Sub-tropical chooks - picture heavy

chooks4life said:

At least you, your chooks and place are alright. Glad the cyclone died so quickly, I'm over being flooded in/out of anywhere, lol.

My chook coop flooded due to terrible drainage bizarrely enough, not because the water levels were high outside of it. Only inside of it. :/ That's despite it being far from sealed around the bottom. Not quite sure how it happened yet, appears the rain washed the top layer of clay off their main yard and into the coop and filled up every drainage gap there was. lol.

Best wishes.

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cwrite said:

Sorry to hear about your coop flood. Your birds should be ok though? I don't think a bit of water hurts them as long as they can get to higher ground - the roost. Lol.

Yeah, they're fine, thanks, water doesn't faze them at all. As long as they don't have to sleep in it, my experience has been that it's not a concern at all.

We also have a lot of clay here. There used to be a clay mine behind our house many years ago that reverted to bush and that has now been rezoned to Residential A and is being developed. I think that is the reason why even though our yard is flat, the water just sits if it can't run off.

Your backyard did look like a pool, lol.

Anyway, blue skies today and all the remaining water is gone. My chooks are being frisky. There is lots of chest bumping going on. I even saw Sprinkles chest bump the head hen by mistake.

She realised her mistake almost immediately & went off to do something else quickly.

lol! Sounds like maybe they're gearing up for breeding? The only time I notice upsets between my hens, it's due to reproduction related territorial control. Hen 'A' thinks the whole pen ought to be hers just because she's thinking of brooding sometime in future, but hen 'B' has similar thoughts, and the two take offense at one another's notions and have to talk it out or even have a little dust-up over it. They've been unusually aggressive since they came back from agistment, but at least that's still nowhere near the level of violence many flocks take for granted.

Best wishes.

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cwrite said:

Quote: X2!!!

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cwrite said:

Thanks ChickyChickens!

@chooks4life I am so grateful that I don't have the violence some other flock owners have to deal with. I've never had blood drawn and that suits me just fine. I'm not sure what my chooks are up to except that I finally have a chicken moulting. As far as I can tell it's just Snowy. I have white feathers and the odd one with black patches on it all over the lawn and under the roost.

I got another mystery egg today. I'm pretty sure that neither Pearl or Sprinkles are laying yet. I haven't seen them squat or spend any time in the nest box. Anyway, I found a cream egg with lavender speckles on it that weighs 60g in the nest box today.



It was a bit dark when I took that photo so the colours are off slightly, but it can't be a pullet egg. Perhaps this is happening because they are at the end of a long laying season given that none of them have had their first adult moult yet. I can only guess because I thought chickens usually laid the same shade only a bit lighter towards the end of the season.

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