Our introduction to keeping chickens, the high's, the lows and pics of our journey.

[satay]

Fancy, guinea pigs have a lot more meat on them than rats do. And I've never kept rodents as pets, so I don't have that issue bothering me. Rats are more sympathetic pets in my opinion though, the guinea pigs just seem passive, and I find it a bit cruel to keep them in such small cages as people usually do. I actually have one fond memory of rats, there's a science center near Helsinki where we went when I was maybe 8 or 9. They had rats that where trained to play basketball. After their "match" I got to pet them, and one of them crawled up my sweater sleeve, and out through the collar. It was pretty cute.

This brings another story to mind. While Karin was still studying, they had a animal handling session with lab mice. One of her classmates, while handling them, was bit in the finger. This was followed by the Finnish equivalent of "Motherf***er!!!" being screamed and a mouse flying in a huge arch. Karin handled the bites a bit better.

Rats have the worst bite. Very painful and bleed for agers. I used to breed them...

 

[satay]

The rats around here out weigh any little guinea pig I've seen.

http://australianmuseum.net.au/Water-rat/

Oh yeah bush rats are huge.

 

[vehve]

We mostly have brown rats here. They don't grow all that big. And they're not that common, or I at least haven't seen one in years. Finland is a bit boring when it comes to fauna. We have some specialties, but mostly our animals are more of the cute and fluffy kind. We only have one poisonous snake, and the viper venom isn't really lethal unless you're allergic. Karin was bit by one last summer (while relieving herself in a bush at our cottage, got her right in the butt). She said it was mostly like having a hangover. Wolves and bears aren't that common, and lynxes, which might be found near us, tend to keep away from populated areas. So mostly just bunnies and bambis here.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Did the curtains seem useful Ben? Or are the girls just freaked out by them?

We might be getting eggs already. We again found some crushed eggshells in the run, and it's been ages since we've last given any to the chickens. I asked the neighbors if they had given any, but they had not. So either we've done a bad job cleaning the run, or then we've got a egg eating problem combined with misplaced egg laying. Only thing is that I think the shells where white, while the Alhos should lay a sort of beige or cream colored egg.

On a different note, we've been watching the neighbors guinea pigs while they're on holiday, and every time I check up on them, I find myself thinking they might taste good barbecued. Has anyone tried growing guinea pigs for meat? Somehow my reasoning is, it shouldn't be any harder than growing rabbits. Or am I just a really bad guinea pig sitter?

The curtains seemed to freak them out a bit, was only one day but no one laid in those two boxes. This morning I put some quick seems on them and folded back one corner so they were sort of half open half closed.

Finding shells is a good thing I guess, especially if you are confident they are chicken shells. Do you have anything in the nests to encourage laying there? Golf balls or fake eggs? We found that worked pretty well. We did find some in the run to begin with though, your may have just been stood on by the flock before it was found. Have you heard much in the way of an egg song? Are you getting the squat yet?

You can keep the guinea pigs...plenty of other meat I would rather eat!

I'd no sooner eat guinea pig than I would rat.

Too right mate, unless options were very thin I would pass it up too. I would need a friends called WIlson or a large sum of money to make that happen.

Somehow I think I'd rather eat the guinea pig anyway. Also, you eat ozzies eat Vegemite, so your tastebuds are questionable

Now it's time to watch the world cup.

Ha.....most of us eat it, I am one of a few that steer clear of it.

Looking good ben, You can get day olds sexed in qld it's a dollar a bird with 90% accuracy. I have never done it but know people who have.

I didn't know that. If I looked hard enough here I probably could find someone. Most hatcheries only want to talk to you if you are buying here so it would need to be someone doing it on the side I guess.

......Karin was bit by one last summer (while relieving herself in a bush at our cottage, got her right in the butt). She said it was mostly like having a hangover.

Oh I nearly sprayed my morning coffee reading that hahahahahaha I have a few funny stories along those lines but never a snake bite! I can only imagine the surprise.

The pastey butt has not returned this morning which is good and we are now starting to see wing tip feathers poking out. I don't think we got a frizzle in the NH but it could still be too early to tell. I have never see a frizzle chick so I guess it will take me longer to see it if it is one.

 

[Bens-Hens]

I went down to peek through a window to see how things were going in the coop.


The one on the left looks pretty dark.


Turns out, Summer didn't mind the revised curtains after all. See how this goes with attacks from the Rock sisters.

 

[K Spot]

She looks very cozy in there Ben

 

[vehve]

Ben, yeah, I put a couple of golf balls there. No squat, no song.

Summer looks content in there, and she's a pretty girl.

 

[vehve]

Gah, just cleaned the nights poop from the coop again. Crushed shells among the poop, so I'm more and more sure one of the girls is laying. I'm going to have to camp out there and catch her in the act at some point. Today is not a day for that though, here's today's weather prognosis:

Seems mother nature can't make up her mind.

Also, I might have to think about putting up some more fencing in the yard and maybe some small weather covers, this isn't what I wanted to happen.

After the picture Wilma was joined by three more seeking cover. Had to shoo them away from the terrace again. And yesterday I counted 20 poops on the deck. I'll have to do a proper cleaning in the weekend, now I just picked them up.

 

[Bens-Hens]

I feel you pain. Our outdoor setting is not as nice...but I still don't want it pooped on!

 

[vehve]

I feel you pain. Our outdoor setting is not as nice...but I still don't want it pooped on!

When we moved here we sort of made a decision not to get any furniture that wasn't either so good looking, or so practical, that we have to have it. Makes for a bit more expensive stuff, and takes a lot longer to decorate, but I got tired of Ikea furniture that crumbles when you even look at it for too long. When we moved out of our apartment, I took most of our old furniture down to the lobby and left a note on it saying it's up for grabs. The pile was about a meter wide, four long and two high. Went back a few days later, and all I had to take to the dump was a chair that was slightly broken, and some plates. The plates weren't ours though, someone had switched our white plates for their old ones with various cartoon figures on them. But student housing makes for an efficient recycling system.

After 9 months, we still don't have curtains up, the bedroom only has a bed and a chair acting as a nightstand in it, the study has a couple of moving boxes in it and a way too big desk that I haven't found or built a replacement for yet. And the living room still needs some work, but we've been concentrating on the garden and chickens. I also need to find a set of chairs that match the concrete table on the deck.

The best purchase I've made with our design philosophy is a Neato robovac. It's not exactly pretty, but my gosh it's practical. Every day it makes it's rounds, and every day it's filled with dog hair. You still have to vacuum every one or two weeks, but it really is a huge time saver. Also, I'm a pretty messy person by nature, so it forces me to pick up after myself, because floors need to be cleared for it to function.