keeping the chickens happy

My chickens have turned their space into a barren dirt wasteland.  So I decided to use bits and bobs from around the house to make them an on tap gourmet green pick area for the days when I don't let them out into the yard (when I am at work, or out, or lazy, or have just mulched the garden and do not want it kicked everywhere).

I started with some spare bricks and made them into a little square.

I also had an old bath and a wheelbarrow full of dirt and chook poop.

I put some chicken wire over the top and planted some grass seed.  After about a week (in which it fortunately rained quite a lot), the seeds sprouted, letting the chickens peck the top of the grass without being able to pull out the roots or kick the dirt around.

Design features I might change in the future are using 'stiff' wire rather than chicken wire so the chooks can't walk across it and trample all over the growing grass.

But they seem pretty happy with their new green area in their enclosure.

Happy chooks.  Four eggs a day.  Yum.

a ballet bun and new chickens

Amongst other things in the last week I have prepared a child for a grade three ballet exam.  For me it is all about the bun.

If anyone needs to know how to get curly hair into a bun - I wet it, then gel it, then ponytail it, then bun it, then hairspray it, then talk to it firmly and tell it not to dare to come out.

Those legs!  They go on forever!  And they are hollow - she is always hungry.

She reports she thinks she did well in her exam.  Her bun did not fall out.  Are my priorities right here?

 Also in the last week we got five new chickens after the last ones were disposed of by a fox.  Brown ones.  We have nominally given them names (Tracey, Stacey, Lacey, Louise, and Bruce), but I can't tell them apart.  I am waiting for them to settle in and start laying.  I clipped their wings while singing to them 'Take these broken wings, and learn to fly again...'.

Clipping off the bottom layer of feathers on their wings with kitchen scissors. I don't think my future is in hairdressing.

Scooter the dog is very interested in our new arrivals.  She watches them closely.

It is the pointy end of the year where events cram up against each other like the finale part in a fugue.  Tonight we had mystery meat from the back of the freezer in the slow cooker for dinner, because I have no room in my brain to plan actual grocery shopping.  Everyone says 'shop online'.  But that would mean actually knowing what I wanted hours or days before I needed it.  I have poor motivation for shopping and cooking at the moment.

Besides, the mystery meat was delicious.

renovations

We have had to renovate the chicken pen.  With some netting.  Now the pen is completely enclosed.  It feels like a blanket fort when you stand inside it, and it looks like a Cirque de Soliel set up for possums.  I think I will need to check it each morning in case the netting catches more than leaves.

Lovely handy husband helped me put it up.  He hates compost and food scraps, and is not too fussed on chickens, but he pitched in and did the netting - he knows I love having chickens.

And why did we need chicken pen renovations?  Last week we came home to a scene of chicken massacre - feathers everywhere, headless chooks in our yard and the neighbours, and two chickens completely missing.  We think it was a fox.

I was pretty sad for a time.  I miss their clucking and self important fluffing.  I have too many scraps and I had to BUY eggs.

I am going to get some new chickens in a week or so.  Myself and my two elderly single lady neighbours miss them very much.

crotchet rest

On my first commitment free day for a long time it feels like a crotchet rest.  A short break before the pace continues for the rest of the term.  I have taken the opportunity already this morning to clean out the chickens and guinea pigs, and let them free range it in the back yard.

Scooter kept a careful eye on the livestock in the yard.  Just in case it needed herding.

She feels compelled to keep the chooks under her complete control.  They mostly ignore her.

It's like a horror movie -LOOK BEHIND YOU CHICKENS!

These little guys are also have some free range time in a carefully constructed guinea pig run made from gutter guard and tent pegs.  I hope they don't realise they can jump it - because they are super quick and hard to catch in the undergrowth.

Why are all our animals brown?  And I dyed my hair brown yesterday (on a side note - this took two and a half hours!  I think the hairdresser was individually painting each strand of hair).

A short rest at home.  It is amazing what can happen.  And it is only morning tea time!

unlikely partnerships

This is Scooter 'sharing' some slightly out of date yoghurt with the chickens.  I wasn't sure about the correctness of giving possibly sour yoghurt to chickens and dogs - but they seem to have pulled up alright.

Scooter loves the chickens.  So much that she is constantly digging little holes under their fence so they can come out and play with her.  And by 'play with her' I mean she wants to herd them into the one space and then lick their necks.  The chickens stand up for themselves ok - they peck her on the nose if she becomes too loving.

They are going very well these chooks.  They eat anything I throw in there, and produce four eggs a day.  Their contented 'brrrrkkk' is lovely in the morning, and they are good at aerating the soil (kicking up the mulch).

You keep them in line Scooter.  You chickendog.

a golden treasure from the girls

Exciting developments in the chook house!

What?  What has happened?

I found a egg.  The production has started.

Admittedly it was a very tiny egg.  But I am told they start tiny.  And Dorcus, or Lydia, or Milly, or Minny, had laid it in exactly the right place.

Yum. Breakfast.

For a not very hungry elf.

'Was it your egg Dorcus?'

Excellent work chooks.  My expectations are high now.

new girls in the house

Today saw the arrival of four new chooks at the house.  After building an AWESOME chicken run yesterday from wire gathered around the property (loitering behind the shed and pulled into active service) Granny and I went down the produce shop and picked up four new chickens.  At point of lay.  It sounds like they are in a state of constant readiness for eggs to drop.  Point of lay.  Poised, alert, beady eyed.

The new chicken run:

The chickens are named thematically after women from the New Testament.  At least that was my plan.  Until Annika and Gabby wanted to name one each.

So we have:

Lydia

Dorcas

Milly

and Minny

Maybe Milly and Minny are the lesser known women of the New Testament. The helpers in Martha's kitchen.  The jailors' wife's cousins.

Lydia has already shown her leadership qualities and I think a pecking order will be worked out soon.

We have even clipped their wings to stop them escaping for a couple of days.  It was a far less squawky procedure than I expected.  Except for Lydia.  She gave us a few pecks.  She is feisty that Lydia.

So we will see how they settle in.  I expect egg production soon......

Scooter is very interested in the chickens.

the sad tale of chicken sitting when there is attrition

There are no more chickens at our house.  When I agreed to chicken sit 18 months ago I was excited. Naive.  A chicken newbie.  We started with three black hens.

We built them an enclosure and a little house.  I fed them scraps, collected the egg (NB singular) and let them eat the grubs in the garden.

Then we came home one day to find one of them lying on it's side with its legs stuck out.  Dead as a dead chicken.  It was ceremoniously buried under the mango tree.

Two chickens.

A couple of months later I found a hole in the back fence, a lot of feathers, some blood, and no chicken.

One chicken.

I gave the chicken back to its owner, apologising very much for chicken attrition.  Al and Chris built her a lovely new house, and I am told she is very content to sit out her days there.  Not laying.  Just sitting.  They made the house from bits lying around in the shed - a couple of window frames, some wood, some leftover tin from the shed construction and some ply.

While our chicken house sits forlornly in the corner of the yard.  I am going to start afresh when we get back from China.  Maybe I will get brown ones this time.  And hopefully there will be less attrition.

the trust you put in the postal system

All four of our passports have flown south to get a little stamp in them to say we are allowed to visit Vietnam.  This means the China Vietnam trip is getting closer and closer.  We have had immunisations and we have bought shoes.  I think we are set.  As long as the passports fly back to us.

I love the post.  It is a faith based system.  I popped our little blue books into a piece of paper trustingly at the Mt Gravatt post office - they will appear on the desk of a Vietnamese consulate worker - and then they will appear back at my house.  There is almost something Harry Potter about it.  Harry Potter in a slow motion kind of way.  My mum posted a card from Croatia, and it arrived five days later.  Magic.  People have taken that card and read it and sorted it into a little box that says Australia, and put it on a plane, and gave it to a truck who gave it to our postman, who drives the unmistakable sound of a 50cc past the house at 1.30 each afternoon.

On the other hand, I recently sent a package of goodies to some friends in Tanzania - lollies and games and milo.  I have my doubts if it will make it.

In other news I have started a little garden in a bath.

I started with 8 lettuce seedlings.  Now there are four.  See that chicken in the foreground?  I think its eyes look shifty.  And there may be a lettuce leaf hanging out the side of its mouth.

But I have fortified the surroundings with more wire - so now only birds on the wing can get the seedlings.  I look forward to crisp garden salads.  In ummm about ten weeks.  Assuming the lettuce reaches maturity and the chickens do not work out how to unhook the canny wire gate fence thing I have made.

I am watching you chicken.

black chickens

We mind two scrap disposal units.  Other people call them chickens, but I know them for what they really are.  Organic SDUs.

I feed them pretty much anything.  In this picture they are eating grain, but that is a rarity.  Mostly it is anything left over from cooking, or that has been lurking in the fridge or pantry too long.  Chicken purists would probably say that is not good for them.  They seem hale and hearty and their feathers are still shiny.

Their names are Dorothea and Theodora.  I don't know which one is which.  One lays eggs.  The other one is free loading.

This is their house.  It is sturdy, but there is plenty of room under for snakes and rats to lurk.  I'm sure they are there - just haven't seen one yet.

This is the inside of the house - plenty of shredded paper from work.  Speech therapy reports - this is your final resting place.  Church financial statements - put to a new use.  When the chooks finish with the paper I put it into our compost tumble bin - after a couple of weeks it is lovely compost for the garden.  Very environmental.
No egg yet today.  I read somewhere that they lay every 26 hours - so it is slightly different everyday.  Usually when Dorothea/Theodora is laying the neighbourhood hears about it.  I understand sweetheart.  Imagine passing a big egg out your butt everyday.

The chook corner.  One organic free range egg a day. And insanely efficient scrap disposal.