New Chickens

I love how the keeping of poultry often comes hand in hand with opportunities to help other people. This has been the case this past week when I had the opportunity to buy some new chickens for my flock, whilst at the same time, helping out a couple of other poultry keepers. The first, was the person who owned the chickens I have bought. This man has been struggling with a serious illness for some time and has not been able to keep up with caring for his large flock of poultry. The time had come for him to downsize.

I bought five beautiful little bantam wyandottes from him.

The second opportunity to help someone came when I decided to sell my Australorp rooster and pullet to another poultry keeper who had recently lost most of his flock to thieves!

Selling the australorps helps me, because I now don't have to worry about trying to handle birds which are too big for me, and it helps the buyer to replace some of his stolen flock.

That's the way things seems to work in the 'poultry world' and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Our young chicks are continuing to grow at an incredible rate. They're eating everything in sight at present, and love their greens, unlike many other youngsters I have known.

A few weeks ago I went to the Reject Shop and picked up a couple of Bra Savers. Not that I have any lingerie that really needs any special care, but when I saw these on the shelf, I had an immediate idea for another way to use them!

Related articles

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• LISTEN TO THE CHICKENS: Analysing chicken chatter could help farmers improve birds' wellbeing. "El... (pjmedia.com)
• Poultry scientists working on a "chicken translator" (gizmag.com)

Not So Good Friday

I mentioned in my previous post that our Good Friday this Easter break was accompanied by its own set of challenges. Well, now I have gotten past the worst of it, I can post about what happened.

On Friday morning, I went up to the coops to let my chickens out, and to fetch my Australorp pullet so that I could get off to an early start with her training for the show bench. I went into the coop and did my usual head count, and short period of observation of the hens which I do every morning in order to ensure everyone is present and in good health.

Right away, I noticed that something was 'off' about the Australorp. She stood off in a corner, alone and had the dreaded 'downward tail and ruffled appearance' of an unwell chicken. I let the other hens out to forage, released the rooster from his nightbox and then picked up the pullet, who submitted, unresisting to being handled (another red flag) and carried her down to the patio where her training pen was set up.

I set her on the table where her pen was, and commenced to gently examine her, prodding and feeling all over for any sign of injury or disease. My heart sank at the discovery I made.

I will be placing the rest of this post behind a cut as some of the photographs are somewhat graphic.

Updates

Well, it has been more than a week since I posted about the rooster box that we set up for my beautiful big Australorp Cockerel, ChopChop. He's getting used to the routine of being put into his box each evening, and let out again in the morning. As far as crowing goes, I only hear him if I happen to be awake, so that means I have not heard him crowing before 8am since we put him into his box. He does crow while he is in there, but the sound is somewhat muffled. I have not heard from the neighbours about whether he is still waking them at 2am, so if I don't hear from them in the next few days, I will pay a visit and ask if all is well now. I'm hoping we've solved the problem.

Last Wednesday, I went broody and set 8 eggs to incubate in the el cheapo incubator I bought last year. I candled them at day 3 but the results were pretty inconclusive. I'm hoping that perhaps Boomer managed to fertilise some of the eggs before we sold him, and decided to set some to see if that's the case. It costs next to nothing to run the incubator and the eggs are a lot less precious and expensive than the previous batch I hatched. I'll keep the blog up to date. I think I might have just a couple that are viable. I will candle them again at day 7 and see how it looks.

Yesterday, I realised with horror that I have not wormed my flock since August last year! This could explain the unthriftiness in a couple of the birds and since the youngsters are now 6 months old, I decided I needed to get onto that asap. I gave the most unthrifty of the hens a dose of Moxidectin immediately, and this morning I put Piperazine into the drinking water for the rest of the flock, and wormed ChopChop with a couple of wormout pills. I am usually very careful to adhere to a three monthly worming system, but for some reason, time has slipped by while I was not paying attention. I will need to redo the whole flock in a fortnight to make sure that I have killed off all the possible worm burden from the birds.

We are once more up to our ankles in mud and water in the back yard, with three solid days of rain that has barely let up. I've given up trying to keep the chickens in out of the wet and have been letting them out to forage in the rain. They seem to have enough sense to get under cover if it really pelts down, and they spend a lot of time under the denser foliage of the mulberry trees when it's only light rain. They're getting a bit wet, but I have been locking them up early and feeding them oats to help them warm up so they are dry by the time they go up on the roost for the night.

There's not a lot going on other than these things. Life at Hensington Palace ticks by and everyone is relaxed and happy. After the 'interesting times' we had for the past few weeks, this is quite a refreshing break!

Interesting Times

Python approx 1.5m captured in our chicken coop

"May you live in interesting times."

The above is purported to be an ancient Chinese curse or proverb, and it has long been a favourite of mine, but recently, what with the soft-shell eggs problem, and the constant rain which is turning my garden into a mosquito and toad infested quagmire, I am beginning to understand why this simple phrase might be interpreted as a curse, regardless of where it originated.

According to the weather man a few nights ago, it is now officially Autumn in Australia. We should be seeing cooler weather (which we are) and the wet season should be coming to an end (which it's not!). We should be having cool, dry days but it has now been raining for three days without letting up and there are reports of road closures around our district due to flooding.

Added to that, last night when I put the chickens into their coops (they'd been out for forage while the rain was a little lighter), I noticed that the laying hens didn't go up to roost immediately. They spent a lot of time pecking and scratching around in their covered run, keeping to the front end of it. I didn't think too much of it, deciding they must simply feel like a bit extra to eat as the rain would have driven bugs and worms deeper into the ground.

I finished topping up feed hoppers and came down to the house, thoughts of my own dinner dancing around in my mind. I was getting ready to put dinner on when Sandra asked: 

"What on earth is going on with your chickens?"

Cocking my head to one side, I listened (I don't generally hear the chooks because I have come to tune them out as background noise). Sure enough, there was a ruckus coming from the direction of the coops. That is abnormal for chickens at nighttime so I knew something must be wrong. I took the torch (flashlight) Sandra had already grabbed and waded back out through the puddles and rain to the hen house.

All of the layer hens were in the front of their run, cackling, hooting and hollering at the top of their airsacs while their rooster was huddled in a wheezing heap in the corner. Nextdoor in the POL pen, the blue Australorp cockerel was hollering, hooting and swearing up a storm, too while his hens huddled in their roost making small, distressed cooing noises. Something was definitely amiss.

The blue cockerel was in danger of injuring himself trying to get through the wire to the laying pen, so I went to him first. I managed to herd him into the roost with his ladies after checking that all was well with them, and settled him down. 

Then I returned to the laying pen, with the blue cockerel calling out warnings to me from his hiding place all the while.

I went into the coop with the layers who immediately quieted down once I was on the scene. Shining my torch around, I slowly edged my way into the coop and shone the torch onto the roost...

And bolted with a shout that had every chicken on the property all hollering and flapping madly as well. I think I made it from the hen house, halfway to the patio before what I'd seen in the brief flash of the torch registered properly. I slowed my pace, took a breath and chided myself.

"That's just a carpet snake, dufus!"

Well, of course this creature would need to be evicted, and as far as I was concerned that was not a job for one person. I continued on my way down to the house and asked Sandra to come and assist with the removal.

We went back to the hen house, herded the laying hens and their wheezing guardian into another run and shut them in. Within seconds, hens and rooster had all piled onto the smaller, more cramped roost in the spare run, clucking and squawking like elderly tour bus patrons who were served cold tea on a rest stop and were determined to let 'management' know of their displeasure! "Just as soon as we've had a good lie down!"

 

Then commenced operation snake eviction!

I don't know if any of my readers have ever tried to catch a snake in a chicken coop before, but let me tell you, it's no easy feat! Those things are ​slippery!​ Not slimy, though, just really good at avoiding being hooked up with a garden fork. No matter how Sandra tried to get him off the roost and into a feed sack we'd brought up there for the purpose, the snake managed to slip, slide and slither away.

In the end, I grabbed him by his -- surprisngly muscular -- tail and hung on, trying to tug him out of the roost. The snake had other ideas. He got his head in behind a wooden beam and hooked himself up there and we got into a real tug-o-war! boy he was strong! I was worried about hurting him if I tugged too much, and Sandra suggested we might need to kill him to get him out of there.

Killing him was the last thing I wanted to do. Carpet Pythons are non-venomous and are handy for killing mice and rats around the sheds. Besides which, they are beautiful creatures and all this fellow wanted was a dry, dark place to coil up and sleep the rain away.

Deciding on a path of least resistance, I stepped forward, letting the tension off his body and the snake lost his grip on the beam and fell onto the soft straw bedding under the roost. I lost my grip on his tail at the same time and the chase was on again!

We managed with much shuffling, squealing (from me) and nervous sniping at each other, to get him from the coop into the run and finally, out of all patience with the ordeal I seized him by his tail again and hauled his scaly butt out into the rain!

Sandra brought the sack out of the chicken coop and we managed to finally bundle our captive into it. Now what to do with him?

It was decided that the best place for a rather war-weary python on such a rainy Sunday evening was a lovely heated reptilarium at Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. The Zoo is, fortunately only a few kilometers from home, so we carted our sinuous visitor up to the Wildlife Hospital.

I must have presented quite a sight! Hair on end, dressed in a singlet and shorts (It was quite muggy yesterday) a pair of thongs (flip flops) on my feet and *blush* no bra! I made the best of the situation though, hugging myself against the aircon in the foyer of the hospital and explaining to the somewhat amused volunteer how we'd "arrested" the python in our chicken coop.

We left the python safely in their care and came home where I spent the rest of the evening cringing in embarrassment, not helped at all by Sandra pointing out my mode of dress!

I called the wildlife hospital to ask after our erstwhile house guest this morning and was told that he is fine, and soon to be released back into the wild.

At least life is never dull around here!

Meal Worm Rescue and a "Beakicure"

I have to say that my life has taken on some unusal practices since getting chickens. With the current wet weather, I have been adding new and unusual activities to my repertoire more often.
Last week, I set up a meal worm breeding box to have a ready source of good quality protein available for the chooks as a treat, and also for when I have a sick chicken whose appetite needs tempting. The worms have been happily breeding away in their box since I put them in there, and I've been giving them a diet of raw carrot, stale bread and the occasional piece of sweet potato. I'm surprised how easy it is to breed them. I just tossed them into a box of bran and left them to it, really. They're doing the rest!

Anyway, upon going to check on the worms this morning, I found that the nest was under serious attack from invading forces. ANTS!!

The little blighters were swarming through the box, running off with bits of bran, shed meal worm skins and a team of them was even carrying off one of the worms! This, I could not have. Sandra and I spent about 45 minutes sifting the bran meal and picking out the worms to transfer them into an ant-free container while the curious, and ever hopeful chickens cooed and clucked around us, looking for a handout. We got all of the ants out of the bran and replaced the worms in their box sans ants and then I turned my attention to one of the hens that was hanging about.

Worms in our rescued meal worm farm

We bought two new Bond Brown POL hens a few weeks ago, and when we got them home, noticed that the poor little things had had their beaks trimmed rather messily. Beak trimming and debeaking is a practice I don't hold with, but it is done with chicks which are likely to be sold into battery farming systems so these girls had probably been done by the farm that bred them prior to being sold to our local feed barn. Anyway both of them have uneven beaks as a result of this, and the bottom beaks tend to grow out past the top beak, which looks odd and probably makes eating a bit of a challenge. I filed back the beak on one of the girls a few days ago, so I had no qualms in grabbing this one (after a merry chase!) and applying my emery board to her beak too.

This hen has had her beak trimmed

The hen in the picture above is not mine, but is an example of a hen with the top beak trimmed back as my hens' have been. Again, this is not something I would have chosen to have done to my chickens, but it is done for battery hens to prevent them from pecking each other to death in the laying pens. It only took a few minutes with the emery board to file her beak back so it matched the length of the top one. The entire operation was watched carefully by a nervously pacing rooster who demanded to know what I was doing to his favourite hen!

Her 'beakicure' all done, I released Rhonda who scampered off up the yard to join her flockmates, none the worse for wear.

Next adventure--Nail trimming! *ulp* That one really makes me nervous. I've never done it before so it will be an entirely new experience for me and the chooks!

Chicken Medicine Cabinet

I have just added a new page to the site called Chicken Medicine Cabinet. On it I will/have list/ed some of the remedies I use in caring for my chickens. There are also recipes for special diets to feed to sick chickens. Where the information is not mine, I have tried to refer to the websites I have gleaned it from with links included to the original source.

Please be aware that these are just some things I have tried over time with varying success rates. You should not presume that these remedies are a replacement for the expert opinion of a qualified vet or specialist. I am not a vet, nor do I have any training in animal medicine. Please take these hints and tips in the spirit they are offered in, and consult a veterinarian if your animal does not improve within a reasonable timeframe.

You can view the page by clicking on the tab above.

Hensington Hospital

I've had a Light Sussex hen in the Hensington Hospital for a few days here. She is one of the 'guest hens' that is staying with us while her family are overseas for the Christmas Holidays and the poor thing has caught a cold. (Colds/respiratory infections) are fairly common amongst chicken flocks and this is nothing serious. However, because she has been a little bit off colour, she has also become the victim of some bullying from her coopmates. She wound up with an injury to her head near her comb which was quite inflamed and sore so I decided to separate her out from the flock and put her into sickbay.

Photo showing (black, crusty)  nasal discharge and the sore, red area next to her
comb where another hen has pecked her.

 

Closeup of peck injury near comb on the lefthand side of the hen's head.
Swollen, sore and hot to the touch.

I isolated her, and put some avian multi-vitamins in her drinking water and then cleaned the injury with diluted hydrogen peroxide in water. I also used a Q Tip to clean some of the gunk out of her nostrils and then applied Savlon cream to the injured place on her head.

Today, the hen seems a little brighter and she laid an egg this morning which is generally a good sign. Her appetite is still good and she seems to enjoy the taste of the water with vitamins added. I will clean her wound again this afternoon, and see how she goes over the next few days. She is still coughing, so not completely out of the woods, yet. I am confident she will make a full recovery though.

Photo taken this afternoon showing reduction of swelling around the peck
injury and cleaner nostrils.

Something to crow about

Yesterday while I was drinking my morning coffee, I could hear a faint sound which I couldn't quite decipher coming from the direction of my chicken coops. I couldn't decide, sitting in my study, if it was a hen announcing the arrival of an egg, or some other strange commotion. I decided to get up and go to the back patio to listen more closely.

I didn't actually make it out to the patio, but froze, listening just inside the back door with a big, sloppy stupid grin on my face. Yes one of our young cockerels has come of age, and was letting the world...well, the backyard at least know about it with a soft, rusty sounding "Err-uh-errrrrrr!"

I don't know which one of the boys it was. When I went up to the grower pen to ask who was crowing, I was met with sealed beaks and innocent looks while the young pullet softly suggested a solution to the 'problem.' 

"Chop-chop!" she clucked under her breath. "Chop-chop-chop!" She is always suggesting that her brothers should get the chop! She's such a meanie.

All of the other hens, both my own, and the guest hens we are chook-sitting were in a state of high excitement, calling out to let the 'man' know where they are.

So, our 'babies' are all grown up. 12 weeks old, today and I am already starting to plan for next season's hatch. I love the rhythm that these lovely birds have brought to my life. Yes, they're hard work, but they repay my efforts in eggs, and more than repay it with the enrichment they bring me.

"Chop-chop!"

Maggie

Commercial Laying Hen Problems

I've got two commercial laying hens in my flock. Rosie who is an ISA Brown and Boss, who is a black Ausrtralorp Utility. They were my original two hens, and when I got them, they were bought simply for the purpose of laying eggs and not really for any other reason. Commercial laying hens are excellent for anyone who is just wanting a few hens to provide eggs for the kitchen since they are bred to lay every day, and to never, or very rarely go broody, they are very good in those types of scenarios.


That being said, however, commercial chickens do have their own set of issues that comes along with their steady egg production. When commercial hens were first developed, they were intended for intensive farming in battery housing where they would live in temperature controlled environments with artificial lighting in order to encourage them to lay and lay and lay some more. Under those conditions, they're expected to last about 18 months and their breeding can tend to predispose them to reproductive issues.

That is what I am confronted with right now with my black utility Australorp.

About a week ago, our weather patterns took a sharp turn into hot, dry weather and on that first day, all of my chickens got quite stressed with the heat. Boss, my Australorp was also struck with a mild case of sour crop that day, which I managed to alleviate successfully, but she has not been completely 'right' since then. She's been off her food a bit, and also quite sluggish and just not herself.

For a few days, she didn't lay at all, and then she produced an egg which had a very thin shell.

Very thin shelled egg

That egg got broken by my lovely big Sussex Hen when it was her turn on the nest, and she enjoyed a little snack on the contents while she laid that day. Not her fault. There is no hen on earth who won't devour an egg that gets broken in the nest or coop, especially if it lands right in her lap, so to speak.

So for a few days after that, Boss didn't lay at all, and then she laid a normal egg. I crossed my fingers, hoping that her problems had been due to heat stress and she might have gotten over it.

Not so. Unfortunately she has been sporadic with laying since then, and then three days ago, I discovered what resembled a puddle of eggwhite in the nest with the other hens' eggs. That has been the case every day since and today, I also found the following.

Soft Shelled Egg

This is what is commonly referred to as a soft shelled egg. It's not really even a shell, seems more like just the membrane without the protective hard calcified shell around the outside to keep the egg intact. It is a very dangerous situation for a hen to be laying soft eggs like this. It is quite possible that she will wind up rupturing an egg inside her body which can cause a condition known as Egg Yolk Peritonitis. Pretty much a death sentence for her if that should happen.

Other than this egg laying problem, the hen seems fit and healthy and I am reluctant to give up on her at this stage. I have isolated her from the flock in a small pen in our garage. This is so that she will be kept in darkness 24 hours a day and hopefully will go off the lay.

By also changing her feeding routine and switching her to a different ration, I am hoping to put her into a forced moult which will mean she stops laying for some time. This should rest her system, and hopefully lead to recovery, but it is all a bit of a gamble really. Given her breeding, she might just be at the end of her productive days and I will need to make the decision whether to put her down or not.

Personally, I will not have anymore commercial layers after my current two are gone. I plan to breed Australorps anyway, and pure breeds have fewer problems with their reproductive systems due to the fact that they don't lay as many eggs.

I am hoping this poor little girl will come good, but it is a forlorn hope.

Chicken Care: Staying cool in the sweltering heat

 

This information was posted on the
Poultry Matters forums today and I felt it was so good that I should share it on my blog.

by Michelle Hernandez

I had been concerned about my flock and had already tried some serious measures. If I could have A/C, I thought, I wanted them to, as well. I started bringing my flock in and putting them in large dog crates in our sun room. Between the chickens, dogs, and cat, not to mention the turkey poults from babysitting, the room looked – and honestly, smelled – a bit like an indoor barnyard. Further, cleaning the crates regularly was a bit impractical for my schedule. I quickly realized this wasn’t going to be a practical longer-term solution, so I started thinking about what else I could do to keep my chickens cool.


Read more: via Chicken Care: Staying Cool in the Sweltering Heat.

Chick Protective Services

This afternoon I had to step in and rescue the unhatched eggs from the broody box. When we checked on mother hen and her eggs the night before last, one of the eggs had either gotten trodden on by mum, or had pipped, I couldn't be sure, but left that egg in the nest anyway and left her to it until today when we went up to have another check of the eggs which are due to hatch from tomorrow onwards. The one that was broken/pipped the other night was gone, and there was no trace of a chick, or of the egg, apart from some blood on the shells of the other eggs. Another egg appeared to be cracked and was leaking yolk and white all over the nest (and it ponged!) another egg was pipping and chirping! My goodness! I had forgotten that eggs chirp when the chick inside is getting ready to hatch.

I took the decision (on advice from some more experienced friends) to remove the eggs from under my broody hen and bring them inside to continue hatching in our incubator (which arrived in the mail last week, thank heavens!) Since bringing them inside, another egg has pipped and is chirping! I candled the 7 remaining eggs and of the seven, I think definitely three and possibly four will hatch. I am happy with that, although it would have been nice if more of the 12 I initially bought had survived. Sadly, they had a rough ride getting here with two already broken when they arrived, two lost during the incubation to breakage and whatever carnage went on yesterday/last night.

Poor Bertha is now sitting on one fake egg and I am looking at what I will need to do to brood these chicks myself when/if they hatch! Talk about being tossed in at the deep end! I'm not really complaining though. I am excited to see what we get from the eggs and who knows, I might get a surprise and more will hatch than I think!


And on the subject of protecting chicks, here is an interesting video about a dog tending to a little chick!

Changing Coops

With the warmer weather here in force, I decided it was time to move my chooks out of their winter coop and into the summer one, today. The chooks were turned out into the yard for free range early this morning and I got to work after breakfast.
Until today, the chooks were housed in the coop at the top end of the sheds, where you see the wheelbarrow in this shot. I took 5 barrowloads of litter and old, composted manure out of this coop. There was no terrible smell, either. I just love the deep litter system. Everything falls through the straw and hay onto the sandy floor, leaving the coops smelling fresh and barny while the poop decomposes underneath.  It wasn't too hard to clean out, either as the bedding was dry and quite light to handle. It all went onto the compost heap up the back.



The winter coop after all the litter was raked and shovelled out. Tomorrow or the next day, I will wash the perches down and then spray the wooden areas with a permethrin solution to kill off any lice and mites that might be still hiding in there and then the coop and roost will be rested over Summer while the chooks move into their cooler runs for the duration.
The summer coop is a lot more open and has wire sides to allow better airflow so that the




chooks won't suffer so much from the heat of our summer. There's even wire next to the nesting box, so anyone who is laying can get a cool breeze while she does her hard work. The greenery you see in the top right of the photo is sprouted wild bird mix which we have been growing to make the transition to the new run less painful for the girls. It is in a run that has a wire roof and will be lovely for them to get some sunshine and fresh air, while still being able to find shade in the other half of the coop which has an enclosed iron roof. I think they should be pretty happy in there!

The Great Escape!

Three of my chooks, Rosie (ISA) Boss (Australorp) and Wynona (GLW) decided that there simply is not enough excitement in my life, this afternoon, and set out to bring more thrills, spills and chills into my day. I swear when I checked on them, they were happily browsing among the undergrowth in our yard, at the back, underneath the mango tree...

I was inside, pottering about doing this and that, not thinking of the chooks again until the sun started to get a bit low in the sky and I remembered I had planned to dig a pot of sprouted grain into the floor in Bertha's (our broody hen) pen. It was when we headed up to the chook sheds with the pot of sprouts that I began to suspect all was not right, but I shook it off and kept on with getting the sprouts bedded in for Bertha, and then refreshed her water bucket. Then I decided that since the sun was going down, I should get the others in for the night...except...

They were GONE!

I searched the entire yard for them. No sign!

I looked up in the trees, I went into their coop, I called and called and called for them... nothing.

I kept looking over the back fence in the forlorn hope that somehow, they'd gotten over into the pineapple fields behind our property, but I couldn't see any evidence that they had. At one point, Sandra attempted to climb the fence into the pineapple paddock. Not a good idea, she fell and now has a nasty cut on her leg from the barbed wire, has ruined a pair of slacks, and has a sprained ankle for her efforts.

The longer we looked for them, the more my heart sank. I was beginning to think they had A. Been stolen, or B (perish the thought!) A fox had got them.

Finally, we resorted to going into neighbours yards asking if anyone had seen our wayward fowl. No one had, but everyone was very helpful, offering to call us if they saw anything. One neighbour went out in his car looking for them. Another walked up and down the street with his two kids, looking for them as well.

I met one lady who has 8 chooks of her own, and was very sympathetic, telling me she knows how attached we get to chooks...ah a kindred spirit!

I was getting tired, and Sandra was limping heavily on her injured foot so we decided it was time to get the car out and go looking.

We'd only driven about two doors from home (large semi rural blocks) when I spotted my three rogues on a neighbours front lawn!

We pulled the car up at the side of the road, and I climbed out while Sandra did a U turn and came back and parked the car.

Then we had to catch the silly hens! Fortunately Boss and Rosie curtsey for us and are easy to capture because of that, but Wynona is a bit more flighty and gave us a bit of a chase before she finally let me grab her.

All three were carried home in our arms, with Boss and Wynona being lectured all the way by one very relieved but also quite cross 'chookie mum' (me).

They are sooo grounded!

23 September 2011

We have had a busy week in our garden again this week. Spring break for Sandra, means she has wanted to get a few things done, both indoors and outdoors while she has some time off from attending classes. She has tidied her study and now it puts mine to shame! *blush*
In the garden, Sandra dug a new garden bed, but sadly, the place where it is located has very poor soil, so that has been a bit of a wasted effort. I don't know if we will just let it grow over with grass again, or try and build up the soil. We used the chickens to help with the work of digging, by setting up a temporary tractor for them using garden stakes and some netting we bought cheap from the reject shop. We draped an old piece of shadecloth over it. The end result was makeshift, but was sufficient just to keep them pnned there for the day while they scratched over the ground.

Maybe the lack of digging and scratching by the hens should have alerted us that this soil was pretty lacklustre. Oh well, live and learn.

So, now we need to find an alternate location to plant some more veges and try to build up this area's soil as our ultimate aim is to have the vege garden close to the house so that it is easy to get fresh produce for the kitchen.

Sandra also created a compost bin from one of the plastic garbage cans we bought from Bunnings with the gift vouchers I received for my birthday in August. She cut the bottom out of the bin so we could then turn it upside down to use as a compost bin. and the lid now sits nicely on the 'top' (what used to be the bottom) of the inverted bin. There are some grass clippings in here already and next time the Bokashi is full, I will put the contents into this bin with some soil so that it can break down into compost.

The chair standing behind the compost bin is to protect newly planted choko vines which we have put in here to train them over the chicken coops for shade for the hens in summer.

Of course, this compost bin may end up being a smelly, slimy failure so we have a backup plan in case that happens.

This is your common, garden variety compost heap just grass clippings at the moment, but I will soon be adding deep litter from our chicken coops to this as I am about to clean out the roost and run and replace the litter with fresh litter for the warmer months. I use a deep litter system as it only requires cleaning about twice yearly. In between clean outs I just add new litter on the top whenever the pens start to get a bit smelly. The chickens keep it turned over with their scratching around in the run. They can be encouraged to scratch more by tossing some grain down on the floor once a week.

On Wednesday afternoon, a courier delivered a dozen fertile eggs which I had ordered for our broody hen, Bertha. I had been anxiously awaiting their arrival and keeping close to the house whilst Sandra worked on compost bins, heaps, and garden beds. We eagerly opened to package to find that, sadly, two of the eggs got broken in transit. They were quite crushed, but the other ten were in good condition. We placed them in the bathroom on the counter to rest for twenty-four hours before putting them under our hen.

I put the fertile eggs under her about 6:30 last night. She is such a patient hen and didn't fuss about me slipping 10 eggs under her. She just soflty clucked: "buk-book-buk buk-book-buk?" as though gently welcoming each new egg. She's such a good chookie, I really hope these eggs hatch for her.

Bokashi, Books and Broody hens

 It was time to bury another bucket full of Bokashi today so I took it up to where I buried the last lot on August 29, almost a month ago! My how time flies! I was curious to know how well the last lot I buried had broken down and I remembered saying on my blog that I would let you all know how it went. If you recall I said in THIS POST That I gathered up windfall citrus to bury with the bucket full of citrus peels, vege scraps, eggshells, and other waste from the kitchen mixed with Effective Microoganisms to help it break down. 

I started to dig where I had buried the last lot and was very surprised at how soft the ground here was. I turned over a spadeful of the most delicious smelling compost! It's kind of fruity and sweet smelling and very moist.

 For the most part, the scraps and peels had broken down completely, although there were still some little bits of citrus mixed through.

Citrus in the compost

I think that the bits of citrus that had not broken down yet might actually be from the whole ones I put in that I picked up around the yard. Anything that had been cut into small pieces and processed in the bucket prior to burying was gone!

I am really very pleased with this.

The vege patch continues to thrive, despite the potting mix we planted it in being quite hydrophobic and not holding moisture very well.

We have Roma Tomatoes coming on nicely!

 We actually put some soil on some of the veges, from the bokashi compost pit, to see if it helps at all with moisture retention. We won't be doing the 'no dig' gardening method again, though. It hasn't really saved us any work because of the time involved in trying to keep the roots moist.

I am reading a good book at the moment called Frugavore: How to grow your own, buy local, waste nothing, and eat well by Arabella Forge. I'm really enjoying it and will post a review once I have finished it. Sandra is reading Changing Habits, Changing Lives by Cindy O'Meara and I want to read that after she is done with it.

Broody Update: Bertha sat all day again, today. I think she may have been up for some food and water early in the morning, but hadn't stirred again all day. It was a very warm day and I was concerned about her, so I went and tried to put some water on her beak to tempt her to drink from a little bowl I had with me, she told me where to get off! I left her alone after that, but when I took a wet mash up for the other girls this afternoon, I offered some to her in her own little bowl and she ate about 1/4 cupful. That is food and water mixed together with some egg added so I am content that she won't starve or dehydrate. I've left a small bowl of water and a little bit of mash next to her nest for her as well. She must think this is the life. No egg laying, a comfy secure box all to herself and room service laid on!

Bombproof Broody!

so, today we went to the local council recycling center and picked up an old dog crate for $15! When we got it home, I cleaned it thoroughly with water and disinfectant (note: I have since found out it is not advisable to use disinfectant to clean equipment for backyard poultry. Warm soapy water will suffice) and let it dry in the sun for an hour or so.

The crate has "Pepsi + Diego" written on the top of it. It makes me wonder what animals used to use this before it came to us. We have set this up in the coop for our broody Sussex, Bertha. She seemed to tolerate the disturbance okay. We went up and did this just after sunset and I got her off the nest she had been using and put her near her water bucket. She was a bit stiff from sitting and kind of fell face first into the bucket. Note to self, put her further away from the bucket next time! She then proceeded to have a big drink of water. The other chooks in the pen next door were on the roost, but when they heard/saw her drinking, two of them came down and had a drink in their pen, too. It was rather cute!

We put fresh straw into the dog crate, and put her fake egg into it, then when she had eaten some food and had another drink, I tried putting her inside the crate. She fussed and clucked and then came out, acting frantic as though her egg was missing. I put her back in. Same deal.

Then my partner suggested we should get the straw from the old nest she had been using and put that into the crate. We did that, put her egg in there, put HER in there and waited.

There was some more clucking and fussing, and then a little noise that sounded like a cry of joy when she spotted her fake egg. She immediately settled on the egg, and that's how we left her.

She seems very determined to set, so I am going to organise some eggs for her early next week.

Oh, and while she was off the nest, she did a poop right at my feet, which was huge and omg!! The smell!!! I'd heard about these 'broody poos' but they seriously have to be smelled to be believed.

I suppose that was my just desserts for dropping her headfirst into her water bucket!

Making EM Culture!

The past few weeks, I have been conducting highly classified, secret business! I didn't say anything about it until now, because this was the first time I had tried this recipe and I didn't want to embarrass myself if I created a horrendous zombiefied lactobacilli based monster and unleashed horror upon the world.

Yes, I was trying to culture lactobacillus, amongst other organisms for my bokashi bucket. Being on a pension, I try to do everything as frugally as I can, and am slowly teaching myself never to buy what I can make for myself, so, following THIS RECIPE I decided to try and make my own EM (Effective Microorganism) innoculant for bokashi composting. I was a bit worried that all I would end up with, would be a sour, stinking mess, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

A couple of weeks ago, when we were going to eat rice for dinner, I washed my rice and reserved the water, setting it in a large jar in a dark cupboard for 7 days.

It came out, looking something like this

Image via Hawaii Healing Tree.

So, first part, successful! Now I had to add 10 parts milk, to 1 part rice water. I measured out 100ml of the water, to which I added 1 litre of milk, and back into the cupboard it went for another week.

That part came out looking like this:

Not the most appealing looking stuff!

I admit, I expected this to smell revolting, even though the recipe said that it should just smell like yoghurt, and I was surprised when I took the lid off, to discover it did actually smell just like, well, yoghurt! So that was looking good! I then strained out the solids from the liquid and put the liquid into another bottle which I added half a teaspoon full of molasses to.

There was a little fluid left over after filling the new bottle, so I poured that onto some potted plants as it is meant to be good for the soil.

It looks a lot nicer in this, final state, and it should keep for about 6-12 months under refrigeration. It smelled sweet because of the molasses and if it ever smells sour, it will mean that it has gone rancid and should be discarded.

Oh, as for the milk curds?

The chooks got to enjoy those!

Poor Bertha, she still doesn't understand about food and fences!

Omnivorous Chooks

Green Jungle Fowl

When I posted on my blog recently about my chickens going nuts over canned sardines, my friend DivaJyoti commented that she hadn't known chickens would eat fish.

Chickens actually prefer to follow an omnivorous diet. The chickens we know today, that scratch around in barnyards or (sadly) rot away in battery farms, for shame! tend to be fed on a grain based diet, more because it is convenient for us. The domestic hen, gallus domesticus is actually descended from the Jungle Fowl:

• Gallus gallus
• Gallus lafayetii
• Gallus sonneratii
• Gallus varius (pictured)

Jungle Fowl originate from India, Sri Lanka, South East Asia, and Indonesia. In their wild state, jungle fowl eat a varying diet consisting of fruits, grains, vegetation, small rodents, lizards, bugs, slugs and insects. When allowed to 'free range' our domestic chickens will do much the same. I've heard of domestic fowl eating mice, lizards, beetles, worms, caterpillars snails and slugs. In fact, a flock of chickens let loose in a matured vegetable garden will nibble little bits of the veges, but will also keep the garden almost completely pest free. They particularly favour the larvae of coddling moth! Yesterday, I gave my chooks 100g of kangaroo mince.

Someone mentioned on a poultry forum I frequent, that feeding kangaroo meat to chooks is an extreme sport. After trying this myself, I'd have to concur. There was none of that hesitant peering at it before taking a small peck to taste it that you normally see when offering a new type of food. Rosie tried to rip the meat out of my hand before I even got the wrapper off it! 

Velociraptor

Then it was on for young and old as my gentle, 'boking', scratching hens turned into miniature velociraptors, jumping up, flapping at me, trying to snatch beakfuls of meat out of my fingers (they rarely eat from my hand) and chasing each other all over the chook pen trying to snitch pieces out of each other's mouths. All the while, they were making that special high pitched muuuur-uurrrrrr! sound that chooks reserve for only the best and tastiest morsels.

I think they like it!
Images via wikepedia

Weighing In

I had to take a trip to my doctor this morning for a general checkup and to get some prescriptions renewed for my meds, so when I got home, I decided I would do a quick checkup of the chooks.

I had bought some Colloidal Silver while I was out, having heard this is a handy tonic for either bacterial or viral infection and with Rosie still a little bit lack lustre, and Bertha occasionally still coughing, I decided to give both girls a dose (just one or two drops from an eyedropper) of CS internally.

After that was done, I thought it might be a good idea to weigh them all as I hadn't got a baseline weight since getting them. Rosie has filled out a bit again since I've been treating her for her mysterious weightloss and lethargy, so I thought it would be good to know just what she does weigh.

Each of my hens are what's known as 'first years' so they're probably not at their full adult weight yet, particularly Bertha who is a Light Sussex, a late maturing breed.

So, how do you weigh a chook? It's not as simple as just asking her to step onto the scales, after all and I don't have a hanging scale like my dad used to use for his chickens. I decided I'd have to do it the old fashioned way and step onto the scales myself, holding each hen by turns.

That actually worked out very well, and their weights are as follows.

Rosie (ISA Brown): 2.2kg (4.8pds) About right for the lower end of the scale with her breed. Would like to see her put on a little more though.

Bertha (Light Sussex): 3.5kg (7.7pds) Within a healthy weight for her breed, but there is no upper limit on weight in the standard, so she could put on more without it being too worrisome.

Boss: (Australorp Utility): 2.6kg (5.7pds) Again, not too bad for her type.

Wynona (Gold Laced Wyandotte): 2.8kg (6.16pds) She is close to the right weight for an adult of her breed, needs just a little fattening. More canned tuna for her!

Of course, I am not too obsessive over the weight of the chickens really. It's only a part of the picture and health in chickens is judged more by their laying, feeding, and sociability than their weight. All of them are eating well, foraging happily when they get the chance to free range, and are happy to scratch around and gossip with each other in their coop.

As for interest in food? Well, if the way they chased me all the way to the henhouse when they saw me with a can of sardines this afternoon is anything to go by...

Giving Pills to Chickens

From time to time, chickens can and do get ill, just as humans do. This can range from something as simple as eating something that disagrees with her, right up to life threatening illnesses such as cancer or a form of paralysis called Marek's disease.

Sometimes it is easy to diagnose the problem, and other times, it is really just guesswork and or acting on a hunch.

I have been watching Rosie (pictured) my little ISA Brown for about a week now, not entirely happy with her state of health, but unable to decide if she had anything really ailing her or not.

She's been just... different. Not her usual self. She's lost a little weight, has had some diarrheoa, and keeps shaking her head, all of which can be signs of a respiratory illness in chickens, and yet, otherwise she's been well. No sneezing, no sniffles, no wheezing, no signs of lice or intestinal worms. I'd been treating her symptoms by feeding her a little extra protein, and just making sure there was plenty of fresh, clean water available, and monitoring her condition for any deterioration.

Today, deciding it won't kill her, even if it doesn't cure her, I decided to give her a dose of tissue salts combination 12. This is a homeopathic remedy which I take when I feel the onset of a cold and find that it helps to fight off the virus/infection before it takes hold, so I figured it might be worth a try for Rosie. It is a general tonic which is useful in the treatment of overall fatigue and exhaustion.

Given the tiny trace amount of active ingredients in these pills, I decided to dose her with a whole pill and see how she goes.

I was a bit nervous going up to the pen to get her, having never done this before. I caught her and took her into the coop, away from the others and got her settled on my lap. I then calmly got hold of her head and opened her beak, to which she objected a little bit, but not strenuously. I looked down her throat and then tossed in the pill and closed her beak again. I felt her swallow as soon as her beak was closed. She sat on my lap and turned her head to look me right in the eye as much as to say "Hey, if you wanted to give me a treat, you could just give it to me."

She sat and cuddled a little while and I gently scratched her belly under the feathers which always makes her close her eyes and drift off for a short nap. After a while she lightly hopped down from my lap and went off to eat some greens, neither of us the worse for wear.

The other hens crowded around her, asking "What did you get? Is there any for us?" Rosie seemed a little bit smug about getting something that the others hadn't been given. (Typical chook politics!)

I got several 'no fair!' glares from the other hens as I left the coop. hehehe

Wow! I wish it was that simple to worm my cat!!