rehoming some exbatts

[petal]

They did say they were letting beaky go to me as I had experience with chickens. She is able to drink and eat, her crop is full but I reckon she will need layers mash all her life. Most of these girls seem to have very poor beaks and very long claws but hopefully with a free range life this will rectify itself in time.

[petal]

Bp I knew that about cows, wish that would change too.

[chris]

I was concerned about my chickens beaks too - after all the enquiring etc I was doing and was told that the chickens were free range before being sold, when I asked on here I found out that they were intensively reared as they're top beaks were seared off. They still manage to eat ok though, I think the beaks are growing back slightly too. - I can tell you they still hurt when pecked. Just looked at the pics now though, bliemy, didn't realise that sort of deformtity could happen. I'm glad you're caring for her!

[Glutton4...]

They did say they were letting beaky go to me as I had experience with chickens. She is able to drink and eat, her crop is full but I reckon she will need layers mash all her life. Most of these girls seem to have very poor beaks and very long claws but hopefully with a free range life this will rectify itself in time.

Oh that's great news. After I posted, I thought; stoopid cow, of course she can eat - she'd be dead otherwise! D'oh!

Having said that, one of my white ones, from Little Hen rescue, had a slightly wonky beak. She was the fattest of the lot!

[jessmorris]

but would you give a cat a hot roast dinner??

Weell..both my dogs had a hot Christmas lunch last year (nut roast not poultry) - no complaints there! More like slight disbelief that the plate of steaming roast and veg was for them, and they polished it off before I changed my mind!

[Bramble-Poultry]

yes Sue we have Calonwen, its everywhere around here, you can get the pouches too which is nice. They do cheese, yougurt and butter too - we like their butter!!

[Hilary B]

and at this point you open up a complete can of worms .... the actual worst animal for welfare in this country currently is the dairy cow - They are kept inside on mats in stalls so small they can stand or lie down but not turn around, they are fed silage and pre measured concentrates, they never have nor never will see daylight or a blade of grass. they are intensively milked beyond the normal natual milk yield. Now obviously to give milk you need a pregnant cow - once a baby cow is born it is taken from its mother within the 1st 24 hours as a cow that is "breast feeding" is of no commercial value. If the baby is a girl it is reared on a fake teat system also indoors until she is old enough to be weaned, at this point she does actually go outside to finish on grass (but only cos its cheaper) but if its are a boy it is of no commercial value - not even for breeding as it's a a mongrel so it is shot dead, usually before the day is out! Systems do vary and some cows are not kept like this but those farmers who farm for large chains usually do farm like this due to quota levels and product comformity!

As for pigs as long as you buy british pork you can guarantee a certain level of welfare as the pig industry has also started to change - outdoor reared is obviously much better - never ever ever buy Danish pork!!

With food labelling you have to be carefull too - you need to read where it is from - but also where it was reared, they can be different, as long as it is brought into the UK before the agreed age for the animal type and then slaughtered and processed in the UK you can label it as UK meat - even though it was raised in Hungary and only "finished" in the UK. Also be careful when it says Irish, southern Ireland again have different welfare standards to the UK - so just cos it says Ireland doesn't mean it comes from NI who are controlled by our standards!!

Food labelling is not at all simple!! whilst fresh produce must state its origins, processed food such as cakes, cereals, soups etc have no requirement to do so - therefore with these products you have absolutley no idea!!

Told you it was a can of worms!!

Have to say that such intense systems for dairy cows are relatively recent in this country, and still uncommon (fortunately). While most cows are kept indoors in winter, it is not under such intensity, they usually have a little more room, space to interact etc, and the calves are not taken away for a few days (because the milk is not saleable for the first few days anyway). Male calves are often killed these days, because of the lack of demand for veal. Purebred dairy calves don't make commercially viable beef (costs more to rear them than the farmer can sell it for) but when they could be reared as veal, or sold abroad to rear as veal, they were worth keeping to a week old, and then selling to a rearer to grow to 3 months of age or so.
With public attention focussing on the issue, the high intensity dairies will be done away with, hopefully before there are too many of them. Public awareness has improved the lot of British-kept pigs (it isn't long since a large proportion were kept just like the Danish ones), and we have got beef growth-promoter hormones banned, as well as the (inadequate, but better than nothing) improvements in hen care.

[Bramble-Poultry]

hilary - i know an awful lot about the new roatary parlour system used in these super dairies. not only did my old next door neighbour in stafford have one built (at the cost of a few million quid i hasten to add) but i had a contract with the aforementioned Harper Adams University in building theirs. again, they built on because they need to instruct the students on what they may encounter.

I didnt like the system, and nor did the college management to be fair, and when i completed my part in it, the manager was stocking as few cows as possible for demonstration purposes only - however, the construction company building it already informed me that they had orders for at least 10 more of these rotary systems.

A brief synopsis of a rotary unit is that the cows are kept in a stall in a a shed all day, take them selves down to the milking parlour. Their electronic collar is read and if they havent yet been milked the gate allows them throw to a milking stall, otherwise it shoves them back to the main shed. Once in a milking stall they get some concentrate feed to keep them still and the milking unit is attached. the parlour is constantly rotating so by the time the cow has rotate around, it has been milked and then gets chucked back out ot the holding shed.

it runs 24 / 7 and unfirtunately, reading the agricultural news regularly as i do here, it seems the system is being promoted as a cost efficient way to run a business, it seems to be gaining momentum in dairy areas from my view.....

[Hilary B]

hilary - i know an awful lot about the new roatary parlour system used in these super dairies. not only did my old next door neighbour in stafford have one built (at the cost of a few million quid i hasten to add) but i had a contract with the aforementioned Harper Adams University in building theirs. again, they built on because they need to instruct the students on what they may encounter.

I didnt like the system, and nor did the college management to be fair, and when i completed my part in it, the manager was stocking as few cows as possible for demonstration purposes only - however, the construction company building it already informed me that they had orders for at least 10 more of these rotary systems.

A brief synopsis of a rotary unit is that the cows are kept in a stall in a a shed all day, take them selves down to the milking parlour. Their electronic collar is read and if they havent yet been milked the gate allows them throw to a milking stall, otherwise it shoves them back to the main shed. Once in a milking stall they get some concentrate feed to keep them still and the milking unit is attached. the parlour is constantly rotating so by the time the cow has rotate around, it has been milked and then gets chucked back out ot the holding shed.

it runs 24 / 7 and unfirtunately, reading the agricultural news regularly as i do here, it seems the system is being promoted as a cost efficient way to run a business, it seems to be gaining momentum in dairy areas from my view.....

I've not seen the system in operation, but have to say, that in some parts of the country beef sucklers cows spend the winter tethered with access to feed and water, and this is the way it has been done for generations (there were objections from some farmers when the rules were introduced banning the tethering of calves, previously anything over a week or so old was only untied to get a drink from Mum for a while a couple of times a da, and under the new rules they could only be tethered to keep them from getting underfoot while Mum was being fed).
There are still a reasonable number of dairy cows wandering in fields around here, and everywhere we drive (we routinely cover quite a big area), but of course it would be the biggest agri-factories (I won't call them farms) that would tend to find this sort of idea appealing.
Time for a bit of people-power. Is the Number 10 Petition site still around?

[Bramble-Poultry]

you will be wanting to go to this website then!!

WSPA | Not in my Cuppa | Would you drink factory milk from battery cows?

[petal]

Back to the birds! Chickens looking very lively this morning - a real spring in their step. 3 eggs, laid in random places. I have put some rubber eggs in a box to give them the idea! Beaky is doing well, coping eating and drinking miraculously!

[Glutton4...]

Back to the birds! Chickens looking very lively this morning - a real spring in their step. 3 eggs, laid in random places. I have put some rubber eggs in a box to give them the idea! Beaky is doing well, coping eating and drinking miraculously!

Bless 'em! Do you have any fake eggs to put in the boxes as a subtle hint. I use mine (eBay) if I ever have to move the nest-boxes, or introduce new Chooks. Golf balls will do too, I understand.

[Hilary B]

you will be wanting to go to this website then!!

WSPA | Not in my Cuppa | Would you drink factory milk from battery cows?

Signed up, and facebooked!

[petal]

any ideas anyone on how to teach my girls to use a perch?

[motherhen]

What sort of bird are they? how old? feathered feet? what sort of perch? How long have they been in this house?
Young birds sometimes need to be encouraged to perch if they have been reared in big houses they may never have perched, if they are not shown when they are introduced to a new house some birds do not realise that's what they should do, its best to put them on it at night but you must be consistant or they will revert back.
Feathered foot variety, sometimes find it difficult to perch I have had very heavy feathered Pekins that struggled but we have some at the moment that are very agile.
Sometimes the type of perch is wrong for the bird, too narrow for a big bird, wide for small bird, too high, too low.
An explosion of Redmite can also stop birds from perching and even entering the house at all.