Christmas Geese

Today we had to brave the burning steaming sun and travel to buy some geese for Craig's mum birthday.

The seller said the geese were 3months old and they are not honking.

See the size for 3 months

There is no way this is 3 months! And they honk all the time when the crows fly past!

These geese are not use to human at all, each time you go near them, they hissed at you and run away. I definately would say my chooks are smarter than these geese. All these geese do is to stand and stare or walk/sit in groups. Great team spirit but definately no talent for being cute and cuddly.

Chook being a busy body. The chooks are often jealous of the geese, wanting all the geese's scraps when they have a big bucket of food.

oops, one of them caught me taking pictures!

Good thing they are only with us for 4 days....the honking drove us nuts!

Week 17 (15 Dec 2009) and a proud Mama!

Today I made an amazing discovery. The chooks were crocking so loudly when I was making breakfast. It was much louder than usual and they don't usually make much sound in the morning. So I thought I had better go have a look (thinking one might be dead!)

When I open the chook pen's door, to my surprise, I found TWO eggs on the ground!! I'm so proud of the chooks that I just grab one and hug it (not sure if she had just laid any). So 2 out of 3 had laid their 1st egg today. One of it was tiny! It was only slightly bigger than a quail egg. Craig said it might have been laid yesterday because it is not warm but I'm very sure I did not see eggs yesterday.

Later this evening, just out of curiosity, I went to check again and let the chooks out as well. I found another egg!!! This is amazing, all 3 chooks laid their 1st egg today. Small but at least they did not eat or destroy their eggs. This is a good start. Hopefully the eggs will become bigger in the next few eggs.

Here are the proud pictures of my 1st home grown free range eggs!

Week 16 and still growing..

Took some great pictures of the chooks today. They love to rest outside the house. Perhapes it is the carpet, perhapes it is the view into the house, perhapes they like the human company. Who knows!

I caught Feisty sleeping! It was "awwwwww............"

You can see Feisty's eyes open because she heard the camera's focus sound.

That's when they are not noisy...

My chooks love sunflowers seeds, but they are not intelligent enough to realise they have to flip it over sometimes to get the seeds

and yes, they are confused where the seeds have gone to....

Yep, it doesn't take long to finish the whole sunflower.

Week 15!! And a shocking discovery!

Shocking Discovery : My chooks doesn't like to eat black hairy caterpillas!!


This is terrible because one of the reasons to get chooks is to eat up all the hairy caterpillas that will always come in summer time. I had collected some for the chooks yesterday and thinking "Here's your feast!" and one took a bite and spit it out again!!! poof goes my heart.....another chicken came along and have a taste and go "Nup...." and they walked away....



This is so upsetting!!!

A Close Shave!

The 3 chooks went to the back of the house this morning and only 2 came back. After an investigation, we found Sickie! She had went under the fence and got into the neighbour's garden. Craig tried to get the chook back but it made the dog mad. It came charging and poor Sickie was hiding in a corner. The dog kept barking and the neighbour came out to see what's going on. He then drag his dog away but did not help us to get our chook back. So I had to try to lure Sickie with a piece of bread. I think frozen bread has no smell because the chook missed seeing the bread and continued roaming happily(now that the dog is gone).

Craig had to jump the fence to get Sickie back and the neighbour came charging out again. He probably thinks we are trying to steal his "pot plant".

I didn't see any of the above because I was too short to see anything. :) Craig is the story teller.

Sickie could have been the dog's yummy lunch today.

We still have to fix up the gaps at the fences. So for the time being, we've blocked the passage way to the back for the silly birds to roam around freely.

Chickens 11 weeks old !!

Lots of things happening since my last post 2 weeks ago. The girls are happily settled in their new home that is proudly made in WA.

The chooks are definately getting bigger (can tell by their massive poo!) and they are often showing off their flying skills. It's called landscape flying.

There's plenty of improvement that can be done to their chookpen version1.0. Like adding handles and hinges so I don't have to hold up the door with a stick. Give them a proper perch in their nesting section. Put in a door in their roaming area so we can slide food in easily. Perhapes version 2.0 will be delivered when Craig has the inspiration.

I gave them some left over salad (lettuce, carrots, tomoates, eggs, cheese) but they seem to not like it at all. In fact, it remain untouched. I also give them some celery leaves today as well and yes, I was ignored. Who says chooks eat everything???

I'll tell you what they love eating- Leaves. They have happily munched off the leaves on my chilli plant, the leaves on the strawberries and baby lettuce! They sure know how to pick fresh grown leaves.

The home made chook pen

Nesting area.

Food and water supply

The celebrity stars

Chickens 9 weeks old

Feisty. She has a dark brown beak. She doesn't stand still so Craig has to hold on to her to get a snap shot.

Sickie. She still has some little down feather on her neck. Lately she has been gaping and when she does that, her throat shiver as well. We went to get some poulty dust and poulty dewormer from the pet store for them. Not sure if their head shaking is caused by mites and lice but it is a suspected cause.

 Timid. She is the smallest among the three of them. And she doesn't have a brown beak or down feathers on her neck, so that is how we identify her. Timid, as her name says is always the following the crowd and whenever there's treat, like bread given to them, she will have her food snatched from her beak. Poor girl bullied by her sisters.

We are almost done with the chook pen. I have painted the exterior of the pen and Craig had finish one side of the pen's door. It will be hinged on the top and it will be a "lift-out" door. The section further away in the picture will be the chicks roaming area and on the rear end will be their nesting area. Spot the little square door which acts as the opening way.

Trust me, it's very hard work builting your own chook pen but its very satisifying as well. We are left with the one door to built, put in the wheels for mobility and stick in the perch, close it up with wire and we are all done (I think!). Hopefully you will get to see the end result in next week's post.

Chickens - 8 weeks and 2nd Big Day Out (plus Videos!)

Today we have capture the chickens roaming and post it online. You will be able to see it shortly below. It seems like the chickens are having better poo shape and color (hard and dark) after a run outside their palace. Craig is also busy with the chook pen. It's starting to take some shape but there's more work to be done.

The chickens are getting fatter as well. Right now I can identify them and hence they are called Timid, Sickie and Feisty!!

Chickens Big Day Out!

Today the chicks are 7 weeks old and we decide to let them have some fun in the garden. So we cut their wings to stop them from flying over the fences and release them into the garden. At first they seems confused with the open and stood there motionless for a couple of minutes. One decide to move and explore and the rest followed along. Soon they were enjoying themselves and happily roaming around the entire garden. The chicks get a taste of "wild food" such as leaves and millipedes.

The chicks are getting big for their palace and Craig is working hard to build them a BIGGER palace!!

Unfortunately my camera is not working well so I couldn't capture the chicks big day out in videos. But here are some pictures taken with my SLR.

Craig trying to lure the chicks with a catapilla

chicks bums!

Chicks - 6 weeks old!

Hmm, I wonder if we should stop calling them chicks now that they are more like a "teenager". The chicks are losing most of their down feathers and the box seems rather small for them now. They are eating much more and their poo is longer !!

One of the chick seems to be sick, she keeps shaking her head still and starting gapping. We have started to clean up their home every night to keep it cleaner. For some reason, they seem to like eating their own poo.

Went to city farmers tonight to get them some sulfadimidine. Hopefully this will help them to recover from the suspected pneumonia.

Chicks - 5 weeks and still growing!

The chicks are growing bigger and bigger each day. They are not scared of us anymore, in fact, each time I put my hand into the box, they are ready to aim and attack my hand, thinking its food.

We've added a new "toy" for the chicks. It's a carrot hanging from the top, let's see what happen in a few days time. I've also introduce kiwi fruit to them. They seem to like it so far.

Over the weekend, we went down to Busselton and got them a new feeder, for when they are in the garden and also some new "adult" food. Prices are definately cheaper.

see how big it grew!

chooks getting braver and curious too! Flew out of the box to have a look.

she's thinking "What are you looking at??"

Chicks - 4 Weeks old

My goodness!!! What a big difference from 3 weeks to 4 weeks. These hot chicks are getting bigger, fatter and smellier. They are flying around in their palace and having bigger poos!! Their diet has increase a lot too.

This week Craig feed them apple. They don't seem to like it at the beginning but if you stick their chick start on the apple, they will attack it as if they had starved for days. Weird brains.....

The chicks are also starting to get their brownish feathers, right now they look like they are having a bad hair day every single day!

I noticed one of them is shaking her head very vigorously all the time, especially when she is trying to sleep. A search on Google says she could have caught a cold or its just a normal thing. After observing a few days, it does seem like she's fine. Still pretty active and noisy.

What can I say.... my babies are turning into teens now... :)

and a couple days ago I found a poo right outside the palace!!! how on earth did it get out of the box?? did the chick aim its bottom at the hole and shit????

Chicks -New "Palace"

Craig had decided to build the chicks a new "house"....a palace where they are fly about, see the outside world and have a perch to stand on. Didn't take long to do it and the end result is stunning. Now the chicks can see us and we can see them easily. Hopefully it will increase our bonds....

cutting a hole for the lamp

chicks have move into their new home

and they are happy!