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

[Butteryscotch]

Hello all! I'm back again! This time in search of Goose breeders, particularly Chinese geese. Any ideas, anyone?

 

[Anniebee]

No, no pet red belly's'. We have a 10ft coastal carpet snake and a spotted python. The red belly just lives on the property. While they are not everyone's cup of tea. I really don't mind it being around. Red belly's generally eat frogs and small things like couple day old Belgians. It has since moved on from the fern house.

The carpet snake sounds fantastic. Would love to have had one myself, but have always had cats and dogs, and I don't think they all go too well together. Mind you, I would allow a carpet snake the run of the house - so !! .... husband has conniptions at the thought. LOL

 

[Anniebee]

Sounds like my hubby. He builds pens etc but that's about it when it comes to chickens until last year when he got hurt at work and had to get another job for 6 ish months til his arm healed. He got a job working in a produce place. Well all of a sudden he was the go to guy on what to feed etc at the store. Um hello where do you think you got your info from .... ME...

Had a good laugh at this one .... I think hubbys can be rather odd chappies at times !! .... I know they can be ....

...

LOL .......

 

[Anniebee]

On the sand eating. No it's not to be recommended, just like DE , sand contains silicon and the dust if inhaled can cause all kinds of upper respiratory problems. Builders sand or ' fat ' sand is best for use in coops. The finer stuff ( beach sand ) is likely to sit in the crop and could possibly cause impact ion.

Once again - thanks to Fancychooklady ....

So white sand is out, and understandably. Thought mixing it around in dirt to bathe in might be ok - but not from what you have told here - as they churn up a storm in those dust baths.

If that's the same sand as is used in a child's play sand box, I have to wonder if kids inhale nasties from it too ? Just a thought. ( not a nice thought either ).

Fascinating how a chicken can turn tough ground into almost finest sugar consistency ... with all that scratching and shaking they do.

AB

 

[RodneyRooster]

Haha love the kindergarten reference AB.

No idea about geese sorry butteryscotch.

So I messaged my vet through facebook today. Classy lol. His comment to the inside of the egg was that its possible it had started developing and stopped. Otherwise since all hens seem healthy and usual not to be too concerned if it is only a once off. Obviously if it were to happen again or if someone started looking sick/going off food or water etc then bring them in.

I just cant think of how it could have started developing tho. Only thing i thought of is if it was laid in the NB, each time someone came in to lay it would warm up and it must have been regular enough that it didnt get cold. But then what about at night? Again surely it couldnt have developed if no one was sitting on it at night.. and then how did it get like 10 metres away from the nesting box?? Think it will remain an unsolved mystery.

Summer netball starts next week! Yay! Something to brighten my day as im stuck inside sick. Hope uve all managed to escape flu season without too much damage

 

[Ashburnham]

Hello all! I'm back again! This time in search of Goose breeders, particularly Chinese geese. Any ideas, anyone?

Join your local Facebook poultry groups. That's where I do all my business.

xxxx M

 

[locknest4]

In our early chicken owning days we were so besotted with our chickens that we let them have the run of our property, which is 3/4 of an acre. They did their chicken dances every where, even trying (repeatedly) to get into the house (they already owned under the house). Of coarse where the chickens went so did their poop. Pretty soon we had large divots in the lawn, poo on the veranda, our outdoor table and chairs, and the veranda railing (their perching place of preference) was a mess! The crunch finally came when they really took to the rose bushes! I did read that to protect your rose bushes and rose gardens, some people get fly wire to lay around on the soil surrounding the bushes. It's blends in with the soil, let's water through and most importantly Stops the chooks scratching around the bushes. Unable to find enough for all our bushes, our chooks were soon confined to just a third of the yard, which we reckon is still pretty good going

As to the sand eating, they were really chowing into it but they all seem to have survived ok. Might hold off on giving it to them again tho. They can enjoy the dirt in the big run when they finally move out of the brooder and into the coop

I had to laugh at this too because I've got chooks that sit on my veranda railing and I know how NOT fun it is to hose off all the time lol

Amen! The chicken rail dancing has been officially cancelled

 

[ChristieB]

Had to share a pic. Cho decided to take her babes to the roost tonight.

She's been showing signs of wanting back into the flock for a couple days, and yesterday when I changed the run around so they had a bigger space she was soon over the fence, the little lohmann must have figured out how to get over today and the little one I'm sure squeezed through a gap, it's too small to jump that high! Now I'm going to have to go out earlier in the morning and make sure the chicks are out of harms way and can get to their food without letting the big girls eat it all!! I moved the other chicks into a pen in the coop today. The big girls seemed pretty accepting of them in the pen in the run during the day so I figured it was time to move them over. I'm a sucker so I did give them the heat lamp for tonight as it's cool (double secured of course!) I think next week I might let them have some supervised free ranging time in the run all together,

And Fleur has been moved out to the chicks old coop (aka quarantine coop) as my Australorp eggs arrived today! I want her sitting good and tight when the Sussex eggs arrive on Saturday. I have the mini incubator ready just in case.
So after that ramble, any tips on building an incubator?. I want something bigger incase Fleur doesn't stick it out, the mini won't hold all 11-12 eggs I keep looking at hubby's snake box thinking that would be perfect but you know, there's a snake in it lol.
I grabbed a styrofoam box the other day, it's only a narrow one but figured it would be better than nothing.

 

[locknest4]

I feel a bit dumb, but I've only just now worked out what ovations are! My excuse is being a BYC newbie. Anyway I have now read about them and know that pressing the thumbs up on a post that is helpful, gives an ovation . So apologes for all the ovations I haven't given, but many thank yous for all the welcomes, advise and answers people have given me so far

 

[locknest4]

To Rodney Rooster, I thought I saw an outline of a chick developing in the egg, but then again it might have been the distortion when I enlarged the pic on the iPad Anyways maybe it did get sat on enough to get a bit of developing going on inside. If they had kept sitting on it it may have developed into some kind of super chicken! LOL! As to how it ended up where it did... it's a bit of a mystery.