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

[Bens-Hens]

I quite like the g-ratedness of the site - it's a breath of fresh air compared to what you get on most social network sites. As for that rating Vehve - WOW!
I'm also used to the more wrinkled variety of passionfruit, or granadilla as I knew them growing up. Ben, did you also have a grapevine planted along the fence? How is that doing? I finally planted my grapevine outside my run & am waiting for it to take off. I was experimenting with growing plants in tyres because when it's not flooding, it's really dry & had a heap of papaya trees self seed in a tyre. The tyres just happened to be in the space needed for the run so I left them & as it turns out the chickens love papaya leaves. I've had to fence around them to give them a chance to get a bit higher without being decimated & they have recovered nicely. The other tyre turned into a raised dustbath. : )

Yes, we have green grape on the other side of the gate. It's only been in a couple of months. It's been doing pretty well when it was warmer, but not grown much since it cooled off.

Oh no don't get me wrong, I don't mind the fact that this site seems to mainly be used by people who know how to write, and the amount of profanities is kept low. I'm just saying, that maybe this site wouldn't even need the censorship. This isn't maybe a first choice topic to troll about.

You might be interested in my potato towers, there's a pic of them in my coop build article. Basically peat, dirt and potatoes inside a round fencing cage lined with straw. The taters grow outwards, and you can grow about 30-40 kilos in the space of an oil barrel.

I like the method with feed bags, base plant goes in with the bag rolled down, slowly adding dirt as you unroll the top of the bag, when it's full tip it out and count the crop!

 

[Bens-Hens]

It seems we made the right call on Sal.

She has broken the broody spell and is spending most of the day and all of the night off the nest.

I plan to candle the remaining 4 eggs in the incubator tonight or tomorrow again to check on progress.

Our broody project did not go so well with a first time mum, but we should still get some beautiful chicks from the experience.

 

[Bens-Hens]

We candled the remaining 4 eggs last night. I am pretty confident that we lost the last Coro some time ago as it is well behind the others in development. I have left it in just to be sure, but it does not look good. It also has a detached air cell. In fact, all the air cells look a bit funky but I have managed to hatch some funky aircell eggs before, but never had success with a detached one.

Looks like we are down to 2x BLRW and 1 silkie. Fingers crossed for pullets! 9 days to go.

 

[Wrightsx4]

Candled ours today too. Both look good so far. I've decided not to move Betty to the other coop. No other hrn or rooster dares to go near her nest. She has a little dish near her where I leave snacks for her since she rarely gets off the nest. I put some scrambled egg in it today that she left for later. An absent-minded hen ran over to grab it but Betty fluffed out and let out a horrible growl that sent her running away.

 

[vehve]

Sorry about the eggs Ben, hope you still get some fluffy butts.

Wrightsx4, sounds like one devoted mama.

I just awoke to birdsong in sunny Tuscany again. It's been up to +36 C here, I'm sweating like crazy. Yesterday we shared a 1,3kg Florence T-bone steak, it was delishious.

Across the valley from the house we're renting there looks to be a backyard coop. Karin and I are pondering sneaking over to take a look at italian chickenkeeping...

 

[Bens-Hens]

Glad Betty is going strong Pam.

Felix, I was prepared for low numbers. Nothing to do with Fancy's product, they are stunning and they were well packaged, but our national postal system just does not treat freight nicely so teh odds were stacked against them from the get go.

 

[Fancychooklady]

I'm beginning to think that you will never get those coro's. I just had another lady in Brisbane hatch 9. The Brisbane postal system must be much kinder than WAs. Oh well let's hope they are 3 hens.

 

[joannefiddler]

Well, I'm happy to announce our little flock has grown by 5. Of the 6 eggs Lee was on, 5 have hatched. We now have two "Australorchins", two "Easter Eggchins" and one Gold Laced Cochin chicks. Removed the 6th egg 2 days after first hatch...was a dud. In the pic Lee still had the 6th egg under her...the chicks seem to be "reporting for duty" and wondering "what do we do next?!"

 

[lindz8504]

Here's my 3 week old littles.... with their 2 mommas

 

[vehve]

Ben, I think all postal services are like that. Fragile stickers mean shake more.