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

[K Spot]

Sorry about your losses Sandee

FreeRanging, your little fluffies are adorable!

Here's a pic of the rains we had yesterday


My horse Lou in the pouring rain eating her dinner. She did not come in under the shelter til she had finished every last morsel.
After this system had passed over us, about 2 hours later we had another small cell go through with more much needed rain.
I went outside this morning and holy dooley, the coop roof needs some serious repair work on waterproofing. The smaller cage I have the chicks in was completely soaked, poor little chickies. I've moved them to a dog crate for the day as I didn't have time this morning to clean it out, which it desperately needs now - it was disgusting.
Will have to get DH to silicone the holes in the roof and maybe lay a tarp or something over the top.

 

[K Spot]

My funny from yesterday. We have a 13 year old cat ty who my son got when he was in grade 1. He is a bully. He used to beat up the other cats when we lived in the city. Our dogs are terrified of him and he even crash tackled patsy the sheep to the ground and put a cut in her face when she was 2 days old.. Yesterday I hear the cat going off outside the door . I know he is not having a go at the dogs as they are inside with me. I race out thinking he is going a snake or something and what do I see. My pekin rooster is beating the crud out of him. Ty is fighting back but the roo keeps coming. I had to get in the middle and break them up. I think the cat was in shock that something dared to have a go at him .

Neither were hurt in the incident but the cat stayed inside the rest of the day. My pekin roo is going through is adolescence and has a bit of an attitude at the moment. Samuel carries him around and never has a problem with him while he is here. I watch them of course. Samuel tells me it's ok kimmy he lubs me... He sure seems to love Samuel but not the cat.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Lol, my little Malaysian friend has little dogs and her SLW roo attacked one of them, she said " Lisa is that normal, I don't think that is normal " . I assured her that it was completely normal for the roo to protect his hens from any predator, especially dogs. My cats run the gauntlet between broody mommas on a daily basis and they have a healthy respect for chickens. They do however stalk the ducklings.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Sorry for your loss FreeRanging Looks like you are going to have your hands full very shortly with all those chickens
Speaking of loss, Soy's other siblings, well all but 3 and mum were killed 2 nights ago (7 chicks)
Pete thought it was a fox, but found mum all battered up and head still intact, so am guessing a feral cat
So been improving his coop Made a little safe house for the chickies that are left

Those tomatoes are looking awesome Sam

 

[FreeRanging Hen]

Fancy, in Finnish those tips are called "varkaita" (thieves). Quite descriptive.

Please excuse my excitement for a second.... OMGOODNESS ANOTHER FINN!!!
Composing myself now.... Vehve, my father and his family migrated to Australia from Finland 45 years ago. It was my Mummo that I recently lost.
I'm trying to learn the language and customs, in a desperate effort to keep a hold of something of her in my own little family. My dad didn't teach us anything, so my brother and I missed out on a fair bit that my cousins grew up with when my uncles married Finnish women.

Sorry to hear about your mumma hen and chicks Sandee.
Cats is one of my concerns when I get my chicks out into the pen. We have gotten two since we lost our chickens. I'm not a big cat person, but the mice plague was driving me nuts and the cats seem to be the only safe method that gets them under control.
Speaking of snakes and cats, our cat took on a Dugite last week. Drove it away from my kids and dogs, as it was near the house. Ended up at the vets overnight because he was bitten, but he survived and has now been dubbed Sir Simba, the Snake Warrior.

Seems to be stormy on all sides of Australia at the moment. We've had shocking weather these past couple days and I'm certain it's messing with my incubator.
The humidity keeps dropping fast since the storm really started picking up, even with the whole bottom of the tray filled with warm water.
One minute it's good, the next the water's evaporated fast and the humidity's dropped below 60%.
I woke up to a chick stuck in it's shell because it pipped the wrong end and spent the night drying out because humidity dropped while I was asleep. When I say stuck, I mean STUCK!! Like dried brown tea bags glued to the poor thing.

The temperature keeps spiking too. One hour it's low, the next it's high. I've used this incubator before and never had such an issue with it. Though, I've never had a hatch during storms.
I wish the weather would decide what it's doing and stop being so temperamental. I can't complain about the rain tank being filled with water though. It saves us a trip to town to truck water home to fill it
I'm doing my best to keep my hands off because there are precious eggs still waiting to pip, but found I had to open it a crack twice now to spritz a little warm water in there to get the humidity up.

Fingers crossed things settle as this stormy weather dissipates.

 

[vehve]

@FreeRanging Hen Cool, where from Finland is your family from? Have you ever visited Finland?

 

[FreeRanging Hen]

I believe most of their lives were in Oulu.
I don't know too much of the family history. Being WW2 children, they didn't speak much of the past.
I know they ran a bakery when my dad was young, but only found that out at Mummo's funeral because it was mentioned in dad's eulogy for her.
I'm just now making discoveries about family history because I inherited a lot of her belongings and am deciphering bits of paperwork and photo's.

I've never visited, but I would like to one day. I have more of a longing to now.

 

[vehve]

@FreeRanging Hen Well if you need something translated, I'd be happy to help. It's interesting what kind of things you discover after a relative's passing. When my grandmother died, we found a guestbook that she and her roommate had kept around the mid forties, in it was an entry where a young man had written how fun they had had when they went dancing. That young man was my grandfather.

 

[hawkeye2]

Has anyone hatched marans and araucana together? I've found that my aras have all feathered up quicker and Mum is a accidentally (to a slight degree) neglecting the 6 marans in favour for the aras cause she expects them all the follow but only the 5 aras can cause they can fly but the others cannot yet. How long until the marans can fly? They're almost 3 weeks.

 

[satay]

Has anyone hatched marans and araucana together? I've found that my aras have all feathered up quicker and Mum is a accidentally (to a slight degree) neglecting the 6 marans in favour for the aras cause she expects them all the follow but only the 5 aras can cause they can fly but the others cannot yet. How long until the marans can fly? They're almost 3 weeks.

I have hatched both over the years but not together. My marans are pretty feathered by 3 weeks. They probably could fly now if they needed to,(though I am sure neither breed would be able to fly to far at that age) Aras are more flighty birds and marans a calmer breed so it may just be that.