Our Little Champion!

On Sunday, we took one of our new Black Bantam Wyandotte hens for her first outing on the show bench. At least, I thought it was her first outing, but once we had her in her pen at the show, it became obvious she was an old hand at this whole deal. She stood up so beautifully in her pen, and was happy to 'show' herself, turning this way and that when anyone stood in front of her pen. I was very pleased with her. She has such good type and shape and I really felt confident that she would at least place in her category.

I tried not to hover while the judge was inspecting her, but I admit, I was not too far away. My hen knew exactly where I was, and she looked me when the judge brought her under a light to get a better look at her. I swear she gave me the stink eye for allowing her to be manhandled by a complete stranger. hehe!

I peeked around the corner when the judge put her back into her pen, and supressed the urge to dance on the spot when he chalked a "1" on her pen number.

Then, he hovered in front of the pens with other birds from her class in them. He seemed to be deciding between my hen, and one other in the class. He paced in front of the two pens, frowning in thought and then finally settled on my hen's pen lifting his hand to chalk "CH" next to the "1."

This time, I did dance on the spot; well out of his line of sight, mind you! Then I took off in search of a couple of my friends, and fellow club members to squeak the good news to them!

I was so pleased with this result, and it proves to me that I have a good eye for selecting which bird to put on the bench. I felt that this girl was the best of my four hens, and it would appear that the judge agreed with my assessment. I have eggs from this little girl, whose name is Dora (aka "dorable") and can't wait to see how the chicks turn out.

When we got her home, I set up a small pen for quarantine and put her into it. Then I hung her sash on the outside to snap this photo. She is not being very cooperative. She was tired, hungry and well and truly over all the fuss by then, but it gives some idea of her shape and type, anyway.

While we were at the show, I also met up with some friends from one of the facebook groups I belong to. One of them had some bantam Wyandotte eggs for me, and another one was delivering a custom built brooder that her hubby had spent the weekend building for me.

The brooder is made of MDF and has a perspex divider in the middle so that it can be separated off into two compartments. This will be handy when we have different breeds, such as bantams and standards. There is a light fitting in either end so two batches of chicks can be kept warm at the same time. It is very well made and I will be using it in a few days when my first batch of bantam wyandottes hatch.

I also picked up 1.5 dozen bantam Wyandotte eggs of mixed colours including Crele, Partridge, pencilled (silver and lemon) and splash. They are set in my incubator and will hatch in about 18 days. It has been a very busy, but exciting time to say the least!

The Bantams

Well, it has been a few weeks since we got our little black bantam wyandottes and they have settled in nicely. I've been working with one of the hens, prepping her slowly and gently for a poultry show coming up next weekend. She is a sweet little girl and so much easier to catch and handle than my big black Australorps.

I've named this little girl, Dora as she is very curious about everything and will be the first to explore anything new in the coop. She's so lovely. I am totally smitten with her and her little mates.

These bantams are more show breeders than show stock, but I am going to enter Dora into a show anyway, more for the fun and experience and also to see what, if any comments she gets from the judges.

Dora is the little girl at the rear of this photograph. As you can see, she is as curious about the camera as the camera is curious about her. I love the angle of her head, and the way she just radiates confidence and inquisitiveness.

I need to find the time to get some nicer photos of the girls individually. I'm hoping Dora does well in the show pen and I might get some good shots of her then.

This is the only individual shot I have and it is of the Rooster. We named him Ko-Ko after the Lord High Executioner in The Mikado. He is a little man with high ambitions, just as Ko-Ko is. He looks very grumpy and out of sorts in both of these photos, but I am sure it is all bluster! He's very sweet to handle and very attentive and gentle with his little hens.

I'm hoping that I will be able to add a new little blue hen to his harem sometime soon as I am very keen to have both a black, and a blue line of these sweet little chickens to call my own.

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!

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Our First Poultry Show

I finally managed to grub up the courage to enter one of my chickens into a poultry show. I selected my Gold laced Wyandotte hen, Wynona whom my daughter Hannah affectionately calls "Little Win" for the show.


It was a small show for one of the poultry clubs I am a member of, so I thought this would be a good way to dip my toes in the water. Wynona is a very placid--dare I say-- bombproof hen, who takes most things in her stride around home, so she made a good candidate for my nervous handling during preparation.


I took the preparation slowly, bathing her on a Wednesday, giving her a rest day on the Thursday then doing nails, feet and legs on the Friday with another rest on the Saturday before Sunday's show. I'm pleased to say that this time when I attempted to trim her toenails there was no bloodshed! I trimmed them back just a tiny bit and then tidied and shaped them with a small nail file. Wynona seemed, if anything, curious about that process and offered gentle comments to her "pedicurist' from time to time as I worked.

Here she is all washed, trimmed and ready for her big day. All that needed to be done on the day of the show was to give her feet a quick wash and oiling and to oil her comb and wattles.

She doesn't look very impressed with me in this photo. I think she just wanted back in with her flock mates by now. I'd had her separated and quarantined from the others for almost a week!

The morning of the show dawned and we were up and on the road bright and early. It was a crisp cool Autumn morning, the kind that lets your breath hang in clouds of steam in the air. The chickens were all still roosting when I went to fetch Wynona from her pen. As for Wynona, she was up and having a sip of water as I slipped through the gate into the orchard. My rooster stirred and grumbled in the chicken coop and I am sure I heard one of the hens mutter something about how 'mum' must be sick if she was up that early!

We loaded Wynona into the back seat of the car and headed out on the highway. None of us having eaten breakfast. Wynona sat quietly in her carry pen, curiously peering out at the world rushing by the windows at 100kmh, faster than any chicken has ever travelled on foot!

If it was crisp at home, it was downright cold when we reached the venue for the show. Hannah and I got Wynona out of the car. I went to see the stewards and registered my entry and then we began the final preparations. A few stray feathers had popped up along the sides of her comb and I held her while Hannah carefully trimmed them away with a small pair of curved scissors. I gave her legs and feet a last minute clean and then rubbed oil into the scales to make them gleam. Wynona quite enjoyed that part and had a little doze while I gently massaged.

Finally, she was as ready as she would ever be, and I carried her down to the poultry pavillion and loaded her into her show pen. The hardwork and patience paid off though when I went back to her pen a little while later and discovered a lovely surprise!

"Little Win" had lived up to her name and took out first prize in her class. (Just don't tell her she was the only bird in her class! I'd hate to shatter her illusions).

I also received a lovely prize as a female exhibitor on the day and I had a lot of fun. I think this is something I will do again. It was a friendly atmosphere, a lovely day, and there were so many beautiful fowls there to view and admire!

Chicken Nail Trimming FAIL

So today I decided I would try to trim my Gold Laced Wyandotte's toenails. I decided to use her for my first attempt at this job because she is my quietest hen when it comes to handling, and because I happened to catch her more easily than any of the others...

A word of caution to anyone who is going to attempt to trim a chicken's nails. Don't!

No, seriously, what I mean is, don't undertake this lightly if you've never done it before. There is some basic equipment you should have on hand before you start and which I foolishly neglected to have and this is my cautionary tale.

So, before you even think of touching a sharp pair of nail trimmers to a chicken's claw, please gather the following.

Sharp Nail Clippers
Cotton swabs
Kwik Stop powder or Corn Flour
A prepared isolation pen
Bandages
A stiff drink! (medicinal)

The reason for the Kwik Stop powder and corn flour is to stop any bleeding should you do what I did, and take off too much of the nail.

I really only nipped off the very tip of the claw, but obviously nicked the quick and this bled. It bled a LOT. This photo was taken after I had been applying pressure on the end of the nail for about 10 minutes and it was only just beginning to clot.

I don't have any Kwik Stop powder, so we had to resort to using corn flour which will help to stop bleeding from this kind of injury, but it doesn't work as well.

We buried the injured toe in corn flour and it stuck to the injured nail quite nicely.

The poor victim was then put into isolation where she will stay for 24 hours to ensure she doesn't reopen the wound by scratching in the dirt.

I will try clipping nails again, but will be much more cautious next time and make sure I am fully prepared, including having Kwik Stop powder on hand for emergencies!

Perching Chicks

The latest batch of chicks are growing and developing a lot faster than our first batch did. I have to wonder if this is because they are hybrids as opposed to pure bred. Yesterday, we placed a small branch from a tree into the corner of the brooder and it was not long before one of them was up on it, showing off her superior balancing skills!

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Wordless Wednesday: Mother Gaia

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 

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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.

A Box of Whistles

I am not the first person in my family to take to the practice of keeping and raising my own chickens to provide eggs for the table and enjoyment in the garden. When I was small, my father kept a flock of white leghorn laying hens and would often either hatch chicks under a broody hen, or bring home day old chicks to slip under a hen so she could raise them.

The first time I recall Dad bringing home some day old chicks, he arrived home one afternoon and got out of his car carrying a small cardboard box, about the size of a shoe box. As he walked into the house, the box was cheeping and chirping.

Being a curious seven year old, I asked him. "What's that you've got, Dad?"

"A box of whistles," he replied.

Later, he showed me how to give the 'whistles' to the broody hen and she went on to raise them quite happily, into productive members of our flock.

On the Tuesday before easter, we hatched six tiny new chicks and thus became the owners of our very own 'box of whistles.'

We got six chicks from 7 eggs which is a very good hatch! For now, their names are Prima, Seconda, Tierza,Quatra, Quinta and Sesta.

They are hybrids. Two of them are Australorp X Light Sussex (They are the larger, bluish coloured chicks) and the rest are Australorp over Commercial Australorp. They are good, strong, healthy chicks and I look forward to adding them to our laying flock, or selling them on to others for laying hens.

Good Friday, however came with its own set of challenges, which I will post more about later!

Pips!

We have pips!

Now to wait and hope that healthy, well formed chicks zip their way out of the eggs over the next 24-48 hours.
It's all very exciting, and right on cue, Bertha, our Light Sussex hen has gone broody. It is as if she could sense that the possibility for chicks was there. I may slip some of these under her if all goes well with the hatch.

My Gentle Giant

Everyone who meets my beautiful Australorp Rooster, Chop-Chop comments on how big he is. Some people tend to find his size intimidating, but he is such a tame, gentle baby despite his size.

I introduced him to my daughter, Hannah yesterday. The last time she saw him, Choppy and his hatch mates were only about 8 weeks old and quite a lot smaller than they are now.

Choppy, always being interested in something nice to eat, came running down to greet us when he heard our voices in the yard.

Tearing up to us at full pelt, I guess he was a bit of a formidable sight! Hannah squeaked in alarm and stepped backwards, holding out her hands to ward him off, and Chop Chop stopped in his tracks clucking his confusion at this strange reaction.

I encouraged Hannah (who is 23) not to be afraid and that Choppy is just a big sook.

After a few nervous moments observing him and being reassured that he would not attack her, Hannah fed him some wild corn, which he picked, delicately from the palm of her hand, amazing her with his gentleness.

He is a sweet natured boy and has never shown the slightest hint of aggression towards anyone.

Despite his formidable size, he truly is just a big old baby and I adore my gentle giant.

Rhythms of Life

"The Sun rises and the moon sets and each in their season turns and returns, world without end." ~Unknown 

I don't know where I first heard the above quote. I believe it was in a movie I watched quite some time ago, and I can't recall anything about the movie apart from that quote made by a narrator at the beginning of the film. It is a quote that comes to mind any time I get to thinking about the seasons and the rhythms of life.

Since I started keeping chickens and especially since I started to incubate and hatch my own chicks, I have become much more aware of those rythms. Last night, I candled the eggs again, and was delighted to notice definite signs of life in two out of the eight. I think that they are equivalent to day four eggs, even though they'd been in the incubator for 5 days by then.

I had a feeling that the incubator was not keeping its temperature even so I wrapped a blanket around it to help insulate it from fluctuations of temperature in the room and hey presto, life sparked and began to develop!

My days have settled into a rythm too now. Each morning I gently handle the eggs, moving them from one rack to the other, turning them 180 degrees as I move them. Then I check the water in the humidity chamber, cover them up, replace the blanket and go on about my day. I return after dinner and repeat the whole process going back the other way.

Thus, gently rocked from one end to the other, warmed and coddled in their humid environment, the eggs quietly rest and develop.

Around me, the rythms of nature are slowing down. Leaves are turning, birds are finishing the task of raising the past season's young. The hens scratch and browse across the lawn, showers come and go, clouds scud across the sky. The sun peeks through in brief glimpses and then is gone again.

Eastern Yellow Robin (Photo credit Wikipedia)

An Eastern Yellow Robin hunts for spiders in the garden and picks them off our window frames which sorely need de-cobwebbing. I'm reluctant to do it, though because that would mean Mr Robin would have a more difficult search for sustenance.

The season is changing and the wild grasses are in seed. A boon for the chickens and other seed eaters but a bane for me with my oversensitive nose. *sniffle*

I watch Gaia's rhythms, and slow my pace, listening to the hum of bees in the branches of the golden rain tree and smile.




As the seasons turn, I am more and more comfortable with my own steps within the dance.

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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!

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!"

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!

Of First Eggs and Soft Shells

 As you can see from the image, this shell is very thin and brittle. I was able to make an indent in it by gently pressing my thumb against it. If I'd pressed any harder, the shell would have ruptured.

It has been an interesting and exciting week at Hensington Palace. First the good news. Our little purebred Australorp pullet laid her first egg on Friday morning! I was so happy and proud to see it. I've raised this little girl from egg to egg layer and was so pleased to find her little gift under the roosting perch. She has laid each day since then, one smallish, perfectly formed brown shelled egg each day like clockwork.

In other, not so great news, our problem crossbred layer hen is having laying issues once again. She had been doing so well, and I was beginning to hope that all her troubles were behind her. For those who haven't been longtime followers of this blog, I will recap.
We got this hen as one of our two original laying hens back in 2011 as a gift for mother's day from my children. Neither of them was laying yet when they first arrived. They were little, cute POL hens and we eagerly awaited our first eggs from them.
It seemed to take forever for them to finally lay, because we got them in winter and they didn't start laying until the spring.

Anyway, eventually they did both start to lay, but before too long, "Bossie" as we had named the black hen, began to have trouble. It started off with a nasty prolapse. I was horrified the morning I went to the coop and found the poor girl with her bottom all red, and seemingly turned inside out. I put her in isolation and sent out an urgent message to a chook owning friend, asking what I ought to do. I was told that if the situation didn't revert by itself, the alternatives were vet treatment, or culling. My heart was heavy. I didn't want to have to destroy my lovely little hen so soon after getting her! Fortunately, with a little time alone to rest and be quiet, the prolapse reverted of its own accord. Bossie had one more prolapse after that, a few days later, but it was less severe and reverted as soon as I picked her up.

She seemed well after that, but a couple of months later, I started to find broken eggs in the nesting box each morning. At first, I thought the hens must have developed a habit of egg eating. (A big no no in laying coops!) but then I realised that these eggs had very thin, brittle shells. Again, it was Bossie that produced these flimsy shells.

The advice for this situation was to insure that the hens were getting enough shell grit (for calcium) and sunshine (vitamin D) both of which they were getting plenty of, being free range hens, and also having a dish of shell grit available free choice in the coop.

Another piece of advice was to try and get boss to stop laying, to give her system a break and reset everything. I tried everything I could, but Bossie is a commercial hybrid and is programmed to lay, lay, lay... She did not go off lay even for one day, despite my best efforts. She did, however start laying hard shelled eggs again and I finally thought her troubles were behind her.

Alas, this morning, I found another soft shelled egg under the roost. She usually always lays in the nest, so I think this egg may have 'slipped' out while she was sleeping last night.

That is the biggest problem with such eggs. The shell of an egg is subjected to a lot of pressure as it passes through a hen's body to emerge from the cloacca.

Should the shell break before the hen is able to pass the egg, this will lead to a painful and fatal infection called Egg-Yolk Peritonitis. It is dangerous for a hen to be afflicted by soft shell problems as she can get into dire straits!

My decision now, is whether I try to fix this, whilst running the very real risk that she will wind up with peritonitis, or do I write her off as high risk and cull her. It's not an easy decision to make, but I need to consider the hen's welfare as well as my own feelings about this. I already think I've made the decision.

It's just not going to be easy.

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!

Panicking chooks and a smelly corpse!

I had noticed the chooks panicking the past couple of days whenever they crossed a certain area in the yard, but it was not until I went up there myself today that I noticed this! Almost had a heart attack until I realized it's dead. Not sure what type of snake it is.

The only snakes I have seen around here before are tree snakes and carpet snakes. This one doesn't look the right colour for a tree snake, though.


Closer shot. Given the injuries to the poor creature I would presume he/she was a victim of the lawn mower a couple of days ago. I think it's a good job our mowing man uses a ride on mower!



Poor Joe Blake (Australian slang for snake), he didn't come off too well in that argument and man, did he pong (stink)! I scooped him up with a stick and carried him away from the chooks' free range area. I was sneaky though, and put the corpse somewhere that I don't want the Hensingtons to be. ;) Maybe they will stay away from there for a while, at least!

Edited to add: An online friend of mine says it looks a lot like an Eastern Brown snake.

Eastern Brown Snake:

This makes me triply glad that I didn't encounter it when it was alive!