Chooks and chickens
Having grown up with chickens roaming round the yard and the boisterous crowing of the roosters as part of the soundtrack of my childhood, it seemed only natural that we should have some of the feathery fowl.
Getting started was easy enough as my mother still keeps a motley crew of hens. Working through the technicalities has been a little more challenging.
Stoats and Ferrets
The stoat is a member of the mustelid family, along with weasels and ferrets. It was introduced to New Zealand late last century to control rabbits and hares.
Stoats are now considered "public enemy number one" for New Zealand birds.
Yes
Chooks are laying again!
I spent numerous evenings digging the ground to expose worms, collecting sea shells for grit and finally the re are away.
29 Aug 2010
The little fellas
The 3 little english game hens, as seen in the foreground, are cute little midgets and the rooster has a hilarious crow...
Also in the mix, 2 bantams and a lavender arikana.
29 Jun 2010
Somewhat free range
By covering the bays along the sheltered side of the old piggery that is their home we have succeed in providing a relatively large space with little hope of escape.
Concentrated chook action combined with food scraps, cut grass and other organic material is a great recipe for rapid composting.
20 Jun 2010
The King is Dead!
Warning: disturbing images
04 Jun 2010
House Swap
12 May 2010
Brownie
08 May 2010
Eating Meat
He was about 6 months old, one of our first set of baby chickens.
Follow my easy steps for killing, plucking, gutting and cooking.
06 Apr 2010
Resurrection
In attempt to prevent the family of bantams from visiting our garden everyday we decided to resurrect the old shed down the far end of the farm.
Click the photo to see before and after
09 Mar 2010
Conquering Clucky Chooks
For the past several weeks, our chooks had been clucky....sitting on either one egg, or sometimes no eggs at all. They just sat in the nest boxes and stubbornly wouldn't leave the nest. We tried putting them in a clucky box for a few days, but this did not work. As soon as they came out, they would go straight back on the nest.
But a bit by accident, we discovered a technique that worked really well to take the cluckiness out of the chook!
02 Mar 2010
But a bit by accident, we discovered a technique that worked really well to take the cluckiness out of the chook!
02 Mar 2010