Preparing the Top Paddock

Our top paddock is a bit of a mess. There are old outbuildings, concrete slabs, mangled and disintegrating bits of old fencing, rusting detritus and unidentifiable ... stuff. Also, the top paddock is weed city; there are canola, thistle and blackberry. On top of all of that, the top paddock is sloped on too steep an angle for me to apply ride-on-mower mediation .

At one time, the top paddock was used to breed rabbits (I think for the pet rabbit trade, but it may have been for the meat trade). This was a venture of a previous owner of our property and, from what I understand from our neighbours, the venture failed when wild rabbits got in.

In the middle of the paddock, there is an old (and serviceable) chook shed that is about 3x3m on a concrete base. I plan to extend the chook shed to make feed stalls and a milking stall as well as to generally make the shed more liveable for goats. This will be the main goat living area. Around the goat shed I’ll put in a corral so that I can contain the goats when doing things like milking, drenching and other broad flock tasks.

I’ll be hiring a bobcat to do some clearing and landscaping, but that will probably be in December.

Electric Fence in the Goat Field

Well, the long term goal for the goat field is to be used as a field for kids and does in kid. The goat field has proven to be quite good in terms of proximity to the house to make it easy for us to access and in terms of its security and also in terms of the available forage.

To make this field more secure (as the fences are a little low) is to install solar powered electric fencing. This will help to teach the goats about “boundaries”. Or at least, that’s the plan!

Additions to the Flock

This month we have been cooking a new brood of chicks in the incubator. Our reconditioned auto-turn incubator gave up the ghost and I’m going to have to either get it repaired properly, or get another one. Our stop-gap incubator is a manual one. The manual incubator is pretty good, it does everything that you want an incubator to do ... it keeps eggs at a constant temperature and you manually manage the humidity and egg turning.

About half of our previous brood of chicks had curly toe. This is a condition where the toes of one or both feet are bent and will not straighten. Having researched this a little (seriously ... only a little) it is likely to have been caused by one of three things:

1. Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) deficiency in the hen (pretty likely as the hen has curly toe herself);

2. Temperature in the incubator too high (must be maintained at <= 37.5);

3. Foot bent in egg (I find this unlikely ... but then what do I know?)

At first I thought that I’d have to cull the chicks with the condition, but according to my reading, the condition does not cause the bird any pain, nor does it offer a health threat to the bird or to us. So, I am very happy to report, the chicks will not need to be culled. I accept that I will need to cull chickens in the future, but I am adamant that I will only do this when necessary.

I’ve looked into different ways of delivering higher levels of riboflavin to my chooks so that the reoccurrence of curly toe is less likely. There are a couple of food-stuffs that you can use with your chooks to increase the intake of riboflavin. Things such as raw soy flour, calves liver, etc. can be used. These carry a modest level of riboflavin and you could try them. I don’t like the idea of feeding my chooks calf liver, personally. Alternatively, a good source of riboflavin and other B-complex vitamins is Vegemite, good ole Aussie Vegemite. I hope it puts a rose in my chicken’s cheeks!

All that said, my current clutch of eggs in the incubator and the chicks that are now more than 8 weeks old are not going to benefit from their mothers getting riboflavin.

For the chicks that are already out of the brooder, there’s nothing that I can do. They will have to live with their curly toes and I will have to make sure that they are happy and comfortable.

For the chicks that are in the incubator, I will need to try to reset the feet of any of the chicks with curly toe. This is done, apparently, by splinting the toe to a light and strong flat “shoe” using surgical tape. The shoe should remain on the toe(s) for about 3 weeks after which time the toe should have resumed its natural shape.

There are a dozen eggs in the incubator at the moment:

Date Laid	# Eggs	Stop Rotating	Hatch Date	# Hatched
26/10	3	13/11	16/11	2 (died)
27/10	1	14/11	17/11	1
28/10	3	15/11	18/11
29/10	3	16/11	19/11
30/10	2	17/11	20/11

I will update this table throughout the hatching period to get an idea of my hatching success.

The eggs from the 26^th have not had any success. Two of these eggs hatched and the chicks died within 18 hours of hatching. One chick did not hatch, dying in the egg. I do not know what happened with these eggs, other than incubator failure in that period. Possibly, the incubator had not run in sufficiently when the first eggs were put in. I am heartened that the egg from the 17^th hatched (although it hatched late). This chick is quite hale and hearty.

The chicks have taken longer than the usual 21 days to hatch. I suspect that this is due to a combination of things. The failure of the auto-turn incubator to turn would have partially influenced this, but I think that the temperature in the incubator was a bit low. I also suspect that the hardness of the egg-shells may be causing my chicks some jip as well.

Completion of the New Chicken Run and Chicken Coop

Well, the chicken run and coop have been a bit of a labour of Heracles. I completed the bottom part of the run early in the month (welded square tubing between the uprights, painted it to make it a bit more rust resistant and finally attached the steel panelling).

Next, the chicken wire went around the run. This was a pretty easy job. I simply drilled through the upright posts and ran 5mm white wire cross supports around the run. The chicken wire was then hung from the cross supporting white wire and then fixed in place between the steel panelling and the steel tube to make it strong and secure.

My lovely wife bought a 20 x 5 m nylon bird net and set about making it into a 10 x 10 m net (lots of hand stitching and then by running a nylon cord to bind the two halves together). The bird net will be secured over the top of the chicken run and will be supported clipping it to more 5mm white wire supporting lines. We get lots of hawks and eagles in our little valley and I’m not terribly interested in feeding them my flock!

The coop has been constructed from recycled hardwood framing timber and 12mm exterior plywood. This has been a bit of a slog too as I’ve been suffering from injuries and various agues lately. Building and manhandling the panels have proven to be a bit of an overextension. I’d recommend getting at least one other friend to help you.

The panels for the coop were made outside of the chicken run and then carried inside. This is because there is much more room outside the chicken run to be operating the power tools and because the doorway into the chicken run is too narrow to carry the completed coop in (I’m glad I thought of that beforehand!).

Anyway, the upshot is that, the chicken run and coop should be ready for the foul inmates by the weekend of the 21^st of November. This (happily) coincides with the current clutch of chicks moving out of the brooder in time for the next (and final clutch for this season) of chicks to move in.