New Crew

Meet our new crew of chicks......

After retiring the last two, we have now recruited our new brood of egg laying beauties.

The first lot of chickens we had were Hy-line's. They were awesome at producing good size eggs. The second lot we had were Isa Brown's, although good in my opinion they were a little meaner.

So we decided to make a longer trek this time to collect these beauties...Hy-Line's.

and to make sure they settled in nicely we did a git of go pro spy camera work...fascinating little things.

Retirement Day

We have two chickens that have faithfully given us a nice return of eggs over the last couple of years.....up until now.
We really like the relationship we have with them.....they eat all our scraps, manure our garden beds and then we in return reap the egg collect.

So when they tell us it is time to end the relationship...by not returning eggs we know it is time to retire them.

Now we have had to in the past, end their little life, sadly but this time these two lovelies scored big time.

A friend offered to let them see out their days in her bigger coop and find new mates among her brood including one big old rooster.

So today was retirement day.....and I must say we were mightily impressed with their new abode....so much so that we could see ourselves retiring in this little patch of paradise...the bigger property not just the coop!

I have just received a text to let us know they are all asleep and although didn't find their way to the roost tonight, fared pretty well in their new home.
Maybe they will love retirement so much that it will cause some spontaneous egg laying as thank you for greener pastures.

Oh and here is a cleaver strawberry planter that our friends rigged up...I can see something similar popping up around her in the future.

#1153 Thankful List......retirement home for our chickens.

Escapee

 You know those mornings when everyone is moving at a good pace....all on target for getting out of the house on time....then one chore was remembered right at the time we should have been going out of the door....

Has anyone checked the chickens and bought in the eggs???

The three chickens we have are quite feisty....excitable and a bit pushy.....

The had their escape plan all mapped out ...just waiting for the right moment when one would give the signal.......

 Fraser was the recipient of a plan almost perfectly executed........one of the three made the leap.....leaving the other two most unhappy that they remained on the inside...

Now all our margin was gone.....running around the yard trying to capture said escapee....finally a call to the head of our house to check it would be OK to leave her roam free for the day because ...well frankly ...I didn't want to waste anymore time.....

So she spent the day I am sure at the base of the coop wanting in and her companions wishing they were out.....

We all returned home to find her still there.....that was until the master chook wrangler worked his magic and we were able to reunite them all.

Arrggg I think the eggs will now be collected at the end of the day in future.

Taste of freedom

We have had our chickens for 15 months now.........

The hubbies plan was always to allow them to free range around the garden.......

I was not so keen due to valuing my garden and the plants in it.....

Also we have a very bird phobic daughter who couldn't bear the thought of the chickens just wandering free........

This evening though after my dad dropped in briefly he suggested  {oblivious to our already hot debating} that we just clip their wings and let them wander and eat up all the mulberries that are beginning to litter the garden......

So freedom they tasted ....along with the mulberries.....and some of my plants......

then it was back into their comfy home for the night......

I think they will be seeing some more supervised freedom again soon according to the males in our family!

Vegies and Chooks

We have had such a hot few weeks so far...it was now time to plant our next lot of veggies.....

On Christmas day we experienced a very hot long day and sadly one of our chickens just did not cope with the heat.....so now we have two.

As a temporary measure to see us through the hot hot days we have just erected a shade over them and they seem quite happy about that.

(Note the free range veggies growing in front of the raised bed...they are as a result of the chickens kicking out of their enclosure...Derek has just been mowing around it.)

Now comes the hard part...waiting for our crop of tomatoes,carrots and cucumbers to come in.

I am sure with all the care they will get it won't be long ...

One of These....

Is different from the others........

it didn't even fit in the carton...

we are all waiting in anticipation of it being a "double yoker " !

Eggs Anyone

Well done "chookies" we can begin sharing your gifts with others...

collecting 3 eggs nearly every day. 

Edited: Sorry  I just made a pavlova for Father's Day afternoon tea so not so many eggs left.

Pay Off

THE GOLDEN EGG(S)

MUCH EXCITEMENT IN THE HOUSE THIS MORNING.

They 're Here...

Introducing our Chooks......Mabel,Carla and Peck!

( I wasn't too sure about giving them names  but  the kids were keen. Guess which name Fraser chose!)

We went to the Poultry Farm and picked them up this morning...

They seemed to settle in really well and it has been a fascinating day watching them up close and personal.....

We decided to go with the Hy-Line breed....mainly because we could get the right age for laying this weekend.These are about 19 weeks old. It would have been fun to start with some baby chicks but after all the effort to get to this point we would like them to lay sooner than later..

They have been petted so much this afternoon I am sure they will be tame in no time at all...even Meg has decided that they are not too bad after all and that she is cured from her "bird phobia".

The other part to the backyard work going on was to have a second raised garden bed for vegetables....so that is how we spent some of the other part of the day ( the part when we weren't watching chooks)

Hopefully we have chosen well and will have a fine crop of "veggies" by the Spring months.

Here is today's cop of lemons from our tree that fruits all year round.

Well as the sun set we guided our chooks to their nightly resting spot and so far they have remained perched there.....overall a very satisfying and productive day.

Urban Chookies

Our backyard make over in preparation for our chickens moved a step further over the weekend. We had to half fill the garden beds with yellow sand then the top half with vegie mix soil....

We took the opportunity of planting an orange tree as well....

Then tonight we had our new "Urban chook home" delivered and set up by a very clever friend.

This is a very clever design that you can check out here for your very own....now all that is left to do is source 3 ladies to make this their home....we will be off in search of them over the weekend.

Chickens, Bees and Vegies

We spent a fun day at some friends place today. We enjoyed picking their brains about chickens, vegies and just generally being inspired to get on and make ours happen. Yes even the chickens...Meg (who has a bird phobia) has come around to the idea of a couple of chooks in the yard. Our friend has come up with this genius of a plan and is currently in the manufacturing process of these mobile chicken coops.
We signed up for one of the first of the ranks today!
It was also nice to check and see how the bees are going...we also gained some great vegie growing tips...

and a bonus up close look at these 2 day old chicks...

How blessed were we to even return home with a dozen fresh eggs.
Thanks guys for a lovely day.