Australia - Six states..and that funny little island.

[cwrite]

Thank you Mother Nature!

The rain has eased and the radar is showing that we are nearly out of it!

Thank you for visiting Marcia but please do not come again or tell your friends about us!!


Fancy yep, if the radar was not showing that it was going to ease soon, the gals were on their way to the bathroom.

The worse has passed and I can now go out and don the wellies and start shifting water. Their coops are both still nice and dry inside but the run is going to need some work.

Yep - we have just been redigging channels and let the chooks out. They were not keen on coming out at all to my surprise. One of the pullets flew over the water surrounding the coop, the patio (right over Tiger's head) and landed on a soggy patch of grass. It was very entertaining to watch their exit strategies. They gave me three eggs this morning, one of which is a whopper, but I did hear Hedwig sneeze so I hope that's not the start of something.



74g egg by Stampy.

 

[appps]

Cool eggs and glad to hear the worst is over!

Reminds me of something I was wondering this morning after unpacking my groceries. I had to buy eggs and after putting them in the fridge next to mine was reminded how small my eggs are. I have three bantams so expected those to be smallish but had figured the faverolles would be large egg layers. Basically though the silkies is the only egg stands out all of the other 5 are a similar 50g or less egg.

So..... What breeds give you these 60 - 70g eggs like you get from the store? I'd really like some decent size eggs I think. Can I expect a larger egg from our australorp when she matures (due to start laying some time in March!). Wish I'd thought to compare the hatching eggs to our own.

 

[cwrite]

Cool eggs and glad to hear the worst is over!

Reminds me of something I was wondering this morning after unpacking my groceries. I had to buy eggs and after putting them in the fridge next to mine was reminded how small my eggs are. I have three bantams so expected those to be smallish but had figured the faverolles would be large egg layers. Basically though the silkies is the only egg stands out all of the other 5 are a similar 50g or less egg.

So..... What breeds give you these 60 - 70g eggs like you get from the store? I'd really like some decent size eggs I think. Can I expect a larger egg from our australorp when she matures (due to start laying some time in March!). Wish I'd thought to compare the hatching eggs to our own.

appps my original 5 birds are all utility layers. I have one ISA brown, who layed the whopper and struggled the most with the heat. She has laid a few rubbery eggs. One of my leghorn crosses lays a cream egg that is regularly around 60-62g's. Snowy's are more like 52g's with a super hard shell. My two utility Austrolorps lay pretty pink eggs that range from 55-64g's. Your pretty Austrolorp pullet should give you lovely pinkish eggs without the health problems of utility layers.

 

[Teila]

While I was sharing photos, I realise that my miniscule drama is nothing in comparison to what people up North have lost; houses, businesses etc and my thoughts go out to them.

 

[IamSamSam]

Cool eggs and glad to hear the worst is over!

Reminds me of something I was wondering this morning after unpacking my groceries. I had to buy eggs and after putting them in the fridge next to mine was reminded how small my eggs are. I have three bantams so expected those to be smallish but had figured the faverolles would be large egg layers. Basically though the silkies is the only egg stands out all of the other 5 are a similar 50g or less egg.

So..... What breeds give you these 60 - 70g eggs like you get from the store? I'd really like some decent size eggs I think. Can I expect a larger egg from our australorp when she matures (due to start laying some time in March!). Wish I'd thought to compare the hatching eggs to our own.

My austrolorp cross Wyandotte lays 75 + is standard and my isa had laid 64-75 everyday but mine tolerated heat well ( In Sydney )

 

[tandykins]

Sick pet day here too!
My cat has been unusually quiet the last week or 2 and sleeping more.... turns out he had an abscess which just drained...on the bed...he was more upset about the doona that the wound and i had to convince him that the wound is more important. ...can always wash or get a new doona...he didn't like me clipping and cleaning, but just shoved a antibiotic down his throat and cracked open a can of tuna. Phew!
Then my partner comes home...."got a present for you!" Holding a plastic container of dirt...he often brings me love presents...this time its a frog with a wounded leg! *** do i do with a wounded frog?! Time to hit google! The frog is in great health aside from misssing a large chunk of skin on his leg. The leg still works fine. So a few days rest and he can go free. Please let that be it for the day!

Man I love finding / being given injured animals and getting to doctor them. <3 Great present.

Question...if you are setting eggs in an incubator do they have to all be set on the same day? I have some potentials arriving next week....can I put them in with the eggs that are already incubating or do i have to wait for the next cycle?

Frankly I'd recommend against it. We had a staggered hatch recently (eggs hatching over 10 days) and it was brutal and exhausting.

Quote: I'm getting 3-6 eggs per day from 11 hens - 2 of which are 28 weeks old and still haven't laid their first egg. A couple of mine are moulting, several are relatively old, a couple are getting pale-ish combs (I can't find a parasite on them. :/). It's always something or other.

My poor SLW had a hard moult too - lost a ton of feathers and looked terribly needly but it seems to be passing rather quickly actually. Her stumpy new little tail is adorable.

The idiot that lived here before us thought a sunken path would look nice around the house … yeah, it looks nice but not when it is a moat! We have been battling all day to keep the water

I am very familiar with the "idiot who lived here before us" phenomenon. The idiot who lived here before us did all sorts of lovely handy work such as superglueing a cap onto the end of a pipe (I have rot in one of my walls from it (duh) leaking freely now), the deep circular sander grooves carved into the otherwise beautiful hardwood countertops, completely convoluted homemade electrical wiring, a dodgy hot water heater from a dodgy company that went under due to fraud, the list goes on.

So...I have some concerns I wanted to ask you guys about.

This is my little SLW cockerel Lamington. First, I wantto say that he's in quarantine still - not in contact with my hens. He had these little dark scabby looking spots on his combs since we got him (about a month ago) and I assumed at first that they were pecking spots as he was housed with 7 other cockerels and turkeys. However, they have not stopped (or, for that matter, gotten worse). I then thought of stickfast fleas but I cannot for the life of me find a single parasite on him. He IS in quarantine with a number of rose bushes and likes to eat the flowers off of them so I'm wondering if he's perhaps pricking his comb on them? I just don't know.



My Ancona hen Kissybum has had a purplish comb since she reached maturity - it varies a bit and doesn't get any worse than this but I find it concerning. Should I be worried? She seems otherwise fine and has been like this for weeks without any other symptoms. As you can see she has blood on her hackle feathers - there have been several pecking order scuffles lately. I'm keeping an eye on the situation and it seems pretty well par for the course. The Ancona hens (the ones who haven't laid yet) are the newest hens and the ones copping the brunt of it.




It's not really purple on the tips - more purple toward the back.

The other issue I've been having lately is...*sigh* Ophelia - my other Ancona hen. Due to, I imagine, the pecking order squabbles - I find her on the roof of the coop every single night without fail. Last night she even managed to get away with sleeping up there because my husband was naughty and didn't do a head count. I found her wandering the backyard this morning before anyone else had been let out. I either entice her down or chase her down and put her to bed each night but I'm -very- worried that one of these times when flying down she is going to break something. It's about 2.5m off the ground. She's ridiculously good at flying for a chicken with both wings clipped (we clipped first one and when that didn't work tried the other as well (which also didn't work). With both wings clipped she can actually fly about a foot off of the ground for about 15m without landing. She seems to think that she's part eagle.

I'm at a loss for how to keep her from getting up there. She's flying up onto our fence and then using it to boost herself up onto the coop about a metre away from it. Ideas would be hugely appreciated. I tried to get a photo of her up there today but I went out for my evening scratch feed (treat/bonding time - a small handful per chicken) and she came down to get her share. Since that happened so late she went into the coop of her own accord (this time) so there was no Ophelia on the roof when I went out with the camera.

In other news, I've had a monstrous headache for the last three days - mostly tension related. It's making it difficult to keep up with my studies because I can't focus. I've been wandering around with a portable TENS unit strapped to my waist during my waking hours and that helps as long as I have it on. When I turn it off the headache comes back with a vengeance. *sigh* Hopefully the constant Panadol I've been taking will have that compounding effect my physio promises will happen if I take it diligently for a few days. Any minute now. Any...minute now?

 

[cwrite]

I don't know about the spots on Lamington, but that might be Kissbum's natural comb colour. One of my austrolorps has black earlobes and black tips to her comb. I wouldn't worry as long as it stays purple and looks like her permanent colouring.
I hope your tension headache eases soon. At the risk of giving advice, keep drinking lots of water. It never hurts when headaches are involved. It's probably the first thing I think of because I'm terrible at drinking water. The worst headaches I've had were from new glasses though. The pain is pretty hard to ignore & focus on other things. Good luck with your studies. I'm back at uni next week & will soon join you in your pain - the study pain that is.

 

[tandykins]

I don't know about the spots on Lamington, but that might be Kissbum's natural comb colour. One of my austrolorps has black earlobes and black tips to her comb. I wouldn't worry as long as it stays purple and looks like her permanent colouring.
I hope your tension headache eases soon. At the risk of giving advice, keep drinking lots of water. It never hurts when headaches are involved. It's probably the first thing I think of because I'm terrible at drinking water. The worst headaches I've had were from new glasses though. The pain is pretty hard to ignore & focus on other things. Good luck with your studies. I'm back at uni next week & will soon join you in your pain - the study pain that is.

I was thinking the same thing about Kissybum's comb. It doesn't seem to bother her and our rooster's comb is the same (but his changes on and off which I'm told is due to his current level of *cough* amorousness...)

Yes I should probably stop this 10 cup of coffee a day habit and switch to water. That would likely help my headaches rather a lot. If nothing else I'd probably be less tense if I weren't constantly about to launch into space on a caffeine high. >.>

 

[birdman55]

wow thats alot of water....hope it drys up for you guys soon...its still snowing here..just got done cleaning the coops off...there was to much snow on them...

 

[cwrite]

wow thats alot of water....hope it drys up for you guys soon...its still snowing here..just got done cleaning the coops off...there was to much snow on them...

Won't you have the same thing when all your snow melts? I've never been through a heavy snow melt so I can only guess at what you will be dealing with.