A Grand Day Out!

On Sunday, we had a nice little outing when we travelled up the Blackall range to the township of Maleny. There was a poultry show on up there, which I had entered my little black pullet into, but then I had to withdraw her when she prolapsed. We still stopped in to view the other birds in the show as well, and that was well worth the trip to see some beautiful poultry. I didn't think to take any photos of the poultry while I was there even though I had my iPhone with me and could easily have done so. It was quite crowded in the sheds and I didn't want to be in anyone's way. You can see pictures of some of the winners at the Poultry Matters Forum.

After looking around at the poultry show, we went into the township of Maleny to take a look at the Sunday Markets and to have some lunch. I got my camera out at the markets to snap photos of the beautiful cupcakes one of the stallholders had on offer.

Maleny township is a very pretty place and has some unique sculptures in the main street. The town is in the middle of a thriving dairy district, so these sculptures are quite appropriate.

I don't know what the sculpture is called, but I called it Metallicows.

We ended our trip with a delicious seafood lunch at Captain Merv's Seafood Cafe 

Related articles

• Showing Poultry (myfanwe.wordpress.com)
• Not So Good Friday (myfanwe.wordpress.com)

Showing Poultry

I've been thinking about putting my Australorp pullet, "Chica" up on the show bench to get some feedback from a qualified judge about her type and form. It's a little daunting to think of this, but she is a very nice looking pullet and I feel she is quite close to the standard for Australorp hens.

Here is a photograph of "Chica" that I took yesterday. It is a little bit grainy as it was snapped through the livingroom window, which just goes to show how long it has been since I cleaned the windows! *blush* Please ignore my housekeeping and look at the fowl. :)

Of course, given that I hatched and raised this little girl by hand, I am possibly biased about her looks, although I am trying to look with clear eyes and put the rose coloured glasses aside.

The only real way to be sure, is to show her and find out.

Chica is 22 weeks old, not quite fully grown as yet, and still needs to feather out a bit more, but she has the shape of an Australorp to her and the lovely compact tail of her breed.

I've been doing some reading this morning on what it takes to prepare and train a young bird for show and I think I might begin prepping her at least. Getting her used to handling, and being penned in a small show box would be one way to start. I can also begin to condition her legs and comb and groom her feathers with a silk cloth. All of that will at least start to tame her down and get her used to being examined and judged.

The local "Agricultural Show" (similar to a county fair) is in June and I think I could have Chica tamed and trained in plenty of time for it.

Australorp Fowl Standards
Preparing Fowls for the Show Bench.

Rooster Boxes

I mentioned at the end of my previous post that my nextdoor neighbour had come over to my place on Saturday with an idea for a possible rooster box to put ChopChop our remaining rooster into at night time in an attempt to keep him quiet in the mornings. Not that Choppy crows all that much anyway, but I am interested in the idea of using a rooster box, both for now and for future roosters who may turn out to be just as dominant and noisy as ChopChop's brother, Boomer was.

The idea of a rooster night box, is to keep the bird in the dark until well past dawn and thus hopefully prevent him from crowing until a more reasonable time than say, 3am!

My neighbour came to ask me, initially, how to build the kind of box that I thought would work, but in the course of our discussion he had a brainwave. He hurried off back home to collect an item he had lying around in his garden shed to see if I thought it would be suitable.

The above picture is what he brought back. It is a collapsible canvas dog kennel for a small to medium dog, complete with a nice, soft cushion for the dog to sleep on. It is lying on its side in this image because it has a mesh bottom and we thought that would be good for airflow. The rooster could sleep inside this, with the cushion and some wood shavings underneath him for comfort and hygiene, and the mesh bottom could be faced toward the wall to allow air through without letting in too much light. I thought this was worth a try and R went back home to find something to use as a door for it.

The door is fashioned out of an old cargo pallet R had 'in the shed' as well.

R attached an aluminium bracket to the top of the wooden door.

The bracket neatly hooks over the metal framework and the bottom of the door
Pushes in flush against the front of the kennel.

The Rooster Box installed in the chicken coop ready for its occupant.

ChopChop checking out the new digs.

We have used this for three nights, so far, and it seems to work well, except for the second night when I had not quite blocked all light from getting into the box. Last night, I made a couple of tweaks to the coop area where the box is, and as far as I know, Choppy didn't crow at all. In fact, he has not crowed all day today. I wonder if he thinks being quiet means he won't need to go back into the box again?

So far, so good.

Next time: "Uh-oh, I'm broody again!"

Tis the season...

to be broody, it seems! My light sussex hen, Bertha is all grim determination to have chicks even with being flogged off the nest three times by her coopmates who wanted to lay their eggs, today. She would just wait by the nest hopping from one foot to the other, making her little bok-buk-bok-buk noises until the hen laying was finished, then back in she would go.


I've been chatting online with some of my chicken breeding friends and they're encouraging me to try setting her with some eggs as Sussex are usually reliable brooders which, once they're settled don't break until the eggs hatch. One suggestion is to let her sit for a week or two on fake eggs and then go in at night and swap the 'eggs' out for day old chicks, which she should happily mother without too much fuss as she will think they are her own. This is tempting as I really would love to get some Australorp chicks to raise for next season and gradaully switch to breeding just Australorps and maybe having Wyandottes for color and variety in the coops.

  so tempted am I, indeed that I have emailed a breeder of Australorps already about getting some fertile eggs.

Book: City Chicks by Patricia Foreman

I have been reading this ebook for a while now. (I am a slow reader) and found it a very enjoyable read. The book is based in the USA but I have found much in it that is useful in an Australian setting as well.

Foreman advocates the practice of keeping a 'micro-flock' in the urban setting not just for eggs and meat, but as little garden workers which assist by digging, scratching and fertilizing garden beds, turning your compost and keeping insect pests at bay.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter which details how to use the chicken coop as a composting system and have applied some of the techniques in my own chicken run, but there is so much more in this book that is handy to know. From building coops and directed runs that channel your hens to wherever you want them in your garden at the time, to hatching and brooding your own replacement chickens it's got some great information.

The only problem I have encountered is that there is quite a lot of repetition in the book, so you'll find yourself reading the same information in two and sometimes more chapters. There are also some typographical errors (more and more common in publishing today, sadly).

All in all, its an enjoyable read, and who wouldn't love that cover?

Get City Chicks for Kindle