Chicks and keets

 We've got baby birds! With the chicken themed party for Lily, I decided it would be perfect to get her some chicks... and then I got some guinea fowl keets instead.

Originally I was looking at silkie or belgian d'uccle chicks, but we've had quite a few eastern brown snakes around the house, so we picked up the keets in the hopes they'll help deter snakes when they're older. 

Turns out Lily doesn't really like them as they are very flighty even though they were hatched in an incubator. So a week later we got some silkies, because they're supposed to make great pets for kids...

And they're almost as crazy as the guineas since they were raised by their mums for the first week. 

They're about 2 months old now (I should get updated photos) and altogether in a chicken tractor next to the house, although I think the silkies have had enough of the guineas who run and fly around all day. Luckily we're building their big coop so the guineas will move into that once it's finished, and get them used to the older girls who they'll be living with eventually.

The plan is to build garden beds for the tractor to sit on, that way the silkies can fill them up using the deep litter method, and clean up any garden beds that need a refresh in the future. These little fluff balls will have an important job as well as being pets. Now we just have to wait and find out the gender ratio to decide who we're keeping - it currently looks like I've got three boys and three girls with no favourites to tip the scale.

Leilani dresses

 For Lily's birthday this year we are doing a chicken theme, so I got some gorgeous fabric and the Leilani pattern from Vintage Little Lady.

The first one I made in the simpler version as a trial run in this cute bunny fabric from Audrey's.

I did find sewing the elastic back awkward so when I did the chicken dress, I left the elastic out until after attaching the skirt at the back. I just sewed the back panel in place between the channels for the elastic. After I had gathered and attached the skirt at the back only, then I added the elastic and topstitched the sides down. Then continued gathering and attaching the front and sides of the skirt.

This was the first time I have used pom pom trim and it ended up being a pain trying to use the zipper foot. But I found using this clear foot along with poking the pom poms under the foot using my seam ripper worked best at getting it to stay put!

Now that the dress is finished I better get started on everything else for her party!

Planting chicken shade

 The chickens have a lovely spot under the gum trees, but unfortunately now that summer is here they don't get enough shade in the afternoon. I have hung shade cloth and covered their coop with a tarp, but it's not good enough. My next idea was using sticks and fresh murraya branches to create a lean to against their coop - and they're really enjoying that spot, especially when I put blocks of ice in there on really hot days.

My first attempt at planting in the chicken yard was this elderberry, but between the gum tree with a possum climbing it every night and the mice making tunnels underneath, it struggled along and eventually gave up. 

My second attempt is further away from the gum tree where I've started rosella seeds in one of these garden rings. Once they reach the mesh I plan to add a cage around it until it's a decent size, then replace the ring and cage with logs or rocks. 

At our old house I planted rosellas in a spot that had really dry sandy soil and they did great. Hopefully they'll grow just as quick here to give the chickens a cool, shady spot. I'm also planting them out the front of our house for some quick privacy. And if all goes well, there'll be lots of rosella jam in our future!

Eventually the chickens will have a permanent coop and run under this mulberry tree. Until then they get their very own little shanty town under the gum trees!

Electric chicken fence

 Excuse my absence, life got in the way and I've been too sick to do much other than sit on the couch!

I have an electric netting fence for the chickens, well to be fair it started it's life as a fence for the cat cage, dog and chickens as our property wasn't fenced (Ray has nearly finished that project).

Now that it is solely for the chickens I needed a solution for holding the ends together, but wanted something easier than tying it with rope every time. I was hooking it on a star picket until I noticed was damaging the wire in that spot.

I was almost going to just use one of those spring clamps when I noticed these in the electrical section at Bunnings.

Now that I've been using it for a few months, I've decided it's time to share with the internet. I would prefer something a little easier to do with one hand, but most of the time I can manage. I like that it's all plastic on the outside - now I don't get shocked when I forget to unplug the fence first! Plus even though it's plastic, in full sun, it hasn't faded or deteriorated as far as I can tell.

I think I might even try the large size for the temporary gates - we're currently using bungee cords and carabiners!

Elderberry planted

 We've moved the chickens a few times, hopefully the lastest spot is going to stick for awhile, that electric netting is heavy and takes me forever to set up!

This pot of elderberry cuttings have a spot in the ground in the chicken yard, and it is another experimental planting. I was a bit lazy this time as elderberry isn't easy to kill and I have more that I can take cuttings from if it doesn't survive. Because of the slope, I dug a hole a bit bigger than the plant and mixed some clay into compost before planting. Then I made a mini swale by mounding the extra clay around the back to stop the water running straight down the hill. The clay will help store the moisture and give it a chance to soak in, which should really benefit the elderberry as they are rather thirsty plants.

The main reason I wanted to get some in the ground early is so that I can use it to create mulch. It grew so fast at our old house and bounces straight back after a trim. My plan is to coppice this one and repeat every winter. I plan to pollard the mulberry to use as mulch every winter as well, I want to pollard rather than coppice so it will have some nice strong branches for our daughter to climb one day.

It's a multi use tree - mulch, berries and flowers! The chickens will enjoy any berries that fall, and they'll appreciate the shade in summer.

Chicken Coop Signs

Before we got chickens I spent ages researching chicken coops and saw so many funny chicken signs that I decided to make a few for my own chicken pen. The first one I ever made was "Eggcellent House" which my mum wanted as the name for her chicken coop. She never got around to hanging it on her coop so when she rehomed her chickens she gave it back to me.

The top two are just pieces of dressed pine which I varnished really well, they're in need of a light sand and recoat as the varnish is starting to crack on the top, but the burn has been protected by the varnish.

The mother cluckers was oiled decking timber and unfortunately being in full sun it has faded the burn and the wood has gone mouldy in the rain. I have a new sign on decking timber that I need to varnish so I can see how that well that lasts in our wonderful Aussie sun!

Puppy proofing the garden

I guess I shouldn't just call it puppy proofing when fencing off the gardens started because of the chickens. Luckily a short fence that I can easily step over and move works to keep both Archie and the chickens out!

And even better, flimsy, wobbly fences seem to work best! If it's nice and solid under his paws, Archie will happily jump and lean on it, but if it flexes or moves he won't touch it in case it falls and makes a scary noise (yep typical big dog, big sook)! For the chickens if it looks like it has a nice sturdy top they will happily land on it and jump in the garden. Like this fence we put around the mango tree - they liked to sit up there and watch the world go by!

These chicken wire and fence paling fence panels were my original chicken fences to keep them off the concrete and out of my pot plants. They have seen better days, and I'm surprised how well they've held up to Archie. A couple of panels have a new use as a rather rustic plant trellis for my snow peas. In front of those are puppy play pen panels which work great to keep the chickens out - and Archie. It's nice as they are cheap, easy to install and easy to see the garden (and mess) they're protecting. I do use garden stakes and zip ties for a little extra support.

Similar to the puppy pen panels I have an assortment of old panels off rat cages and compost cage panels which also work well with garden stakes and zip ties. They normally get used to cover Archie's excavation attempts so the grass gets a chance to grow back!

Since I can't trust Archie with the chickens I did want something a bit stronger between them. So I made some simple fence panels using only fence palings. I then either use screws or zip ties to attach to garden stakes, the chicken cage or the verandah posts. They look so much nicer, unfortunately they do block a lot of the view into my gardens - I think I'll save this type of fence for hiding messy areas! They are nice though as I can make sturdy gates for them with proper latches.

Once I've settled on a layout for our backyard we will do a permanent fence for the gardens, until then I'll stick with my current mix of panels. Who knows, by that time Archie might be too lazy to destroy my gardens and I won't need the fences anymore...

King Quail

So I absolutely adored raising my chicks and wish we could have a rooster where we live so I could raise them over and over! Since caring for and breeding quails are similar to chickens, and they aren't classed as poultry, I decided to breed them instead. 

I experimented with incubating them and allowing their parents to incubate naturally. I sold lots of pairs but most people want females so I ended up with a lot of males and no more space since each clutch of males needed their own cage. I ended up selling my breeding pairs and now have around 15 males running together in the bottom of  "the quail shed". I have to say it is so much easier to have them on the concrete floor rather than having to clean a million cages, and they don't fight as bad now that they can get away from each other and have more room to run around and burn off that excess energy.

Let's face it, quails don't use all that space in the top of the cage so why not add finches! Most of them were given to me as they were special needs or disabled. Once I put all the quails on the floor of "the quail shed" I moved all the finches into one big cage, but still in the shed as it is mouse proof.

I had loads of fun raising them, but king (button) quails are not as friendly as chickens, they will snatch mealworms from my fingers, but they don't want to be petted, picked up or cuddled. The boys are between 2 and 3 years old so I don't have plans for more quail breeding for a long time!

Chickens!

Things have changed a lot in the last 4 years with our pets. 

After babysitting chooks for my parents for over a month I managed to convince Ray that we needed our very own chickens! It wasn't because he likes chooks, after all he is allergic to birds, but he did notice how much better backyard eggs taste.

I started off by getting sexed week old chicks, one welsummer, one plymouth rock and two barnevelders. The welsummer wasn't a welsummer, the plymouth rock was a boy and the barnevelders died at 1 week and 9 weeks old. 

Since we can't have roosters here I needed to get some more chicks so I found some four week old chicks and ended up with  two wyandottes and a sussex. And then to better my chances at getting girls I got two super cute araucana cross chicks that were 2.5 weeks old. They all ended up being girls!

I rehomed the rooster and three of the girls which left me with Petal the silver laced wyandotte and the araucana crosses Calla and Blossom. 

Blossom is totally my favourite, so much so that I let her hatch some hamburg and marans eggs so we could add to our flock. Last year on New Years Day 7 out of the 8 eggs hatched and we kept Violet the french wheaten maran, and still have two of the gold spangled hamburgs. I haven't settled on names for the hamburgs as I'm still undecided on whether I want to keep them.

Blossom with the hamburg chicks, she is such a good mum and even fought with her sisters if they got too close!