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

[Bens-Hens]

Amy and her Coro chick are doing well. Yesterday she took the chick out for a walk, leaving the safety of the new best to venture under the main coop. Which I thought was a very safe and smart place to learn to scratch around. Lots of over head cover.

Today, they are back out learning about the world. They are free to range during the day, but are enclosed when the main flock are out ranging, and after dark.

A few days to a week and we might let them all out together, see how they go first.

 

[satay]

Amy and her Coro chick are doing well. Yesterday she took the chick out for a walk, leaving the safety of the new best to venture under the main coop. Which I thought was a very safe and smart place to learn to scratch around. Lots of over head cover.

Today, they are back out learning about the world. They are free to range during the day, but are enclosed when the main flock are out ranging, and after dark.

A few days to a week and we might let them all out together, see how they go first.

So cute ben I'll keep everything crossed for you that your little corro is a girl.
I don't know if you saw on the aussie thread the story of my little nephew wanting to go see benjaminis chickens (he's 3) but he will love the pic of your girl and her chicken. I will have to show him next time he comes up..

 

[Bens-Hens]

Thats cute!

I have lost touch with that thread. After my race I took a couple of days to look at it and I have missed over 300 posts and thought "I will come back to that", but when I did it was over 600 posts, which quickly turned to almost 1000, getting hard to find the time to sit down and catch up on so much!

Fingers crossed here too, we all know what my luck is like when it comes to these things though.

 

[satay]

Samuel was visiting while my brother had a job to do in Gatton at the uni. Samuel loves chickens and was looking at pictures of different peoples chickens on byc. I was showing him pics in your thread and he says who's chickens are they? I say they are bens hens... He says can we go see them? I say no honey ben lives on the other side of Australia... When my brother came to pick him up later that afternoon he runs out and says Dad I saw benjamini's chickens but we can't go see them as he lives on the other side of the moonaverse. (gotta love a 3 year old) My brother says wow your satalite internet must be good to see that far....

 

[satay]

Thats cute!

I have lost touch with that thread. After my race I took a couple of days to look at it and I have missed over 300 posts and thought "I will come back to that", but when I did it was over 600 posts, which quickly turned to almost 1000, getting hard to find the time to sit down and catch up on so much!

Fingers crossed here too, we all know what my luck is like when it comes to these things though.

Same as my luck with pekins ben. I have hatched 10 recently over a few batches... Hen count 0..

 

[Bens-Hens]

Samuel was visiting while my brother had a job to do in Gatton at the uni. Samuel loves chickens and was looking at pictures of different peoples chickens on byc. I was showing him pics in your thread and he says who's chickens are they? I say they are bens hens... He says can we go see them? I say no honey ben lives on the other side of Australia... When my brother came to pick him up later that afternoon he runs out and says Dad I saw benjamini's chickens but we can't go see them as he lives on the other side of the moonaverse. (gotta love a 3 year old) My brother says wow your satalite internet must be good to see that far....

Thats pretty darn cute hahahaha

What a little dude!

 

[satay]

Thats pretty darn cute hahahaha

What a little dude!

Thanks he is 3 going on 30 sometimes i think but he sure is cute.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Sorry for the long wait with an update, life has been pretty hectic lately.

Amy and her chick are doing great. They are happy in their own separate enclosure and able to range around our backyard pretty much all day. Later in the afternoon when we let the main flock out she retreats to her nest with the chick, so we close it up with a wire mesh door to stop the older flock getting into their food.

It seems to work well.

Today I found my first 'unknown' egg. I really don't know much about it other than it came from a chicken lol. With the layout of our coop and run, we can normally see any miss laid eggs just sitting on the ground, but I have not found one in quite some time. Today while filling up a hanging feeder I found an egg just under the rim, sitting in the sand. It was stone cold and had a few scratch marks on it.

First egg we have missed, when I came inside I cracked it open to see how old it was, it seemed fine, so maybe only a couple of days at the most.

Other than that all the broodies are off the nest, both Sal (SF) and Rosie (RIR) are molting, Sal's is very minor, but Rosies is the most hardcore I have seen yet. She lost a lot last time she went broody but this time it's kind of freaky as she has lost a large patch on her lower back, kind of where she would be mounted if that was happening. I have a pic on my phone, I will post it up soon.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Rosie's back.

 

[Fancychooklady]

In the absence of a roo , I would be inclined to check thoroughly for lice or mites. I've been doing a lot of research on spinosad and I finally found a product here in Australia , funny thing is I've been using it for 13 years, on my cherries. It's called ' success '. Now this is going to be my new premise spray and I'm going to trial it on one pen of birds. They are even using spinosad in tablet form as a flea control in dogs and trialling it for head lice in humans. It's only been around since the 80's but apparently the bugs don't seem to be able to build up an immunity to it as they do to pyrethrum .

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/spinosad-zmgz11zrog.aspx#axzz3IbK6vUbv



http://www.mapress.com/zoosymposia/content/2011/v6/f/v006p282-287.pdf