And all through the house,
there was much banging of hammers,
to complete the Chook Tractor. YAY!
Chickens
State Of The Snoskred
With the Berry Chicken Auction coming up next weekend, things are in a state of preparation in Snoskred Land. Painting is going on. It was such a gorgeous day on Sunday that the painting went on outside in the sun..
We are building a chicken tractor with coop for the new girls to hang out in – they will live in here for four to six weeks once they arrive. This is mostly for quarantine purposes because we love our current flock and want to protect them from anything the new girls might be carrying as a surprise, but the added bonus is, they will mow, aerate, and fertilise the lawns for us in allergy season when for us, lawn mowing is generally off the table for a bit..
If you want to know more about quarantine, here is a great post about it by The Chicken Chick. Quarantine of Backyard Chickens: When and How – and after that, we will have to introduce the girls carefully. You can read more about how to introduce new girls into a flock here. How do I introduce new chickens into my old flock?
During Quarantine they will be well protected with wire and a wooden coop section, complete with roost. We think the outdoor section touching the ground will be clear of wire at this stage, but we can always change our mind on that. We’re currently debating where the roost is and whether it might be too high with the doors closed, making it hard for the girls to get onto, so that might get moved downwards a little.
Each day, I’ll go out and sweep out the poop which will land on the floor under the roost, and pop in a large kitty litter tray of sand for them to dustbathe in. This tractor can be used long term, which is why I am painting it good. The coop and run have held up super well over the years with our undercoat and Taubmans Endure on top.
In other news, there is a lot of fruit being added to soda water here at the moment. I bought some special ice cube trays from Avon some years ago which take a slice of lime or lemon in the middle. I found them in our recent de-clutter so I gave lime slices a try and found them to be amazing.
The thing that is most amazing.. something happens with the water once you put it with the slice – every drop becomes lime flavoured. So the moment the ice cube starts to melt, you can taste the lime.
I also have been trying some frozen fruits. They work incredibly well – they serve two functions, to cool the drink, and to flavour the drink. Mango is my current favourite but I have also been using blueberries and mixed berries.
My final piece of news today involves a lunch out with girlfriends on Friday in which I heard the awesome news that Karma has come back as a surprise to some of the work people who were involved in making my workplace somewhere I no longer wanted to go. One of them has been seriously demoted and is no longer a manager.
The other one has been seriously demoted and is no longer a team leader. I count this as a WIN for humanity, but it does not inspire me to return, as other things have gone down the toilet extremely quickly for my poor ladies who still remain there. :(
On the way home, I thought I was going to run out of fuel – my Polo has a 45 litre tank, check out how much petrol it took when I got to the station! Two and a half months out of one tank of fuel was pretty awesome, the last time I filled up was at Costco back on 31 August.
The Escape Chicken.
After the big rains we had here a little while ago, the drainage tunnel stole a lot of dirt along with the water, making some almost gaps in the ground near the fence. So, we made plans to build a retaining wall and next to it lay some gravel and leave a drainage channel for those wet times. This is a job we needed to be do at some point.
Rosie looking oh so innocent.
For over a week, every day I would discover Rosie on the outside of the pen, trying desperately to get back inside with the flock. She is the tiniest chicken ever. I thought she was sneaking out as a surprise to herself by accident under the fence by digging out the dirt and making holes, right where we had been planning to build our retaining wall. So this job got moved to the top of the to do list.
At least, that is how we thought she was getting out. It turns out, from observing the goings on as we built the wall, that she was deliberately sneaking out. She had found a patch of chicken wire that was not staple-gunned down. She was able to jump up onto the fence and then sneak out via pushing the wire away from the fence. All we had to do to prevent that was staple-gun the wire down, which we did.
What is the most crazy about this escape chicken – the moment she got out, she was desperately trying to get back in with the other girls. She did not enjoy being outside with all that grass to scratch and eat if the other girls could not be with her. This job could likely have remained on the to-do list for another month or so without any issue, if we’d just discovered her escape route earlier. It is done now, and I have to say it is pretty awesome. :) There are 2/3 more sleeper dug into the ground and covered by gravel that you can’t see in these pics.
Twas a long weekend, so on Friday afternoon I said to the other half, let us go to the hardware store now and avoid the rush. Which we did. And we got sleepers to build another planter box as well as the retaining wall, the gravel to go alongside, some potting mix, and some new plants for the garden which I intended to weed a very large patch of.
So I did weed, and then it looked like this –
I planted some silverbeet seedlings which the chicken love and I am not adverse to myself.
In the new planter box, we will be having a Kale moment. Tuscan Kale, which is a somewhat new format of kale to me, as well as some regular kale. The chickens *love* Kale. :)
Before I let you go, you ought to go and read this post. Everything I Know, I Learned from Cows.
Wordless Wednesday – Chickens
The girls scratching up a storm after the big rains we had
Vale Ancona
Ancona was humanely euthanised by our lovely local chicken vet yesterday.
I have dreaded this day for some years now, always knowing it would arrive, and always hoping when it did, I would be able to do what needed to be done. The other half was willing to do it himself, and more than likely he would have been fine with that, growing up as a farm child he has euthanased chickens before, but I wanted to be certain there was nothing more we could do for her and it made sense to me to take her to the vet.
Ancona started to look a little off colour on Saturday. She couldn’t make it onto the roost on Saturday night which is a bad sign. I initially thought this was a result of us treating the chickens feet with olive oil for scaly leg mite late last week – Ancona hates being handled by humans and when we do have to handle her, she is resentful and reserved for several days afterwards. We hoped she might improve.
On Sunday she was eating and looked to be on the mend, at least we hoped so, but by Sunday night she was no longer able to climb the stairs into the coop. The fact she did not even protest when we picked her up told me pretty much everything I needed to know, it was not her personality at all.. :(
We took her and gave her a warm salt bath, checked to see she was not egg bound, and brought her inside for a warm night in a box by the gas heater. She was no better this morning, so first thing it was off to the vet. I knew before we left home that it was unlikely she would be coming home with me. :(
I am deeply comforted by the fact that she has had an amazing and wonderful and very full of treats life. She has laid us many eggs over the past few years and each one has been enjoyed to the maximum by us. She was not a fan of humans – her breed, Ancona, is known to be flighty – and we have respected her dislike of us, only handling her when absolutely necessary. We have loved her from a distance, as was her desire.
We loved you, Ancona. Thanks for being a great chook.
With all that said, there are 5 other chickens in the yard for whom life continues. They live minute by minute, sucking the most joy out of each and every moment, whether it is a dirt bath, finding a bug, eating a treat from the humans.. all we can do is love them while they’re here, protect them the best we can from predators, know when it is time to let them go, and remember them when they are gone.
Will we add to our flock? More than likely. Ancona was our most reliable layer and we’ll miss her eggs. The girls have huge amounts of space out there and sometimes when you bring in younger girls it perks the older girls up. I’ve sent an email off to a local chicken breeder whose chickens I have admired for some years now, and the next chicken auction is a month away if that doesn’t work out..
Weekend Jobs, Bits and Bobs..
Our new over the door coat racks – $9 from Kmart.
It is the weekend again here at Chez Snoskred. Yesterday I went and had a CT pulmonary angiogram, which I had been putting off for 4 months! and a shedload of blood tests that involved 15 or so vials of blood. The girl forgot a vial, so I had to go back for an extra needle stick, which I did with extremely good grace considering I hate needles more than anything. So 3 needles total, yesterday. NOES.
Candle Lanterns $7 at Kmart
When she called me, I was at Kmart, where I picked up these cute candle lanterns. Little Kitty has learned to jump, and this means a sad goodbye to my present candle burners. I can’t be certain that she won’t stick her face too near or even in the flame and burn all her whiskers off in the process. I got a perfect ceramic pineapple without any chips for my mother for her birthday as well- I wanted one for me too, but I couldn’t find a perfect one without chips for me. Sorry no pineapple pic, it has been wrapped already.
Yesterday I wrote a list of things I wanted us to do this weekend. Several of them involved a trip to Kmart. The other half checked the calender and realised it is the first weekend of the school holidays, so we ended up going to Kmart last night around 9:30pm because ours is 24/7. It was wonderfully peaceful.
I was actually mid-another-job – laminating Hawaii calender pages to hang on the back of the toilet door – when I ran out of A4 laminator sleeves. I figured we might as well pick some up while at Kmart, also too. Then I came home and completed the laminator job, while listening to the Breaking Bad Insider Podcast on my iPhone.
The other things on the list involved a phone call to the local Chinese to make a dinner appointment for tonight, which has been completed this morning. And a trip to Bunnings – a hardware and garden store for those not in Australia – to buy sand for the chook pen.
Of course a trip to Bunnings never means just getting the thing you went for. The other half has been planning a special planter box for a while, and this weekend he is building it.
I found a gorgeous climbing jasmine, a sieve for the chook pen because the kitty litter scoop is not very efficient for chook poop, and a new bucket to store the chook poop in because all the old lids had broken.
I was quite tempted by these colourful Mr Men items – Mr Men Garden Gnomes, and Mr Men on a stick.
When I mentioned the Mr Men on a stick to The Other Half, who was busy wrangling the trolley and he did not spot them, he was very concerned at that concept, because his mind put the stick, well, guess where. But I showed him the picture and he was quite relieved to see the stick was not near to the Mr Man at all.
So now, off to do chores and jobs of work. Tomorrow, my first official shoes post. It is a good one, I think. I hope you’ll enjoy it, and consider making a shoes post of your own to link up. :)
Happy weekend all!
Chicken Treats Part 995643
What do you have for us today, Human?
The girls get spoiled regularly. If you are reading this on the Saturday Morning when this post is set to publish, it is likely that what you see in this post photo wise is what is going on out in the chicken pen right now, although the treats might not be exactly the same..
Strawberries, 2 eggs cooked up, tuna
The Snoskred Chicken Treat Rules –
1. Must be something I would eat myself
– with two exceptions – bugs – Chickens LOVE bugs! and hot mash made from the chicken pellets.
While there is absolutely NO way I would eat eggs, tuna and strawberries at the same time let alone together in the same dish, I would eat every one of these things by themselves. These are the exact same foods I would eat.
The strawberries seen here were from a batch I had been putting in my mineral water that week.
The eggs were two I took out from the laying box that had just been laid, they were still warm. I took them inside, mixed them together, put them in my one decent non-stick frypan and cooked them without oils or fats.
The tuna is expensive tuna that I regularly buy for myself, it is given to the cats and chickens for an occasional treat. The chickens love tuna and will scoff that down before any of the other treats provided, no matter what else is given to them at the same time.
2. Must not involve empty calories.
Terry at Henblog wrote about empty calories here – Thin-shelled Eggs, Old Hens, and The Miracle Diet Cure
If there are leftovers which might be suitable for the girls, fantastic. That would mostly be things like greens in our house. They might get the bits of cauliflower I don’t use. There is a long list of things that chickens should not eat, for reasons. I always check the Chicken Treat Chart before giving them something new, though sometimes other sites give conflicting info on what foods chickens can and cannot eat..
The girls never get bread, or pasta, or pizza crusts. I no longer feed them mealworms because I found red mites in with the mealworms I was buying from local pet stores and those things are not fun for chickens. I do throw them bugs that I find when gardening, and some of the girls find more than their fair share of bugs daily just by scratching around.
The girls eating lactose free yogurt when they first arrived home
They do sometimes get lactose free yoghurt – it MUST be lactose free, this is important, chickens cannot digest lactose – and they LOVE that shit. Seriously. They love it more than mealworms. When I give them LF Yoghurt, the trumpeting and bagerking and happy chicken sounds that go on can be heard for miles.
There is one other important Snoskred chicken treat rule.
Food must be served in two dishes – preferably recycled plastic containers that have been rinsed out and saved for this purpose.
Why two dishes?
This should mean that the hens lower down in the flock will get a chance to grab some treats from one of the dishes when the other girls are busy feasting. It is a nice idea in theory and it occasionally does work out this way.
What usually happens is all the girls flock around one dish, then move to the other dish once they get bored with the first dish.
Rosie Rosecomb is the lowest girl in the pecking order – mainly because she still does not realise she is a chicken most of the time – and while she does get in and grab a few choice treats she usually waits for the others to move to the other dish so she can peck at the first dish without getting attitude from the other girls.
Here are some more pics from this Chicken Treat Moment.
My apologies – the sun was extremely bright that morning even though it was still winter!
HEY There’s tuna in here!
More on what to feed – and what not to feed – chickens here –
And so it rained.
And the chickens said, bloody good thing this rain, because the ground in here was getting so hard to scratch lately. See all those marks in the ground?
Those are chicken scratch marks! Bugs live under things on the ground and the girls know they can sometimes dig them out – when I tipped out the water and flipped over this container the chickens went WILD. And there was a lovely colony of slugs on the bottom of the container which was cause for much trumpeting and bagerking!
The kitties were unwilling to leave the dry ground to gain wet paws. Sorry for the blurry pic!
This was the second ever time Happy has experienced rain. She does not understand the concept of it. The first time was so hilarious, I wish I had filmed it so I could share it with you.
The girls got busy laying up a storm.
When actually raining the girls will either be inside the coop and run, or directly underneath it. This was a huge unexpected bonus of our coop and run design.
Initially the girls were going to be inside the coop and run most of the time due to our drainage problem here, which is why we designed things to be so high up off the ground.
In summer, under the coop and run is the coolest place to dirt-bathe. In winter, it is mostly dry even when it rains, so they can still dirt bathe. Chickens *love* to dirt bathe.
In the mood to read more about chickens? Frogdancer recently got a new coop for her girls. And more here – Yesterday was a full on chicken day.
You want to actually watch chickens live on the web? Then you should visit Hencam. Not only are there chickens, but there is a bunny *and* sometimes bonus goats in the background. If it is night time when you visit the cams, bookmark the link for later and have a read of the Hencam blog. :)
Kitty VS Chicky
If I pretend like I’m not interested in them but in something *near* them, maybe that will draw them in closer.
Now quick, look over here, like something else is fascinating to me!
SWARM! SWARM! ATTACK KITTY MODE!
The chickens are unfazed by this mode of kitty.
Chicken Update 580235
So excited I am about blogging again, I am scheduled out a couple of weeks in advance. You are reading this in August but it was written on the 28th of July. :) YAY me.
We have just had a huge weekend of chores and jobs, and the first one on the list was clean out the chook pen and enclosure.
The raked up leaves, branches, and assorted biodegradable chook leftovers.
So the people who have the block behind us have a lot of trees and while it is lovely to look at it means a lot of leaves, branches, gumnuts, and associated tree junk end up in the chooks yard. The chooks do not mind this because these leaves will often hide little yummy insect friends, so the leaves are really a constant entertainment to them. They spend their days turning the leaves over hoping for a treat. I mind, because it looks messy. But in keeping chooks you soon learn you have to give up on what you want, it is all about what the chickens need and want.
Over winter there is not much point trying to do anything about it. If I rake it all up guaranteed the next week there will be strong winds and it ends up just as messy as it was before. So yesterday I did rake and made a lovely pile in the back corner which will be left to biodegrade – that is if the chooks can leave it alone long enough – and there is now a strong wind warning for our area. Of course.
And clearly, there is little chance of the chickens leaving it alone for very long. If you move something to a new place, it suddenly becomes fascinating and exciting and must be explored, pecked, scratched, and not left alone until every possible treat has been exposed and eaten.
Little Kitty looking in – why can’t I be in there?
Well, little kitty is not used to chickens yet. She thinks they are great fun to chase. The chooks respectfully decline this, and gave her several decent peckings to convince her they are a formidable force. She does not seem to mind and continues to chase. I will slowly teach her this is a bad thing, over time. At this point she’d got annoying and the chooks were clucking and tut-tutting her, and there was even a few wing flaps and bagerking in her direction, so she was sent back to the regular yard for my sanity and for her own safety.
Usually we will clean out the coop in the last week or two of autumn, and then leave them be other than occasionally scooping the poop out of their coop, throwing them their many treats and collecting any eggs. You can’t be so lax in summer because in the heat the poop gets quite smelly but in winter you can leave it a few days – some people actually leave it the whole winter which is perfectly ok – they use a system called deep litter. Long story so google it if you want to know more.
The chooks laying area cleaned out.
The chooks laying area with fresh new wood shavings. They will make some very fascinating circle shaped nests in here. I will have to remember to take a photo.
One thing I do not clean out is the spider webs. There is only one place (in my mind) where a spider is welcome and it is within the chicken coop. If they can survive the pecking beaks of the chooks, they can eat a multitude of flies. If I spot a poisonous one I do usually squish that because I’m none too sure on whether they are poisonous to chooks or not.
The girls hanging out, here are a couple more shots. :) Happy moments for my girls.
