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

[Anniebee]

Hi Annie , the local caravan park owner migrated here from Victoria and seems to be building an ark. At least he is collecting the animals.
So far we have had his flock of geese visit, several mallard drakes and now the peacock. He seems quite happy down on our back block and his biggest threat is the sea eagle that he roosts under at night.

.... " seems to be building an ark" .... really tickled the funny bone.

Obviously your ex-pat Victorian neighbour, likes exotic birds - large ones at that.

As for roosting under a sea eagle ... good luck to him/her with that, come early dawn rays !!! But I doubt a sea eagle would tackle anything that is bigger than it. .... LOL.

 

[Fancychooklady]

  .... " seems to be building an ark" .... really tickled the funny bone.   

Obviously your ex-pat Victorian neighbour,  likes exotic birds - large ones at that.  

As for roosting under a sea eagle ... good luck to him/her with that, come early dawn rays !!!   But I doubt a sea eagle would tackle anything that is bigger than it.   .... LOL.  

Surprising what a sea eagle will take on. He has many entrails in his ' dinner tree , , including tiger snake, rabbit , plover, brush tail possum , swan and duck.
It is definitely a male and whilst he is elusive , he isn't that quick so if he stays in the rough he might survive , but that tail slows him down.

 

[Anniebee]

Surprising what a sea eagle will take on. He has many entrails in his ' dinner tree , , including tiger snake, rabbit , plover, brush tail possum , swan and duck.
It is definitely a male and whilst he is elusive , he isn't that quick so if he stays in the rough he might survive , but that tail slows him down.

hmmm. ' that tail ' is what could get him caught - in all sorts of awkward situations, including sea eagle onslaughts.

I do sincerely hope you are right - if he stays in the rough, he will be ok. Most birds are smarter than we think they are ! ( I have discovered !! ), so here's hopiing he knows who is where and why - and stays out of danger.

 

[satay]

Is it possible to have a half broody chicken ? ....... Teila - you might be able to answer this one !!!  

Mindy Araucana, who was laying quite a few soft shells, ( and much help was given on here for the problem ) ... is laying proper eggs now - for a couple of weeks - no weak egg areas, and no soft shells.   I do think the calcium ( for horses ) helped a lot.  ... It was not oyster shell / calcium carbonate, but seemed to help.   Just a dessertspoon twice a week in her rice mix.  Loves it.

Now down to once a week calcium supplement.   

However, along with the calcium, I introduced a dummy egg into her coop.   At first in the nesting box.   She kicked that out, very quickly.  

She now lays almost every day, by sitting on the dummy egg and depositing her perfectly formed egg, beside it.   So of course, I harvest the lovely fresh egg.  

She then goes off her face.   "took, took, took, screech cackle, took took, screech" etc.  with much agitation, strutting up and down the fence and jumping in and out of her coop.  

The only way I deal with this, is to divert her attention ... with a couple of small handfuls of scratch mix, scattered on the ground.   That shuts up the noise. !!  And boy is she noisy.   She is a natural gormandiser ... eats like there's no tomorrow, so that works.   

I get the impression she is less than impressed with the removal of her freshly laid egg.   Should I remove the dummy egg ?   Is that upsetting her, and encouraging some kind of  broodiness ...... or is it all in this chicken addled brain of mine ???    

Cheers all ...... 

She does sound broody anni.

 

[Teila]

Morning Friends

Well, I survived another day in the office but joy of joys, they have decided that starting next year, it would be a good idea if everyone was on site EVERY Wednesday

Hey ChristieB welcome back … sorry to hear about your phone dramas. While your little ones are not so little any more, they are still very cute!

RodneyRooster good luck with the rooster rehoming.

Congrats on the new layer(s) sjturner79.

Fancy I hope your new peacock friend is able to keep himself safe. Oooh, decorating the tree for Christmas with entrails .. different

.. lol. Cue music ... deck the halls with guts and gizzards tra, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Tee hee Anniebee .. satay has more broody’s than I do

I have heard of people leaving dummy eggs to encourage broodiness so if it is not needed anymore and you do not want broody’s, I would remove it.

Yeah, I do believe you can have a semi-broody.

When LuLu goes broody she skips the ‘on the nest bit’ pretty much altogether. She will spend maybe half a day or one day on the nest and then goes straight to ‘I have babies’ mode. She wanders around talking to her invisible babies, protecting her invisible babies and calling her invisible babies for food [Dusty and Blondie especially like playing along and being ‘babies’, taking the treats etc

].

Dusty has never been broody BUT she has this weird thing where after she has laid her egg she will hop out of the nest for an hour or so, wander around, have a scratch etc but then she goes back to the nest [even if eggless] and hunkers down for a couple of hours. She does this with every egg, it is like she is having a ‘do I want to be broody’ trial and then decides “Nope! Not sharing my treats”

If I have broody’s and I am locking them out of the coop, if I lock Dusty out after laying her egg, when she goes back for the hunker she will chuck a trantrum if she cannot get back to the nest for the post egg whatever she is doing

Similar to Mindy, when my gals are coming into broodiness they can be distracted with treats or a free range but this only lasts for a day or so and then there is no distracting them

 

[appps]

Is it possible to have a half broody chicken ? ....... Teila - you might be able to answer this one !!!  

Mindy Araucana, who was laying quite a few soft shells, ( and much help was given on here for the problem ) ... is laying proper eggs now - for a couple of weeks - no weak egg areas, and no soft shells.   I do think the calcium ( for horses ) helped a lot.  ... It was not oyster shell / calcium carbonate, but seemed to help.   Just a dessertspoon twice a week in her rice mix.  Loves it.

Now down to once a week calcium supplement.   

However, along with the calcium, I introduced a dummy egg into her coop.   At first in the nesting box.   She kicked that out, very quickly.  

She now lays almost every day, by sitting on the dummy egg and depositing her perfectly formed egg, beside it.   So of course, I harvest the lovely fresh egg.  

She then goes off her face.   "took, took, took, screech cackle, took took, screech" etc.  with much agitation, strutting up and down the fence and jumping in and out of her coop.  

The only way I deal with this, is to divert her attention ... with a couple of small handfuls of scratch mix, scattered on the ground.   That shuts up the noise. !!  And boy is she noisy.   She is a natural gormandiser ... eats like there's no tomorrow, so that works.   

I get the impression she is less than impressed with the removal of her freshly laid egg.   Should I remove the dummy egg ?   Is that upsetting her, and encouraging some kind of  broodiness ...... or is it all in this chicken addled brain of mine ???    

Cheers all ...... 

How funny. None of mine ever care when I take eggs, even when broody they only do the little feather rise grr when I disturb them but have never seemed to notice their egg has vanished when I leave lol

 

[cluckcluckluke]

Is it possible to have a half broody chicken ? ....... Teila - you might be able to answer this one !!!

Yeah I think so.
At this time of year when many of my hens decide to start being broody, there are always a few that only put in half the effort. They will fluff up and walk around the yard squawking at everyone in sight (just like a normal broody) but they won't, or just for small amounts of time, sit on a nest. Usually in the next week or so they get the idea though and eventually go full broody.
I think it's because they see all the other broody hens and get royally confused on what to do with themselves. It's quite funny to watch.

 

[appps]

Yeah I think so.
At this time of year when many of my hens decide to start being broody, there are always a few that only put in half the effort. They will fluff up and walk around the yard squawking at everyone in sight (just like a normal broody) but they won't, or just for small amounts of time, sit on a nest. Usually in the next week or so they get the idea though and eventually go full broody.
I think it's because they see all the other broody hens and get royally confused on what to do with themselves. It's quite funny to watch.

My goodness. Haven't seen you in forever! How are your birds going? Last I think I heard you were rethinking what you were going to keep and breed?

 

[cwrite]

Hi Everyone.

I hope you have all been bukking along nicely. My flock is fine. Hagrid went broody & now Snowy has too. Hagrid is the first one that has gone so broody I'm going to have to resort to a broody cage which I acquired from the treasure market. She went broody at the height of assignment, then exam madness so it has been going on for far too long now. For what is supposed to be peak egg laying season I'm not getting that many eggs with 2/7 hens out of egg laying action.


The rest of the flock, except Pearl who was not co-operating

 

[Fancychooklady]

Hi Everyone. I hope you have all been bukking along nicely. My flock is fine. Hagrid went broody & now Snowy has too. Hagrid is the first one that has gone so broody I'm going to have to resort to a broody cage which I acquired from the treasure market. She went broody at the height of assignment, then exam madness so it has been going on for far too long now. For what is supposed to be peak egg laying season I'm not getting that many eggs with 2/7 hens out of egg laying action. The rest of the flock, except Pearl who was not co-operating

Hiya. Good luck with the broodies. I'm just happy to have mine all back laying.