Recent content by Milkshakeroo

My girls peck my fingers when I feed them mealworms. It is not malicious, they just think my fingers are big worms. Doesn’t hurt.

Interesting. There is a lot of hate on Black Australorps where I have found them smart, confident and calm. Perhaps it is the genetic lines they come from. I am in Australia and they are an Australian breed so hopefully they are truer in their breeding.

Too true. My Ancona (Italian heritage breed) is really flighty. She has massive combs and wattles but luckily it doesn’t snow in South Australia.

I had that happen to my Isa Brown. She was lying in her side panting in the heat and I thought she would die for sure. Placed her in the sheep’s water trough with her head out for five minutes with her protesting and struggling. Thought the shock of that process would just add to the heat stress...

I don’t like the skittish breeds. Ancona’s are naturally skittish and hard to tame. She brought up adopted babies as a predator ate her eggs and then all her babies were scared of humans too.

It is coming into winter here in Australia so that makes sense.

I have a 2 year old Ancona hen who is now crowing along in the mornings with my EE rooster. She has brought up babies before so is definitely a female. Does anyone know why she crows?

A chicken egg is pretty big for a blue tongue or a shingle back. Quail egg maybe but a whole chicken egg? Anyway they are all great lizards so just pick them up and move them. Just behind the head will stop them trying to bite although I find most wild lizards are pretty calm when I pick them...

Yeah chicken momma did that too but I moved the whole box down to the ground to a nice quiet dark area and locked her in for a couple of days. Our nesting boxes are very very high.

These 3 babies were bought from the feed and fodder store and popped under the mother chicken after a predator ate all her eggs 2 days from hatching.

Why don’t you put her under her mother? Mum will raise her for you.

Thanks for that. I have put a screen between the mother and the other chickens as the mother is looking poorly and keeps closing her eyes. Not sure if this is the right thing to do. Might take it down in a few days if she looks a bit better.

Pretty sure it was the neighbours big tomcat (it hangs around the budgies aviary a lot) so I have started locking the trapdoor into the coop again. The only other predators we get are foxes and only 6 eggs were taken so probably not a fox.

My Ancona had her 6 eggs that were 3 days from hatching stolen in the night by a predator so I popped in 1 day old babies from the feed and fodder store under her. She has adopted them just fine. Do I allow them to integrate with the rest of the flock from the start or separate them for...

Stunning colours.