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

[Teila]

I'm not expecting any until Saturday or Sunday.

I candled my eggs this morning before lockdown. As a novic I reckon that there are 2 of the 6 bantam eggs and only 1 of the 12 Black Leghorns will hatch. I could be wrong and have left the others in the incubator just in case. I haven candled the 18 bantam eggs that Fluffybutt is sitting on but they had 16 days in the incubator before I put them under her.

I've heard that hatch rates are fairly low across NSW at the moment.

Ooops, sorry, got my weekends mixed up! Good luck

 

[Fizzybelle]

So Esmé had a smear of mud on her chest. I wash it off and then come back an hour later to see what they were up to. She'd replaced it with an even bigger smear of mud. I gave up at that point. I'll just trim off dirty feathers when it's dry again. They all objected to being towel dried before bed of course, and the shower we had around 5ish, left pools of water everywhere, and the chicken pen is very muddy by the door. The girls have been digging like mad though, now the grounds soft there are chicken holes EVERYWHERE! Perfect to slip into whilst I'm half asleep in the morning. Thanks girls.

On the plus side Annabelle's been well behaved lately, bullying has been minimal if not at all. The weird weather must have that effect on her.

 

[kirrty]

Hi, and welcome. What part of Australia are you from? It's a big place. I know a couple of duck breeders in the local poultry club, so if I know where you are I might be able to point you in the right direction.

Hi thank you and sorry for the late reply I've had problems with my internet.
I'm located on the Gold Coast, I've tried looking for markets around my area but no luck. I'm looking for show quality eggs/ducklings if you know anyone who has khakis in my area I'd be more than happy for you to pass on my details.

 

[Anniebee]

So Esmé had a smear of mud on her chest. I wash it off and then come back an hour later to see what they were up to. She'd replaced it with an even bigger smear of mud. I gave up at that point. I'll just trim off dirty feathers when it's dry again. They all objected to being towel dried before bed of course, and the shower we had around 5ish, left pools of water everywhere, and the chicken pen is very muddy by the door. The girls have been digging like mad though, now the grounds soft there are chicken holes EVERYWHERE! Perfect to slip into whilst I'm half asleep in the morning. Thanks girls.

On the plus side Annabelle's been well behaved lately, bullying has been minimal if not at all. The weird weather must have that effect on her.

LOL ... dirty little beggars, aren't they.

Have seen my girls digging furiously in mud before - and up comes what they seek - earth worms. They know more than we give them credit for.

The add-on to that are lovely filthy mud baths, which for some reason they all seem to love. No doubt there's a reason for the mud in feathers as well.

Funny little darlings.

Cheers ----

 

[Sparky74]

Since last Monday when I lost 7 pullets and a cockerel to a fox/food/cat/bunyip in the wee hours, I've been locking the chooks away. I've investigate automatic doors and the price is too much for me so I'm looking at buildin
g my own. I went to the local tip today to see if there was anything likely in their "shop" and there wasn't but I did come away with a boot full of fairly heavy gague chicken wire. The cost? $2.20. I think I should visit the tip more often! I'm still undecided about how to power and control my door...

...Someone else on the web has used an automatic pet feeder to power their door. I've found a similar feeder on eBay for about $40. It's self contained, powered by 4 X C cell batteries and has a programable automatic timer. The addition of an arm and a slight modification will enable it to pull a cord to open the door in the morning and release it to close the door at night. I could build a shelf (enclose it in a box, maybe) inside the coop, just under the roof. I think this is the option I'll probably go with.

I bit the bullet and ordered an automatic pet feeder from eBay and it arrived yesterday. Tonight I started experimenting with it and I THINK I've worked out what I need to do to modify it to make it into an automatic door controller. I'm taking a half day off on Friday so I might have it all sorted by then. I'll take some photos of my modifications and post them if it works.

Meanwhile, let me share the roosting antics with you. My flock currently consists of 5 Wyandotte X Rhode Island Red hens, 1 Light Sussex pullet and 2 Light Sussex cockerels. One of the hens is currently sitting on eggs in seclusion so that leaves 7 chooks in together. They free range during the day and at night sleep in a Bunnings prefab coop - a small "tin" shed like this one:


To increase the sleeping space I've added a mezzanine floor over the "laying shelf" with 2 x 1.5m long perches. This floor is accessed via a ladder from the lower (ground) level. The 3 Light Sussex and 1 of the hens sleep upstairs and the rest sleep downstairs. Anyway, since installing a 300 x300 sliding door downstairs the upstairs sleepers have decided that they don't know how to go downstairs to get out. Previously we opened the big door of a morning and they just jumped straight out from there. As I was away last week I covered up access to upstairs so Cathryn (my long suffering wife) didn't have to worry about it but yesterday I reopened the mezzanine floor. This morning the 4 upstairs sleepers refused to go downstairs to get out. I left them there as I was going to be around and when I checked on them at lunchtime the 3 LSs were still upstairs. I used a piece of board to darken upstairs, thinking that might encourage them down. Anyway, when I got home this arvo they were all outside.

Bedtime tonight was another saga completely. I'm not usually around at bed time but Cathryn is away this week so I'm on lockup duty. The hens usually go to bed before the LSs and tonight I observed that every time the LSs tried to come inside a hen would block the door and chase them away! Eventually everyone ended up inside without any intivention from me and it will be interesting to see if everyone comes out in the morning. These chooks provide no end of entertainment!

 

[Sparky74]

I set these eggs at lunchtime on Saturday 4th March so I'm hoping that I have some chicks this weekend. I'm not 100% sure if I'm supposed to lockdown today or tomorrow but I've posted on the incubating forum.

Fuffybutt, one of my GLW X RIR hens has gone broody. She's raised chicks before and she's been broody for nearly a week now. This morning I took 18 of the bantam eggs out of the incubator and gave them to her instead of the couple of plastic eggs she was sitting on. There are still 6 bantam eggs in the incubator along with a dozen Black Leghorn eggs. Depending on my hatch rate, Fuffybutt might end up fostering all the chicks for me which will be a lot easier than using heat lamps.

I just checked on Fluffybutt and she's eaten an egg (I'm guessing it was bad) so I lifted her to see how many eggs she had left and found a broken egg:

Such a shame!
I reckon I can hear cheeping so MAYBE I'll have some live chicks before too long!

 

[Teila]

Aaaw, sorry about the little one Sparky

Fingers crossed for some bubs soon

Hopefully a chuckle for everyone:

 

[sjturner79]

Hi thank you and sorry for the late reply I've had problems with my internet.
I'm located on the Gold Coast, I've tried looking for markets around my area but no luck. I'm looking for show quality eggs/ducklings if you know anyone who has khakis in my area I'd be more than happy for you to pass on my details.

Sorry I won't be likely to be able to help for up there, though I'll ask around. I'm south east Sa so most of those I know are southern Victoria.

 

[Fizzybelle]

LOL ... dirty little beggars, aren't they.

Have seen my girls digging furiously in mud before - and up comes what they seek - earth worms. They know more than we give them credit for.

The add-on to that are lovely filthy mud baths, which for some reason they all seem to love. No doubt there's a reason for the mud in feathers as well.

Funny little darlings.

Cheers ----

True, Ezzie found an earthworm this morning digging in the soggy mulch. The worms must be sick of the soggy ground too.

They were just horrid this morning though. Carrying on over the one coop to lay their eggs in, despite there being TWO, the second one the large one with ample room. Lots of yelling, pecking just ugh, for over an hour when I just wanted to go back to bed.

 

[Sparky74]

Ooops, sorry, got my weekends mixed up!  Good luck 

Maybe my incubator temperature was a bit high as its only day 19.
Fluffybutt has 2 chicks so far. We will wait and see if the other 14 eggs hatch.
The eggs spent 2 weeks in the incubator first.