Sunday Morning. Chook Chat.

It's going to be quite warm here today, around 30 and last night and this morning the Eastilies have hit with force.  Everything is being blown around.   When the wind drops though it will be hot.  I'm not very good with hot weather so should be out there doing me jobs now...but it's too windy for me.  Gosh I sound hard to please and really I'm not.  Hot coffee, good book, outside...it doesn't take much at all.  Just no big winds and hot weather please.

We haven't seen any sign of the fox since the killing but have been offered the use of a tried and true home made foxtrap and will get that next week and set it up out the back.   A big problem we have is that our chook pens are big and not all the chooksheds in the pens have a door so can't be shut up.  Because of their size not all the pens are netted over the top but they are high fences with wobbly wire that points outwards running along around  the top so the foxes can't climb up and over.

I have three pens in use at the moment.
*The one that we have just trenched and tinned, in use by my breeding chooks, not netted and wasn't trenched and tinned all around but hopefully safe now.  We are going to put a door on their shed so they can be locked up though.
*one with the HyLines in. The Hylines can be shutup but I don't always remember to do them
*and the 2 orchard pens that I have my AussieRocks in.  The orchard pens have a shared  shed that all the chooks get locked up in at night, but not all year round.  I start locking these ones up during early spring and hope I start before the foxes do.  I alternate the side of the orchard that the chooks can get to..
I also have 2 netted pens that I use for chickens, safe from crows and other things WHEN I shut the gates.

My problem is that by evening I am so sore and tired that I don't always think to shut the doors/gates.   The chooks don't *go to bed* until it's dark and by then I am usually finished for the day and ready for bed myself.   Really, because of my slackness in this area, we are lucky that we haven't lost more.  I did lose some a few years ago...We did a lot more work on the pens after that and seem to have been left alone since so I was lulled into what now has  proven to be a false sense of security.
If I only had a dozen or so chooks then a smaller totally prison-like pen would be easy to have.   I want lots of chooks so it means more work and some losses until we get it right.  Hopefully now we have.

It's still blowing a gale out there but I best be off...I need to make more coffee...

Chicken Update.

The 4 + 1 chickens are doing fine, eating everything and running around through both the pens and the front area.  We will get around to stopping this one day but at the moment because there are gaps under the tin and the chickens get under and away from their mum I am leaving the gates open so the mothers can get to them.  So five little chickens and their mums...

The older chicken has Plymouth Rock markings and seems to hang around with the 4 younger chickens and their mum more than with it's own mother.   The black mother has started laying again too which is unusual.  There were 2 eggs in her box this morning which just goes to show how much attention I pay when I feed them.

And check this out...

There are at least 3 in there..  She was sitting on 4, maybe 5, eggs so 3 is good but there may be another one there.   I was thinking that I would need to move her in a day or so when they are out and about as she is in the wrong pen for babies but Hubby helped me set up an enclosure for them, safe from the other chooks and crows so they will all be fine where they are for a few weeks.

Slaters for Chooks.

We were digging up around the water tank the other day, daughter and grandaughter were here helping me.  I was going to plant flowers around it again but we decided to use the space for Tomatoes instead.  Of course this area was full of slaters, not too big of a deal with flowers but with a food crop going in they have to be removed.   The D. and GD. spent quite a while picking them up out of the dirt.  D did go and get the friendly white Aracauna to come and help them.  GD thought it was fun to have the chook eat the slaters out of her hand.

We collected heaps and fed them to the chooks. 

This is an ideal way to deal with an unwanted pest, very time consuming and fun but not something that I can be bothered with often enough.  I am going to try an EO spray and see if that will get the numbers down and as I have found a local supplier of foodgrade DE I will get some of that as well.

I WILL win the war with these things and it WILL be done with minimal unwanted stuff being used.

Been Away.

I've been away on a bit of a roadtrip, with Hubby, in a truck.
Home yesterday but apart from a quick walk around the yard to make sure it was still there I haven't done anything.

Today I need to help clean out the truck, do all the washing, get the house back to looking lovely like it was when we walked in the door...I tell ya, it doesn't take me long to give the place that ol' *lived in* look.

And I need to blog about my ADVENTURE!!!

But another coffee before I go out in the cold and dark to let the chooks out.


And thankyou L. for being here to lock them up each night and set them free again in the mornings.  I would have worried all the time we were away if they were out and possibly fox food.

Friggin' Fox.

I am usually up by 6, I think 5 is a good time to be getting up.  This morning I was up and out *fox hunting* at 1.30 so I'm blaming that for the 7.45 wake up time this morning.  I mean, 7:45!!  That's insane. I'll have to get a move on soon to get things done before it gets too hot.

But back to the fox.  We have had foxes here before.  They have killed a lot of my chooks and my ducks in the past.  Hubby has fixed fences and built me fox proof ones and last year we had no trouble at all.  This year I could smell something out along the front fence and me and the son both reckon it smelt of fox but they haven't got to the chooks at all.

So last night I hear a noise, thought one of the chooks that insist on roosting on top of the fence had fallen and got itself caught so go out to rescue it.  The front light gets turned on, I get a torch and go have a look but no there are 2 chooks on the fence, so the bugger has got one to join it.
I see a movement in the driveway and think the cat is coming so I wait so it can come in the door instead of walking around to the cat flap. I know, soft cat owner here.  But the animal that walks up my driveway, past my van towards the front of the house where I am with a torch and the light on is a fox.  It walks past the end of the verandah, less than 5metres from me, up between the house and shed heading out the back.  I walk towards it making a lot of noise and the thing stops, turns towards me and makes a noise at me, not realing a growl but it worried me so I backed off.  It then stops out the back where I had left a bag and chews on the strap for a bit, I throw a potato at it but miss but the thing still doesn't run away.  I grab a *weapon* in this case a scoop net that was laying on the ground but by then it is walking out the back and I lose it in the paddock.

But I have chooks around behind the shed so I have to go check on them but now I am scared of this fox, do foxes attack people?  Maybe not normal ones but normal ones don't walk near houses that have lights on and people around.  Do they?  It was quite a big fox, skinny  though so it must have been sick...do foxes have diseases that people can get...

I go back to bed but was up at every little noise.  So I sleep in and now I will worry about this thing coming back and getting the chooks.  We are away this weekend too and though the chooks can be locked up it's hard to get them into their houses before dark so not really nice to ask the daughter to do that.  And they don't all have fox proof pens.  But I worry about my new AussieRocks.  I will be so sad if they get taken.

I have set up solar lights in one of the pens thinking they wouldn't come near the lights but that theory just got shot to pieces.  Hubby will ask why I didn't shoot it.  I would have had plenty of time but I don't feel safe loading the gun and am not a good enough shot anyway.  What are the chances of it coming back for the chooks.  It could have gotten into the pens I think, if it really tried.  The pens out the back are not foxproof at all.  I'll need to fix those before we go away so another job for today.

I'll be up with every little noise tonight too but I think I'll leave the shed wireless on, that might help deter it. 

I could spend the day practicing with the gun and target shooting but I don't think I could bring myself to shoot an animal.  Even one that should be.

A long time ago when the son was 12/13 he used to go camping and I warned him to be careful of foxes and other *critters* 
People used to mock me for being a worrywort,.with something that I never said.  "You'll get seriously killed by that fox"  Last night as I was out walking in the dark I was wondering if it was a premonition and would I be the one found with bits chewed off of me. 
It was late, there was a wild animal around, I was tired...

Hot Day, No Water...Dead Chook.

I didn't think that it was that hot here today but it was hot enough for me to go swimming in the dam a few times so hot but not unbearable.  It was hot enough for me to want to put sprinklers on in the chook pens but I couldn't as we had no water.

The weather report said that it was 40 in Perth.  It wasn't that hot here though, maybe 33-35.  One day I will buy a thermometer, it won't make any difference knowing how hot it is but it will be interesting to know.  I sometimes am surprised that it has been as hot as people say when I haven't felt that hot yet other times I am sweltering and it hasn't even reached 30. 

Even though I didn't think that it was too hot it was still quite warm and this afternoon we found that one of our old chooks had died.  It may not have been because of the heat, it could have been an age thing, being able to have the sprinklers on may not have made any difference.  But I am blaming the heat.  I know that the chooks don't like it when it is too hot.  All pens have water and shade so apart from making sure the water is topped up, by bucket if necessary, there is not much else I can do when it is hot and no water comes through the pipes. 

So one less Isa Brown chook.  We are down to 7 now, soon they will all be gone.
There weren't any problems with any of the other chooks but we didn't get many eggs from any pens.
They don't lay when it is cold, they don't lay when it is hot...
Cooler weather coming up over the next few days, that should keep the rest of them happy.

The Big and Small of it

4-12-'09

We have always had Isa Brown hens for eggs and it wasn't until December last year that I was given some chooks from a friend that was moving to Queensland, these are our Mixed Breed chooks. Thanks Bev.

These have multiplied over the last 12 months and we have quite a few of them now, some lay normal size eggs but the smaller ones lay smaller eggs. They all taste good though.

We also have a dozen I.B's now and as the size of their eggs is "normal" we sometimes sell their excess eggs to help cover the cost of chook food. I don't think we'd get too many buyers for the small ones though.

One of the bantams has just started laying, tiny eggs but quite cute, if you can call an egg cute. See for youself.

Now, is that cute...or is that...just a small egg?

It looked cuter in the nest. Honest.

Ha!! You thought that was cute? This is cute...

These are 2 eggs that I found out in the Aracauna pen the other day. The first one is a normal sized blue egg. The other, well, it could be a birds egg from the size of it but the pen is netted and they were both together. From the same chook? Two different chooks? Dunno. One of the mysteries of eggs.

This is a photo of an Isa Browns egg and the Aracauna eggs,

just to give you an idea on the size difference.

Shoot the Buggers!

Tuesday, 1st December.
Half past two in the morning. 2.30am. Three hours before I want to wake up. That's the time the roosters started this morning. Not happy and now very tired.
At last count we have 9, yes that's 9 and possibly 10, roosters fairly close to the house. One starts, they all start.
Four, or 5, of these are only young and will be culled as soon as Hubby gets time. He will make time I think as soon as he is the one woken up by them.
The Aracana can stay, so can one of the Hamboughs. The other Hammy and the Campine can go as can the Silkie and his girls. These ones belong to the daughter and she is on notice to relocate them before the end of the year.
I will keep the mixed breed one, for a while at least and I will have 2 Australorps sometime next year. Five sounds like a good number, aye? Definitely no more than 6!! But they must all live in a soundproof house and be let out only after I wake up. Yeah, that sounds like a plan. More nice wifey acting needed I think.

My Flock of Australorps.

Monday 30th November 2009.

We have a pen of mixed breed chooks that give us eggs and there is a rooster in with them so we get chickens but for a while now I have been trying to decide on a *real* breed to, well, breed. So...
On the 25 October I drove to Bunbury to buy some fertile Australorp eggs from a lady that sells them. I bought 2 dozen at $25 dozen so all up $50. She told me that she was getting a good hatch rate so was I confident of getting at least a dozen chickens from the batch.
We put them in my daughters incubator along with 18 eggs from here that were a mix of Hambough and Aracana.
Three weeks later they start hatching. Very exciting, I was going to get my flock of Australorps. How cool.
She ended up with a lot of chickens from her 18 eggs...I had 7 hatch but one of those died. So I have 6 chickens from 24 eggs. How sad was that! I cried.

I now have 6 Australorp chickens in a broody box in the bathroom and they are getting bigger by the day.
I wonder how many will be roosters but hope not too many, no more than 2 but going by the rooster rate from my other chickens it will be more than that. I have a couple of months before I find out for sure but fingers crossed the females will win.

Daughter sold her Hambough chickens for $10 each so she made money while I feel that my little lot have cost too much.
In saying that though, if I had of bought unsexed chickens at $10 each then I supose that I am ahead.

I did email the lady that I bought the eggs from and she has said that she will give me a dozen eggs because of the low hatch rate. She says she is getting more than 90% hatching and cannot understand why my lot didn't. She thinks it could have been the incubator.
However Hubby cracked the unhatched eggs open so that we would have some idea what the problem was and 11 of them were unfertile so I know it wasn't all our doing. Two were maybe fertile and 4 didn't hatch. That was the sad bit and we won't know what went wrong with them.
Hopefully the next lot will be better but I don't know when I will be able to pick them up.
It's going to take a while but I will get my Austalorp Flock up and running.
Now...Have to get Hubby to build me a foxproof house and pen out in the orchard. Time to be a nice little wifey. Better tidy up before he gets home.