved that.

edwink

MysteryMe wrote: »

It's lovely to see the photos of the new flock, they are very lucky hens. Sounds like you'll be cooking up mega batches of porridge. We used to boil up potato peelings and add in bran and then form into a ball and our chicken loved that.

That's a great idea thank you , I shall have a go at doing that for them. I've done similar with porridge and tiny pieces of dried fruit before but never with potato peelings and bran. I would imagine that those ingredients would stick together better too. Thanks again x

Hopefully I'll get some more of the long awaited pics on later today

Edwink

edwink

WARNING.....If you would prefer not to see pics showing some of my hens when I first got them home in the awful bald looking condition they were in, it might be best if you skip past the first 3 pics quickly. I wouldn't want anyone to be upset by the first 3 pics I have put on here, hence the reason I have put "warning" in larger text and also numbered the pictures this time and left a large gap between pictures 3 and 4, that way you will know when you get past the first 3......











PHOTO 1
These were two of the worst ones I was given with regards to being bald and looking rather dishevelled. Thankfully they no longer look like that now



PHOTO 2
This one looks so much better now too



PHOTO 3
This little girl is very bald in places except for her head and neck region, bless her. As you can see her left wing doesn't have any feathers on it at all. The sooner they put a stop to battery hen farming the better I think!!









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PHOTO 4
Free at last




PHOTO 5
Think I'll eat my dinner standing in the trough and why not eh?? :rotfl:



And finally.....
Am I good looking or what??? :cool:





Edwink x

Karmacat

Oh my, edwink, those are astonishing photos how lucky they are that they got to you

MysteryMe

They are all lovely, feathers or not!

edwink

Karmacat wrote: »

Oh my, edwink, those are astonishing photos how lucky they are that they got to you

Aww thank you KC. It makes me so sad that battery farming still exists to be honest especially in this day and age. But, I suppose if the general public still want to buy these cheap and nasty eggs the practice will continue sadly

MysteryMe wrote: »

They are all lovely, feathers or not!

Yes I agree with you MystryMe, well said Although it can be sad to see them without their feathers, with the correct nutrition, a good clean home and plenty of space they soon run around like complete and utter loonies and in no time they are fully feathered which is so nice to see.

Edwink x x

Cheery_Daff

Lovely to see your photos edwink :j I looked back at the pictures of some of mine when we first got them recently and was quite shocked how dishevelled they looked compared to now :eek:

Ooh, I was going to investigate sorting out some of my own pictures on here wasn't I? Might go and do that now...

Cheery_Daff

Ok, let's see - these are quite tiny but will do for now! No idea if they'll get bigger if you click...

Like edwink, I'll warn that these are our new girls when we first got them, so if you don't want to look, scroll down...

First up, this is Bessie when we first brought her home. It still makes me cry looking at her little face seeing soil for the first time. She just sat down on it and immediately started scratching her feet in it, like she almost couldn't believe it



This is also Bessie - look at her beak :eek: Trimmed quite ineptly, and she was left with quite an overhang which never had chance to wear away when she was in the cages only eating crumb food. Now she's eating grit and whatever else she can get her beak on, it's worn down - it's still crossed a bit (and always will be) but the overhang has gone



This is Rusty when we first got her - I referred to her back then as the 'smallest and quietest chicken' and while she's still the smallest, she is VERY vocal these days :rotfl:



And finally Beaky - I'd forgotten just how scruffy she was back then! :eek:

Cheery_Daff

And by way of contrast... (it looks like you can make the pictures bigger by clicking on them by the way)

This is Rusty a couple of weeks ago - still small, but fully feathered, and utterly filthy, having just been retrieved from a slightly damp dust bath :rotfl: :rotfl:



And here's Bessie now, in her usual perch of Mr Cheery's knee :rotfl:



And these are various ladies (including the older two) over the summer - the minute I sat down on the grass they all came along to sit on me :j




That's it for now :j I will post some more pictures of our coop set up etc at some point - I know that's one of the things I found most useful when I first found this thread and was thinking of my own chickens! :j