Papa Hen

A new toy had arrived and it's Craig's new incubator. Off to Oakford to get some fertiled eggs today. I've only got 12 eggs and we placed them into the incubator. Chicks will hatched in 21days if they are successful. There is alot of work involved being a Papa Hen. Craig had to wash his hens...opps hands each time before he rotates the eggs. Mother hens will do it naturally but Papa Hen has to do it manually each morning and evening. The temperature of the incubator has to be well maintained at 37degrees as well.

After the 1st week, we can candle the eggs and see if the chicks are forming or not. Unsuccessful eggs should be removed to avoid "affecting" other healthy eggs.

It will be really interesting to see what breeds we get from these 12 eggs and how many will be successfully. The lady who sold us the eggs has serveral breeds and she has no idea which are the breeds we got.

Stay tuned to our hatching story....

Potato Egg!

Today, there is a shocking discovery when I went to collect the eggs. There is a huge egg and I mean HUGE! It is like a potato!! We measured the egg against the other one in the nest and it is a difference of 3cm!

we were guess there must be 3-4 yolks in the egg, and guess what when we crack it open!!

There is another egg in the big potato egg!!  This is seriously cool! Poor chook though........

My guess is still right, I still get 3 egg yolks! :))

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.