The chickens took off into the bush all afternoon yesterday. I heard them way down in the forest towards the evening and could hear them flapping up into a tree for the night. They are back this morning and layed an egg first thing. Hopefully we get a second egg by lunchtime.
We've decided to let them sleep in the trees and so far we haven't had anymore eaten by ferrets. It's a good arrangement as long as the chooks come and lay eggs for us in the morning. So far so good.
Well, we fixed the clucky chook afterall. I think the day in the pooh cage and the cold weather may have snapped her out of it. But the other bantam has been clucky as well. Just found her nest a couple days ago. Under a tree in the blackberries rather close to the edge of the cliff. She sat there all day long for nearly 3 days in a row and just got off today to eat something.
And unlike the first bantam who was only sitting on one egg, this one is sitting on 16!!!! So we will let her continue. We shall see how many of the little ones will survive.October 08, 2009
In an effort to take the 'clucky' out of the chook, we put her into a little cage...but she ended up with poohs all over and it was yucky, so we let her out. But, we had snow and hail mixed in with rain, so we are hoping the cold weather will have helped her temperature come down to make her less clucky. We shall see.
The chooks like to eat kitchen scraps, along with their regular grain and worms they find in the paddock. I fed them some scraps today, and one of the black hens ran off with a chunk of cabbage in her beak as if she had the most precious and valuable thing she had ever found.September 21, 2009
Sleeping in the Trees
The chooks have been sleeping in the trees at night. And not just any old tree. This one hangs out over a cliff.
We went to try to herd them inside for the night so they wouldn't go in the tree again, but no luck. We won't get any eggs if they keep sleeping in the tree.
Perhaps there will be some eggs at the bottom of cliff.
Something has gotten into the 16 eggs under the umbrella. The clucky hen is off the nest, and there are a couple broken egg shells with sticky yoke coating the rest of them. It was probably a hedgehog. We'll wait until the end of the day to see if she goes back on the nest. If she is doesn't go back, we'll just take the eggs and transfer them to underneath the black hen who has gone clucky as well. She is sitting inside the nest box in the hen house, so it might be a better place where the hedgehog won't be able to reach her.October 14, 2009
After 35 days sitting patiently on 8 eggs, our first time mother muscovy hatched 3 cute little babies. Now if only we can out smart nature and keep them alive.December 05, 2012duck
The bantam mother and her eleven babies keep going out of range. They are going just about wherever they please...but luckily have not found the veggie garden yet. They have done a considerable amount of scratching in my flower garden though, and continue to expand their free-range territory.
We have a very stubborn black hen who keeps getting past the gate. We have seen her fly over a couple of times, so we tried clipping her wing. She didn't come in for a couple of days after that, and we thought it had worked. But then she was in again yesterday, so obviously she can still fly over. I tried hanging old CDs up along the fence because the flickering in the sunlight can help be a deterrent. But that didn't work either. Not too sure what the next move will be... October 27, 2009
We took Sue's advice and cracked open a couple of the bantam's eggs to see if the rest of them were worth sitting on. As it turns out, the beginings of life had come to and end due to the eggs being neglected for the whole day. So we have swapped all the bantam eggs out for a mix of eggs from different hens. In a few weeks, as long as the black hen stays clucky, we should have a nice variety of baby chickens.October 18, 2009
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