Our introduction to keeping chickens, the high's, the lows and pics of our journey.

[Bens-Hens]

Hahaha, I will mow the lawn and deliver the invite. No need for him to get dressed up, I will take care of that this afternoon lol

You did Oz, and today is a great Sunday, maybe it is the day! Good to hear about your quails coming on line. Off to catch up on some jobs.

Thanks for the confidence boost.

 

[NovaAman]

Glad you're feeling better Ben. Todays the day! Being positive here. Lol

 

[Bens-Hens]

A few snaps from the day.

Started the lawn mowing process, thought "I have not checked the blades in a while" Had to take care of that little matter before going much further.



I forgot how much easier the job gets done when there is some actual blade to do the work!

Here is Cleo, all big and red in the face, comb and wattles have come in the past week or so. Also in the shot id Jewel, she is squatting and also getting quite red in the face, but her pelvis is still very narrow. baby is very similar with a bigger comb.



Smudge having a romp int eh lawn clippings.


Barney, good looking rooster. Wish we could have kept him longer, in another 6 months he would be full sized and amazing.




He returned 1.5kg (3.3lb) dressed. A family affair again (after the initial bleed out) to prepare him. Will probably have a roast later in the week in his honor.

No eggs, so at this point I hope Oz is wrong and it's NOT a Sunday....that's another week away lol. They have been very quiet down there this afternoon though.

 

[CB and CG]

Hi Ben, Just thought I would rub in the fact I got 7 eggs out of 8 hens lol.
I set 20 eggs yesterday. 12 from a friend and 8 of my own. It will be interesting to see what kind of fertility I get. I will candle Wednesday and have a look at the development.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Sweet CB, looking forward to hearing about those results too.

I am doing my best to hold off another hatch hahahaha.

Two other locals I know with girls are getting 6/6 and 7/7 too....must just be my spoilt brats.

 

[write2caroline]

What a lovely start and a sad ending. I hope it does not put you off keeping chickens. All the work you did it would be a shame not to continue. My heart has been broken over chickens many times. Last weekend I forgot to let my chickens down before I went to church and lost all of my laying hens and my two glorious standard roosters. I am still kicking myself for that one.

My experience with Cats and chickens - If you feed the cats and the chooks are bigger - the cats will live side by side the chickens and not bother them - don't trust cats around any chicks - they just cant help themselves. I have ferrel cats that just showed up, that would lay in the nest boxes with the chickens and neither minded the other. Plus the cats took care of rodents and small snakes - even bigger ones - The cats like to bring me presents - squirrel bodies, parts of snakes. (I think somewhere out in the woods they have all the heads up on the fence as a warning.....) icky but that is how cats show love by providing for their provider.

Dogs can get along with chickens too.

If you can sanitize the ground and feed them medicated feed would that help the others resist?

I am sorry for your experience with Mareks. I have lost my favorite chickens. It hurts to lose something you love. I hope you rebuild your flock.

Caroline

 

[Bens-Hens]

Hi and welcome Caroline.

Thanks for the kind words, I can only assume you have read this from the end to the start as our journey began with the rescue birds and Marek's. We have not hatched a couple of times and are planning our next one already.

Marek's is terrible, one of those things that will never be gone from this planet. If only the vaccine killed it instead of hiding it. Hopefully, we are free of it now, still a bit early to say for sure but I am starting to feel confident.

We sanitised everything when we started over, and if I was not happy it was clean, it was removed from the property. We have four test birds that have never had any prevention's, they are our early warning birds, but so far of the 18 we have hatched none have shown any signs of illness.

The rebuild is well under way.

Thanks for dropping in, welcome to say hi anytime.

 

[Bens-Hens]

I wonder down the run this morning, let Smudge in and do my morning rounds/chores and I see something just inside the gate.

What have the little devils found and dug up now?


Wait just a minute......that's not dug up...that's left BEHIND! "Wooooo fricken hooooooo!" A treasure for Ben

Missed the nest box, but you know what, that's perfectly fine with me. We got an egg. Our first home grown egg in months and months.

Given the purple tint to it, I am leaning pretty closely towards it being Luna the BA's, she was hatched from a batch of similar tinted eggs. She did a pretty good job for he first go (ok, proud parent moment) pretty light but not too bad size wise in comparison to the biggest 'sympathy egg' we have in the fridge.


I was making the bed and I heard one of them make a racket, didn't sound like an egg song but I am betting now it was a strangled scream of "what just happened to me?????"

So excited, now I will have to race the kids down there so I can find another one tomorrow hahahaha

 

[ozexpat]

Finally

Its still Sunday where I am posting from!!

Now I can sleep at night

 

[scottcaddy]

I wonder down the run this morning, let Smudge in and do my morning rounds/chores and I see something just inside the gate.

What have the little devils found and dug up now?


Wait just a minute......that's not dug up...that's left BEHIND! "Wooooo fricken hooooooo!" A treasure for Ben

Missed the nest box, but you know what, that's perfectly fine with me. We got an egg. Our first home grown egg in months and months.

Given the purple tint to it, I am leaning pretty closely towards it being Luna the BA's, she was hatched from a batch of similar tinted eggs. She did a pretty good job for he first go (ok, proud parent moment) pretty light but not too bad size wise in comparison to the biggest 'sympathy egg' we have in the fridge.


I was making the bed and I heard one of them make a racket, didn't sound like an egg song but I am betting now it was a strangled scream of "what just happened to me?????"

So excited, now I will have to race the kids down there so I can find another one tomorrow hahahaha

NOW THEN!! I can sleep the night (for me here, not you there) and not be worried about missing your "I FOUND IT" post!!

and it's still Sunday here da-boot!!
Scott