We're Off To See The Tiddly Peeps

Chickens really are not the smartest of creatures.

This summer (the hottest on record here, though they've only been recording for the past 100 years), one of our chickens decided she wanted to be a mamma again. I guess she got jealous of the other hen who'd recently hatched a brood (you can see her baby photos here).

But, the hottest summer on record, our little yellow half-silky hen decided she wanted babies.

We did not. We had enough hens (5, though 2 were/are still too young to lay eggs just yet) and two extra roosters was more than we wanted (we'll be <gulp> killing and dressing them this weekend). So we tried to make her NOT broody (broody meaning, for those of you who don't talk about chickens, sitting on eggs and trying to hatch babies).

We took the eggs she managed to steal every day. This did not stop her, and she ended up, some days, just sitting on a nest of chicken turds. Gross. And dumb, as she wasn't even laying her own eggs, just stealing everyone elses.

Phillip, at one point, spun her around in a circle, to mimic one way we'd heard about to make chickens go off being broody. You put the hen in a bag, hang the bag on the clothes line, and spin it around, making them dizzy and they supposedly forget that they were broody. Phillip only spun her around in a circle while holding her (not in a bag), so he probably got more dizzy than she did. This did not work.

We tried shutting the chicken coop door during the day to keep her off her nest of turds, but she just found a place in the hay cock to sit instead. Also, we had to remember to go up in the early evening to open the door again so the chickens could go in to roost, so that when we went up to shut them in for the night, we didn't have to carry each chicken into the coop. Chickens, by the way, get remarkably dopey at night when they go to roost. It's kind of funny to see.

We tried dunking her belly and backside in water twice a day, which is supposed to make sitting on a nest really uncomfortable. I think this didn't work because it was so ridiculously hot, and the dip probably felt more revealing than uncomfortable to the stupid chicken.

For two months, I debated with Philip about just putting eggs under her, since she wasn't giving up. No, we didn't need or want more chickens, but we had friends that did. And more roosters would just mean more chicken in the freezer at some point, and we could sell or give away hens to, well, anyone. And I had to go up to the coop twice a day to give this idiotic hen water and food so she didn't cook herself to death in the heat anyway. Might as well get something out of her sitting and my having to do more than sit in the ridiculous heat.

I ended up talking to our friends up the hill (the family of 11), and they gave us some eggs to put under our determined hen for them. And yes, she sat, like a good little mother, and hatched five of the eight eggs we were given.

We're calling this batch the Tiddly Peeps. Phillip assures me it comes from some song or another from some children's show (British, of course), but we can't find it. I still love to say Tiddly Peeps though (try it, it's fun).

Chicks pretending to be ducklings.
One day old.

At two months, we're pretty sure at least two of them are hens, which is good for the family we hatched them for. Hopefully a third is a hen. It's a bit hard to tell until the combs start developing more.

New Nuggets

We have two new baby chick!

Well, by new I mean at this point they are a week old.

Our last batch of chicks is now nearly 3 months old, was early "abandoned" by their mother, but have been fending for themselves quite nicely, and has been moved from the broody and hatching cage (where we put mammas sitting on their nests and leave them until the chicks are about a month old) into the regular coop with the rest of the hens and the rooster.

Cipher, calm as can be, hatching her chickies

Back to the new baby chicks though. Our black hen, Cipher, decided that, no matter what I did to encourage her not to, that she was going to sit on some eggs. So we stuffed a total of 6 eggs under her (3 of her own, 3 Isa Brown eggs). We were hoping the Isa Browns would hatch, since that particular breed of chicken is an excellent layer and lays pretty large eggs, but the rooster, being an Australorp, is also of a breed of chickens that lay very well, as well as are good meat chickens. Basically, we were hoping to create a hybrid chicken that was as good a layer as the two breeds and mix up the blood lines a bit (our Australorp hen and rooster are at least half brother and sister, and there's only so long you can keep up with the interbreeding of chicken relatives before you end up with a bunch of lame hens).

Nugget number 2, peeping out from behind mamma's bum

The day before Thanksgiving, we were blessed with two new peepers: fuzzy tan, as we are calling them, Isalorps.

This time, mamma hen is so calm and tame, I was able to put my hand under her to check on the other eggs or even pull the chicks out and handle them. No problems. She doesn't care at all.

Sadly, only 2 of the 6 eggs hatched. Two of the Australorp eggs died while hatching, and when the remaining two eggs were cracked open (4 days after the hatching was done, mamma was fully off the nest, and the eggs were cold), they were completely rotten duds.

But we have two new adorable nuggets, and are enjoying our growing flock.

Pretty little chicks being fed by mamma

See? TAME! I held bread crumbs, mamma picked
them out for the chicks, and eventually the little
things started climbing into my hand to feed.

Playing with my food

Our little chicks that were still in egg form in This Post hatched about three months ago now. But, because of the whole "I'm growing a person and therefore quite exhausted" thing, I didn't get to tell how the hatching went, nor post photos of how adorable the little fluff buckets were (I say were because they've been going through that awkward chicken teenager phase and are not as cute looking now).

We ended up with three chicks. Five hatched but... momma hen stepped on one right after it had finished drying (this happens. Chickens are not very bright, even the best momma chickens do this). Then, momma hen got off the nest permanently in the middle of another one hatching. So, that one died too. Or it died in the middle of hatching and she got off the nest. Either way, we ended up with three little chicks.

Phillip built a pen and cage for them to stay in, so that 1) the cats wouldn't eat our chicks and 2) the other chickens wouldn't kill the little chicks. Again. Nature. This happens. It's what they do and how they establish pecking order. That, and sometimes chickens can be jerks. Like all living things.

Mamma Hen breaking apart grain for her babies

Such cute little balls of fluff!

We were hoping all three were hens. Hens have a purpose: eggs. More than one rooster around and you have fights for dominance and hens going off their laying because they're getting too much *ahem* attention from roosters (roosters tend to pay more attention to hens who are laying eggs, as, well, this would increase their possibilities of actually reproducing. Hens not producing eggs means no babies means roosters give less "attention" to the hens. Therefore, too many roosters means you have no eggs. Which was the main reason we got our hens in the first place. So, any roosters in this batch will get the ax. It is, however, a bit difficult to see what sex a bird is. With chickens though, the rooster's comb starts to develop more quickly than a hens.

We seem to have one rooster. Which, the city-girl side of me thinks is kind of sad, because he's quite friendly at this point. And, well, they're baby chicks. They're still kind of cute. The practical side of me knows though that, if we get too many roosters because we don't want to kill them, we're feeding an animal that, if anything, will give us more trouble in the long run.

This is what happens now when I bend down to feed them

Oh well. Practicality wins out. In the meantime, we're having fun giving our little chicks a nice life of leisure. Their idiot hen mother decided that two months was a long enough time to look after them and left them to roam on their own. So, they've become overly attached to Phillip and me.

I seriously love our little chicks. They're adorable and fun. If I go out at the same time each day, they'll run up and jump on my to roost on my arms and lap No pooping on me thus far... But practicality must win out. 'Tis the way of life well, nearly everywhere unless you can afford to be picky and turn food into some sort of religion.

Please oh please don't poop on my head!

We've got another hen sitting on half a dozen eggs. Tried to stop her (I'd rather have more eggs than chicks) but, she is determined. We've decided already that nearly this whole hatching will be going into the freezer in a year (home raised free-range chicken, yes please!).

We're expecting....

Chicks!

Ok, so I might have some family members and close friends who read the post title and are a little mad about the fact that I'm talking about chickens and not babies (but really people, who breaks THAT kind of news to close friends and family via a public blog post?).

Explanation:

You may remember that last year at New Years a dog killed all but one of our chickens and our two ducks (I still get a little upset about the ducks.... they were cool ducks). A few months later, we ended up taking two pullets (young hens who had not yet started laying eggs) from my in-laws. We took one beautiful black Australorp and a half Silky half some other breed of chicken we're not sure of. Phillip ended up naming them Cypher and Hawk (but we usually end up calling them by their breed or their color and not their somewhat stupid names).

The thing about some breeds of chickens is that they can be good layers (like our red Iser Brown), good for meat (our little Australorp, though they're good layers too), and good for going broody. There's also breeds that are well known sitters (once they go broody they will not leave the nest unless you force them) or good mothers. Basically, chicken breeds are as diverse as dog breeds, and depending on what you want in your chickens, you get various breeds.

Hawk, aka, the yellow/tan one, sittin' on a whole bunch of eggs.
Spoiled girl, I bring her her own dish of food and water.

Hawk has tried to go broody once before, but outside of their shed, so we had to try and move her at night (chickens are funnily calm at night) so that she wouldn't get eaten by quols. Silly thing.... She decided she didn't like being moved to safety and got off her eggs. Which... was ok since we get to eat the eggs. This is the second time she's gone broody and she's chosen one heck of a spot to hatch her chicks again. It's about four and a half feet off the ground, where our chickens roost at night. So, chicks hatch, try to walk out of the nest and.... not pretty. Phillip is building a small enclosure to put her and the eggs in, to keep them cosey (and safe from plumets to death and out idiot cats, and neighbor's idiot cats) from scraps of wood and chicken wire. We'll move her there sometime this week since she's only got maybe a week left until the eggs hatch.

Apparently the nesting boxes I make sure are full
of soft, fresh hay are not good enough.
It must feel safer to hatch babies 2.5 meters off the ground.

Another fun fact about chickens: once they go broody, you can get them to sit on any eggs, not just their own. So, since our hens have been tandem nesting the little Silky has some Australorp eggs under her as well. We also were given a few eggs of unknown type (two were probably Australorps) from my in-laws  two days after she started sitting, and chucked those under her. (Well, next to her, because to put them under her you'd probably loose fingers she's so angry if you get near her). She (and the black one for some reason started helping) immediately started moving them underneath her.

The good thing? We should end up with a few chicks of multiple possible varieties. I'm hoping for at least two healthy hens to share with people or, well, more eggs, which we also share with people. The bad thing? Our one laying hen, little black Australorp, is still basically sitting on top of the broody Silky and laying eggs. Which that dumb hen then takes under her. So... we have no fresh eggs and will end up with a bunch of rotten and un-viable ones at the end of this sitting. The little lady has already pushed two very rotten ones out from under her, but is sitting pretty on at least seven more eggs.

Fishy

Our Little Red has returned to us!

We told our landlord what happened with the ducks, chickens, and the dog encounters, he phoned the neighbor, they apologized, offered compensation (we're happy if they just keep the pup tied up), and then latter our landlord phoned us saying there was a chicken wandering by his house near the creek. Sure enough, it was our battered little chicken, missing plenty of feathers and with some small bloody marks around her neck.

Maybe when Phillip chased the dog, it did what he'd hoped and dropped the chicken, giving her a chance to skeedadle. So she's back, our rooster looks much less depressed now, and the neighbors are going to keep their dog tied up and fix the fences. I guess it's a big thing if your dog starts killing other people's livestock/animals, or wandering on their property, over here.

Phillip on the beach, thinking about jumping in

Anywho, the rest of the holiday weekend was wonderful and hot, and we spent all Sunday afternoon fishing with both of Phillip's brothers, then had his  youngest brother over for nachos (apparently he's now addicted to Mexican food, and, as I've said before, you really can't get it here. So we make do with my Americanized version, which is all he knows anyway).

New Years Eve, Phillip having me pose on the beach. Hi mom and dad!

Fishing in at the river, New Years Eve. Phillip and I joined (to watch and talk a bit) right before they left

Baiting hooks, New Years Day

Stewart's Flat Head. One of the them, anyway.

My one and only fish: a puffer fish hooked through the side. They're a nuisance fish, and pretty much useless

The dock we fished off all day. After maybe 6 hours, I got bored and started wandering taking photos. 

Old McDonald had no more hens because a dog ate them

It's New Years Eve and we spent a lovely last day of 2011 visiting a most lovely couple who may have work (of a sort?) for me, was incredibly inviting, went to the beach and picked up loads more shells, driftwood, and sunburn, and finished off at a salt-water river fishing with my brother-in-law and his fiancee.

Of course, I won't write more about this or post the pretty pictures because when we got home and Phillip went to lock up our remaining chicken and our lovely rooster, he found feathers. Everywhere. And then saw a dog with something in it's mouth. He chased it a bit, came back and got me, and we went searching for it with his block buster in hand, the cat trailing after us like the loyal little girl she is, a flash light, and a barrel full of anger.

We didn't' find it, of course, but we're now certain it was the dog that killed everything, and came back for more. Not sure if it belongs to anyone though. But if it comes on our (technically our landlords) property, we're fully within our rights to kill it if it's harassing our animals or us.

My brother-in-law? The hunter? He really liked our ducks. He thinks our rooster and our chickens were pretty nice as far as chickens go  (our rooster gets compliments from everyone who visits, he's so massive and majestic). He was ready to shoot anything here before we found out for sure it was a dog. Guess who's coming up for nachos tomorrow.

Photos of pretty day out to come tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

Discovery, Unwanted

I had hoped to write all about my first Christmas in Australia (and also my first Christmas married), as well as Boxing Day (which, up to now, has been and still is a complete mystery to me), and all about Christmas pudding, crackers, how it's summer instead of winter and it's just weird to experience, and the FANTASTIC ninjabread house I made for the family gathering.

But, unfortunately, the day after Christmas (Boxing Day) we woke up late, went to let the chickens and ducks out of their shed, and all there was were the rooster and one hen, both of whom were already wandering around outside. Apparently, in all the fatigue of the mountainous Christmas lunch and dinner, we forgot to lock their shed that night. Thinking that the ducks had found another spot to roost, and possibly the hen with them, (normal for our ducks, odd for the chicken), we searched the areas they're known to frequent.

Nothing.

Until I went around the side of the house by the car port and found my dear little drake laying belly up near the brush line, surrounded by some fluff and a few feathers.

The poor little guy had no injuries that we could see, and was stiff as a board. Upon further searching, I found some of the little ducks breast and wing feathers. No body though. Just today, while moving the fire hose, my husband found chicken feathers.

So, one body, three casualties. And our rooster, Eutychus, is nearly horse, most likely from crowing out an alarm. We're guessing it was a dog, since any of the cats that wander around here are terrified of the ducks (yes, odd), and cats are more known here to go for baby chicks and leave full-grown chickens alone. Dogs, however, will just come and "play" with foul, get a taste for it, and kill as many as they can before they're stopped.

The most likely scenario is that, while we were gone Christmas day, someones dog go out and came and killed our poor birds. (We've already lost two chickens from random unknown deaths.) Our little flock is down to two: Little Red, and Eutychus. Why do we figure day? We sleep with the window open and it happened right outside our window. Even with the windows shut you can hear any noise the birds make.

No, we're not sure it was a dog, but we mostly ruled out cats (for reasons listed earlier) and Devils wouldn't be able to chase and kill and drag off three carcasses (though they might just one), and our ducks had gotten quite hefty. Quolls (or Native Cat, though its a marsupial, not even close to a cat) would be the same, and are about the only other native animal that might come after our birds. They generally sneak into coops or get birds that are roosting unprotected, bite the neck, and suck out all their blood. They then fall asleep, wake up much later, and eat most of the bird. They keep their pray where it is, and pretty much just stay there. But the Devils and Quolls are both nocturnal.

My poor ducks. They were getting more and more awesome each day, just learning how to fly, still followed me around outside to their little pond (a child pool) or while I picked raspberries, nibbling my shoes and pant legs. Our chickens sort of lacked personalities, and they're much easier to obtain (my husband's parents have some just hatched and we'll be able to have a few). Plus, ducks are just way cooler. And they were all attached to us, and young, and fun to watch.

<sigh>

With this Christmas wish is missed, the point I could convey...

Ten more days til Christmas!

And I have never been more disorganized than I am this year.

Usually I have all my shopping (the little that I have to do) done, at the very least, 2 weeks before Christmas. Everything is wrapped, sitting hidden in my closet so the cats can't play with it. I'll be working on making Christmas cookies to take to work, or just to have around the house because I love cookies. And planning out the gingerbread house that I've been making (usually with help of sister or cousin) the past few years.

Here, mostly because of the lack of car, I have nothing done. With the exception of a collection of very different candy than we have back home for a gingerbread house. No shopping done (my husband and I haven't even really made lists, though we have vague ideas of what to get each other) nothing bought for family members here, and nothing done for family members back in the States (though that I can blame on certain people never telling us what they wanted).

I'm still searching online for things, but it's a bit hard to do when shipping anything here sometimes costs almost as much, if not more, than the object being shipped. That, and the total lack of ideas of what to even get. So, family members, back home at least, might have to console themselves with "New Years gifts" instead.

As for cards, we haven't even been able to find nice ones to send out, either. That has more to do with my pickyness though. Don't want anything too campy (like multi-colored penguins and Santas prancing around with lots of glitter) or, well, that's about all we've found really. I'd much prefer something with, you know, Christ as it's center, since that's what I like to celebrate Christmas for (that, and family. Can't forget family). I prefer to celebrate "the day You were born to die".

Oh! And decorations? HA! For one, it's summer here, so it just feels plain odd to be thinking of Christmas. The locals here are upset because it's too cool for summer so far. And Phillip isn't as Christmasy as I am. And I'm cheap and don't want to waste money on a crappy looking fake tree and cheap ornaments (I prefer ornaments that have some meaning, like childhood handmade ones, or gifts). So this is all I've done. Phillip is quite happy with it, since he loves to snack on the candy canes.

And that cute little guy? Our "new" kitten! Meet Indiana Jones (aka: Indie)! He was the first kitten "our" cat brought to us. The rest were taken to the RSPCA, but we kept "the bestest" of them. He's still super purry and playful and friendly.

New Additions

The cat that I started feeding about a month ago has brought us kittens.

Our guess this whole time is that she was dumped by so

meone (as people do in the country) who didn't want her any more, or that she was just really not looked after by whoever owns her, as she was skinny as a rail (you could feel every individual vertebrae as you pet her, and every rib, though she had a swollen little belly).

She's been quite sweet the whole time she's been coming here, purring, begging to be pet, held, fed. But always skinny as anything. Then I noticed her teats were quite swollen and, well, it felt and looked like something was nursing from her. So I continued to feed her meat scraps, cream and milk. I finally convinced my husband to buy some cheap cat food so we could feed her that a few times a day. She was over constantly, and once the ducks were big enough, we let her back into the house, wormed her, and let her sleep on the couch, always kicking her out when we went to bed.

Two days ago, I walked home to hear high pitched meowing coming from our wood pile, and the cat running to greet me, and leading me to the wood pile. Inside was one tiny kitten. I eventually tempted the little thing out with some food and grabbed it by the scruff and brought it into the house with it's mama. She seemed somewhat indifferent to it, just wanted more food. So we got a box, filled it with dirt (make-shift litter box), and kept the cat and kitten in the house for the night (because you just can't kick a kitten out of your house).

The next morning, my husband woke up and let the cat out. She left her baby. And came back with three more.

So now we have 4 kittens and a cat. We're more sure now that she was dumped by someone, friendly as she is to people, and thin as she was until we started feeding her. She's gotten a bit plumper then, and she obviously trusts us enough to keep her babies with us. We're going to double-check with neighbours, make sure she belongs to no one, and then give the kittens away once they've stopped nursing. They're quite adorable. Though two are still seriously shy, one will crawl on your lap and sleep, and the other follows her a bit. And mama cat just checks on them, nurses a bit, and leaves to wander her own merry way, or sleep on the couch.

Box o' kittens. The calico is still terrified of us for the most part

Two of the more brave kittens, not afraid to be out among us

Second tabby, still too scared to some out and eat (while they're still nursing, they eat solid food already)

Brave adventurous little girl, the first (experimental) kitten "our" cat, Asparagus, brought to us

Our landlord doesn't know anyone around us that owns a grey tabby like our Asparagus, and rekons that cats like that choose their owners, anyway, and that she's chosen us.