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!

Rooster Ruckus

Those who follow this blog regularly will know that I hatched three chicks back in October of 2011 and that I then spent the past 5 months or so raising them to maturity.

My hope in hatching them had been that I would get replacement hens for my laying flock, and also some breeding stock towards my dream of breeding Australorps for fun and possibly for show. Well, I got one pullet from the hatch, and two roosters. Out of a dozen eggs, three chickens. Not a huge return on my investment, but the enrichment that these youngsters brought to our lives was worth more than money. In my opinion, anyway!

We had three darling little walking pompoms which we dubbed "Chick 1, Chick 2, and Chick 3" initially. Not the most creative of names, I know, but when you don't know what gender is hiding under all that soft, downy fluff, what can you do.

Being complete novices at the hatching business, we still had no clue, even at four weeks of age, what gender birds we had, but expert opinion from more experienced poultry fanciers put odds on that Chick 1 was a girl whilst Chick 2 and Chick 3 were both boys. The reasoning behind this is because chick number 1 (left of photogaraph) has a smaller comb and no wattles, and her feathers are more developed over the wing and back. the other two chicks, have larger, redder combs and the beginnings of wattles under their chins. Indeed, that's exactly how it did pan out in the end.

We had one blue cockerel, one black cockerel and a black pullet. Yes, I knew, even back then, that Cockerels grow up to become roosters and that roosters like to crow first thing in the morning, and second thing, and third and...so on.

What I didn't know, was that Roosters would crow loudly at all those things of the day. Still, I had at least 6 months before the crowwing would start, didn't I? So I could just ignore the problem until I couldn't ignore it anymore, right?

As it happened, our two cockerels, whom we named Boom and ChopChop hadn't read the Handbook for Young Cockerels in the Field, and they thought that it was entirely appropriate for a young rooster to start testing his vocal chords somewhere around 8 weeks of age! At first, it was cute... sweet, soft little, wobbly arrrrreeeeeaaaarooo! noises greeted the dawn, and they soon ran out of breath and didn't try again for hours. Not so bad, I thought. We can live with that!

Practice makes perfect, though and pretty soon, Boomer (renamed because of his voice!) was starting up at 4am with an increasingly loud and strident AAARRRRRRR-OOOOO-AH-OOOOOH! He discovered he could crow and he decided he liked to crow! There was one day in particular when his new, brassy trumpet of a voice split the air at least five times every two minutes! I was going nuts, my neighbour was going nuts, and I think, even the hens, and ChopChop were going nuts, listening to him!

I really loved Boomer, but I knew that his luck would have to run out sooner or later with the neighbours. Tolerant as they are, even I could tell that the noise would eventually get on their very last nerve.

I made up my mind to give him away, then I made up my mind to keep him, and then I made it up to give him away and that time I got as far as posting an advertisement online about him. I was still hesitant, but that evening I had an email from a lady who was very interested in having Boomer for her breeding program. I decided to sleep on it. The following morning, after inspecting the hens, and having a last little chat with Boomer, cuddled on my lap, I made up my mind that he should be given the opportunity to go and live in the country, before someone decided to demand his carcass on a platter!

I felt at peace after talking on the phone with the person who had inquired about him, and I made one last video of my beautiful Boomer-ang and then boxed him up and put him into the car for the drive to a town halfway between our home and Boomer's new address.

When I met Boomer’s new owner, and she met Boomer, I knew it was a perfect match! She fell in love with our boy at first sight, and he seemed pretty happy with her as well. We chatted for a while about our shared love of all things chook and then I told Boomeroo to be a good boy in his new home and we waved him off on his way to the big farm in the country where he has a harem of ladies all his own just waiting until he is out of quarantine.

We still have Boomer’s brother, Chop Chop here, and he is a sweet, gentle little boy who is quite a bit quieter, so far, than his bigmouthed brother was.

And today, my neighbour came over with a suggestion for a rooster box for Choppie to go into at nighttime.

More on that in my next post!

Hensington Palace Chicks 8 weeks