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.