Australians - Where are you all????

[A Chicken Owner]

Anyone in the western suburbs (including north west) of melbourne have fertile australorp eggs?

 

[Teila]

That's a great play house. Did you make it out of weld mesh panels? I have a naughty cat who opens doors and windows. She needs something like your play house.

I am happy my two have not managed to open doors and windows and escape outside; the little one would qualify as a serial killer pretty quickly! The bottom sides are enclosed with a couple of spare fencing panels we had in the garden and the top is from a roll of wire we purchased at Bunnings. Because we had a few of the materials laying around, it probably only cost us $100 and the cats luv it. They spend hours out there sleeping in the sun, watching the birds and stalking anything that encroaches in through the wire.

 

[Teila]

Well had a look i dont think it would pass ... to much red tape so It looks like its rehome for my spoilt roo. Or the pot unfortunately.

Aaaw kat79, I am sorry to read about your Roo. I have commented on other forums that it astounds me that:
* Neighbours can scream up and down the street in their car or on their Harley all hours of the day and night.
* Neighbours can throw numerous parties and play loud music well into the early hours of the morning.
* Dogs can bark and howl (when left alone all weekend) for hours or days on end.
* Power tools, lawn mowers, whipper snippers, over-excited children etc etc etc
but .... No! You can't have a rooster?????

 

[tillyita]

Aaaw kat79, I am sorry to read about your Roo. I have commented on other forums that it astounds me that:
* Neighbours can scream up and down the street in their car or on their Harley all hours of the day and night.
* Neighbours can throw numerous parties and play loud music well into the early hours of the morning.
* Dogs can bark and howl (when left alone all weekend) for hours or days on end.
* Power tools, lawn mowers, whipper snippers, over-excited children etc etc etc
but .... No! You can't have a rooster?????

I agree - but having said that when people start "collecting" and they don't shut up all night (full moon) it gets pretty noisy. Between my neighbours and myself we have 15 Roosters and the neighbours down the road (half a Km away) can hear them when they are in full chorus! They don't complain - just say they can hear them....

 

[Teila]

I agree - but having said that when people start "collecting" and they don't shut up all night (full moon) it gets pretty noisy. Between my neighbours and myself we have 15 Roosters and the neighbours down the road (half a Km away) can hear them when they are in full chorus! They don't complain - just say they can hear them....

You are right tillyita. I didn't really think about it but I guess if everyone in the street decided they wanted to have a rooster it would get noisy; but there is nothing stopping everyone in the street wanting to have a dog and there are some very noisy caged birds out there. I guess a line gets drawn and sadly for the chicken lovers, roosters just landed on the wrong side of the line

 

[MyHaven]

If you don't want to chill them, I've always just kept them off the nest for 3 days straight and it still breaks them. I have never used a cage.

I've got a silkie at the moment broodie. Yesterday I locked her our of their house because if i didnt she would vlimb up and spend hours sitting next to the nest which was liocked. And i let them free range in the back yard so as to take her mind off it a bit. She constantly kept running back to see if she could get in and peeking through the cracks lol. Kept nest box locked so she had to sleep on the roost.

Did the same today but she has given up running back every five seconds. Left the coop door open this afternoon and she looked to see nest was still locked then wandered off again. No trying to sit up next to the nest.

Tomorrow I will repeat again and if past experience is anything to go by she should be over it by day 4.

No locking up in boxes with cold air under and all that stuff.

I am lucky in that I only have one other laying at the moment so I just kept an eye out and locked her in the house for a while when she looked ready to lay. When the new four start laying and its harder to just lock them out ill just put her in a little run for a few days instead during the day.

Tks appps, in this weather I won't risk doing anything. Particularly with a delicate Silkie. It's been raining.

I agree you don't always have to go to the full extent. But they can be stubborn and it gets the job done quickly, normally without having to repeat. I don't use fans or anything.

The only way I can keep her off at the moment is to lock her up. I can't keep her off the nest without locking the other girls out. If I lock her out of the run she's got no cover from rain or hawks and I can't supervise all day. Then I have to put her back in at night where she has nest access again.

 

[Teila]

OK, so I'm learning quite a bit in preparation of one or both of my bantams becoming broody and I note and understand why MyHaven is not going to risk doing anything at this time; we are having a wonderful long weekend of 3 days rain (sarcasm intended) and I can't drag myself away from the computer so annoying my BYC peeps. Tripled my previous posts in a number of hours I think lolz.
Why do we need to do something with a broody hen? What are the side effects of not doing anything?

 

[MyHaven]

Aaaw kat79, I am sorry to read about your Roo.  I have commented on other forums that it astounds me that:
* Neighbours can scream up and down the street in their car or on their Harley all hours of the day and night.
* Neighbours can throw numerous parties and play loud music well into the early hours of the morning.
* Dogs can bark and howl (when left alone all weekend) for hours or days on end.
* Power tools, lawn mowers, whipper snippers, over-excited children etc etc etc
but .... No! You can't have a rooster?????

I agree. I agree also that they can get noisy. But if you want one there should be similar local laws to what exist for dogs or other nuisances.

Personally if I could, I wouldn't have one in a backyard incase it got nasty. But at the same time I'd love to be in a position where I could breed and play with genetics.

 

[MyHaven]

OK, so I'm learning quite a bit in preparation of one or both of my bantams becoming broody and I note and understand why MyHaven is not going to risk doing anything at this time; we are having a wonderful long weekend of 3 days rain (sarcasm intended) and I can't drag myself away from the computer so annoying my BYC peeps.  Tripled my previous posts in a number of hours I think lolz.
Why do we need to do something with a broody hen?  What are the side effects of not doing anything? 

Hi, wonderful weather for ducks. It is nice to see some Aussie activity on BYC though.

If you leave a hen clucky they waste away. They literally sit and wait for a chick. It hasn't happened to me but I've heard of deaths. So if you don't want chicks you need to break it.

It's all very sad, I understand the drive to have babies.

 

[Teila]

Hi, wonderful weather for ducks. It is nice to see some Aussie activity on BYC though.

If you leave a hen clucky they waste away. They literally sit and wait for a chick. It hasn't happened to me but I've heard of deaths. So if you don't want chicks you need to break it.

It's all very sad, I understand the drive to have babies.

lolz MyHaven .. if it stops raining, I'm outta here!!
Oh, OK and wow, I didn't realise it was that serious. My two little girls are just pets, eggs of any description are going to be a bonus. I'm hoping that they don't get clucky but I do have some ideas for breaking it if they do. They haven't started laying yet so it's not an issue at the moment. I will know when it is because they love being out of the coop/run and free ranging, as soon as that changes I will know I have an issue. Worse comes to worse, I do have room for maybe one more, I'm sure I can track down a fertile egg somewhere