"How many chickens do i have?" Just give me two minutes to count them all in my head...

So my current set-up...
My faverolles pair, Louis and Lady Fantine, are living in an old dog run that is 2m x 3m, with a little coop I bought from Bunnings. I originally had them free-ranging at our new place until my toddlersaurus discovered how much fun it was chasing them. Louis was a very placid rooster to start with but I just really felt that toddlers and roosters don't mix, so they are confined for now. I use a deep litter system for their run to keep the ground from turning into scorching hot bare dirt, it keeps them stimulated and entertained, and it seems to reduce the flies a bit. A native vine called muelhenbeckia grows up the sides and over the top which gives them nice dappled shade. Louis and Lady Fantine are about to go into their 18 month moult. Lady Fantine is already looking a bit bedraggled and I'm looking forward to putting her in our new big run with her offspring girls (who I hatched out in the incubator) and giving her a well-deserved break and lots of dried mealworms. Louis will go into a bachelor pad for the winter with my spare faverolles and marans cockerels.
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Go check out the Salmon Faverolles thread! You can find the link in my signature👍
 
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My third and most recent flock are my French Wheaten Marans. I have been wanting FWM since I first did all my research three years ago into what breeds I'd like to get into. They are really hard to find in South Australia, except cross breeds, and with covid keeping state borders closed for 2 years, travelling interstate to get birds wasn't a possibility. I thought about getting eggs shipped but I know the hatch rate would be disappointing. I went on Facebook for the first time in years and found an Australian marans breeder group and put a call out. The timing was really lucky as there was a woman selling her breeding groups, an incredibly rare opportunity in SA. So I now have a breeding quartet and a spare boy in the second tractor my partner and I built.
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I have had them for 2 weeks and I adore them. No names for them yet. They are only laying sporadically but that might be down to the stress of the move. I've been trying to save what eggs I do get in the hope of putting them in the incubator but one of the hens is a voracious egg-eater. I've also noticed their shells are thin and brittle, so clearly they have been a bit deficient in calcium. The feed I give my birds has plenty of shell grit mixed through it so hopefully I'll see an improvement soon. I have pulled their tractor alongside the duck run to start cleaning the ground for a garden bed in which I'd like to plant some buddleja cuttings I propagated last year, as well as wormwood, silverbeet, comfrey, borage and other herbs.
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Sounds like you have a good idea of what you want and working towards it. I think people with a good heart can’t help but fall in love with the animals they care for If you interact with your chickens with lots of treats they will look forward to seeing you and come when you call them I’m not familiar with the climate air landscape in southern Australia but it looks dry and hot so I’m guessing free ranging your chickens is not an option so it’s harder to spend time with them out I the open we have a fenced yard In the city and it had only be 4 years since the bylaw was passed to allow backyard chickens I recently discovered that there are 4 other neighbours that have backyard chickens so perhaps we will connect in the spring this year.
Your kids will love those chickens when they get old enough to interact with them they really do make fun little pets. That’s my granddaughter with Peewee
 

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That is a fabulous photo! I've been mulling over the idea of painting our new coop with lots of sunflowers. Or maybe something more folk art in style. Or do I just paint it a sandy cream colour and leave it?

A great achievement to get your coop critter-proof! Our main predator problem are foxes, but for disease and illnesses it's mosquitoes and sparrows.

Maybe when our kids are older they'll really help to tame our chickens into lap-warming companions :love
Absolutely you should paint your coop just use some bright colour and go nuts you can’t screw it up after all it’s just a chicken coop and if you don’t like your first paint job just try again. Let the kids finger paint it lol. It’s just fun!!
I enjoy your posts.
 

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Absolutely you should paint your coop just use some bright colour and go nuts you can’t screw it up after all it’s just a chicken coop and if you don’t like your first paint job just try again. Let the kids finger paint it lol. It’s just fun!!
I enjoy your posts.
I think I will decorate the coop - and will definitely let my son help, as I doubt I could keep him away anyhow. The paint station at playgroup is where he spends almost all his time as he absolutely adores painting. What sort of paint did you use for your coop? I have a big tin of exterior timber paint to paint on first but not sure what to use when it's time to get colourful.
 
Finally here are my odd bods bantams.
This is Roxy:
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She is a fiesty little woman. She came to me as the mum of the ducklings I got last year. She hatched out seven ducklings and by the time they were 2 weeks old, none could fit under her but she was one fiercely protective mama; it was quite funny seeing these enormous galumphing ducks running to their tiny mum for safety, and Roxy strutting around like a little boxer ready to beat up whoever upset her babies. She is currently sitting on 5 faverolles eggs underneath my son's bedroom window. The eggs should hatch sometime between Wednesday and Friday :fl (if they are going to hatch). I haven't seen Roxy leave the eggs for two days so I'm hoping that's because she's aware she's in the homestretch. When I've been checking on her lately, she's completely tranced out. I'm partly deaf so I wouldn't have a hope of hearing any peeps from the chicks inside their eggs and I haven't hung around long enough to see if Roxy is 'talking' to them.

This is Honey:
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She's looking a little worse for wear at the moment as I have just recently broken her out of her broodiness after an unsuccessful hatch. She's regrowing the feathers on her head after the drakes bailed her up in the garage. I have no idea what breed she is. I bought a dozen fertile pekin eggs for $50 and when I candled them, only four were fertile and then only 1 hatched and she wasn't even a pekin. Still love her though.

And then there's Nell:
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My poor sweetheart. She was the sole survivor of a massacre one night in October last year where she lost all six of her sisters and her roo. She's not been the same since. I haven't been seeing much of her lately so I'm guessing she's gone broody somewhere very well-hidden. Sometimes I think she has really slowed down but then i remember she's 3 years old and in bantam years she's almost elderly.

And last and definitely least...
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This is Hahns. Hahns is a jerk. He belonged to the French backpackers and they convinced my partner to take him home. As soon as I realised he was an a@$ehole, I wanted to be rid of him but my partner is besotted with him :tongue. I told him if he wanted to keep Hahns, he would have to get him out and cuddle him everyday. And he does, most days, and Hahns is positively smoochy with him. Still let's me know how much he hates my guts every morning when I go to feed him. Ungrateful brat.
 

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So a few months ago we built a run at this new place with the idea that the ducks and chickens could all free range during the day, and then head into the run at night. The coop is a 2-storey thing, with that coop we got from the French backpackers, sitting on stilts around which we attached corrugated iron so the ground level is for the ducks. The ducks won't use it to sleep in but sometimes lay their eggs in there, and the chicken coop is really not great. Furthermore, the drakes will not play nicely with the chickens, despite Roxy having been their mum. So I've decided the current run can be just for the ducks, and we'll build a new and much bigger run for the chickens - it will just be girls in there as I'd like for my kids to be able to go in there and interact with the hens without me worrying about the roosters. We will have a bachelor pad for the roosters well away from the girls and then I'll use the tractors when I want to put breeding trios together for the season.

My partner had all of last week off and I thought "Great! I'll get this new coop built while he's home to look after the babies and can help me if I get stuck". Only, the weather was so hot and sticky and, if I managed to get started, DOH would come out saying baby girl's crying for mama or the toddlersaurus is chucking a wobbly and could I please come in? As soon as I did, DOH would take the opportunity to disappear outside for hours on end to work on his truck. After one particularly frustrating morning of making zero progress, I stormed off into the bedroom with baby girl, and calmed down when I reminded myself that I could just go back to the drawing board. I found a 2nd hand cubby house online, found out it was still available, and then ask DOH if we could hook up the trailer and pick it up the next day. He wasn't enthused, "what are the dimensions? What if it's bugger to dismantle? I don't know what tools I need to take. Ask them how accessible it is? Tomorrow's gonna be hot." Nevertheless, he went out to our plot on the other side of town, picked up his gyrocopter trailer and the following day, with my help, dismantled the cubby and loaded it on the trailer without a hitch. I completely forgot to take photos. The next morning he put it all back together quite easily and rather liked how it had all worked out. So this is where I'm up to:
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Loved reading your post. I would get some bright colour paint and paint it. It would look fabulous Nothing like a little paint to make something old look new again lol. Have fun with it. I’m not sure how old your kids are but let them help if they are old enough great family project.
 

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