blockhill - forest garden experience & education

North Canterbury

Chooks are laying again!

Chooks are laying again!

We were beginning to question the commitment of our chooks (and the manhood of our rooster) as the winter egg famine failed to break.

I spent numerous evenings digging the ground to expose worms, collecting sea shells for grit and finally they are away.
August 29, 2010
  Laying  eggs  spring  chooks 
The little fellas

The little fellas

In an attempt to diversify our gene pool and add a touch more variety to our flock we acquired 6 new chooks.

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.
June 29, 2010
Eating Meat

Eating Meat

We decided to cook our young rooster since he was eating plenty and not making any eggs.
He was about 6 months old, one of our first set of baby chickens.
Follow my easy steps for killing, plucking, gutting and cooking.
April 06, 2010
Quooks!

Quooks!

Today the baby quails have hatched and the big clucky chook has become a mother! There are six babies altogether. There were 7 this morning, but that's a sad and rather funny story.....basically the little quail was sitting up in the nest box and was chirping away. It then got excited and jumped giddily out of the nest box, bounced off the ramp, landed on the floor and was promptly picked up in the beak of hungry chook who thought it was a scrap of food. We tried to rescue it, but it was too tiny to survive such a trama. But at least it got to have a near flight experience in it's short little life.
December 05, 2009
  chooks  chickens  quail