First Stage – Clear the dead wood

Today I went along the fence line today and cut down all of the brush and dead wood that is hanging down onto the fence. Some of the bushy plants were growing through the fence and weighing it down. These were cut away. There were also a couple of trees that had come down on my neighbours side of the fence and were laying across the fence as well, they were cut away and taken off the fence too.

Next, the cuttings were hauled up to the middle field so that I could move it all to the bonfire pit. Some of the cuttings were hauled off to the goats for their nourishment.

My darling youngest daughter helped me move the cuttings, and that was such an enormous help.

Starting the fence fix-up

We want to be able to use our bottom paddock for our sheep. The paddock is about 120m long by 30m wide and is mostly used as the driveway to our house. The fence that is our boundary between us and our neighbours’ is deeply overhung by trees, many of which have branches that are crushing the fence. We also let our chooks out in this paddock and I want to keep the chickens on our property so that there is no repeat performance of the disappearing rooster (that is, if the rooster was taken by the neighbours’ dog).

Our neighbours’ property is virtually all gardens of native trees and shrubs, whereas ours … is not. To fix the fence so that our sheep can use this paddock means that I have about 120m of fence-line to clear of fallen branches, dead trees and other shrubbery. Not that I am complaining, I rather enjoy the borrowed landscape from next door.

The easiest way that I can think of to do this is to take my time and cut back the trees and shrubs using our goats as a shredder for the offcuts. This will slow me down somewhat as I can only cut down as much material as the goats can eat before the leaves become unpalatable to the goats. When the goats have finished defoliating the branches, they will go into the bonfire pit ready for marshmallow toasting activities.

The feeder above is filled with the trimmings of a large wattle bush. The thickest branch was as thick as my wrist … but most of it was as thick as my thumb. I guess that isn’t an imperial scale, you’d have to know how thick my wrist and thumb are to really understand. I will avoid using these scales when talking about stuff that requires actual measurements … I promise.

I’ve started at the bottom of the driveway and I’ll work my way up to the other end of the fence. I really need to uncover all of the fence so that I can assess how much of the fence is salvageable. I have the distinct impression at this stage that not much of the fence is able to be recycled. Probably most of the star posts, but I guess that none of the dog fence is usable and the supporting wire is pretty rusty. If I put much strain on the supporting wire to straighten the fence, it is likely to snap. Many nasty injuries have been caused by snapping high tensile fence wire, I don’t want to be injured.

At least the goats will enjoy the spoils of my labour.

They like their port-a-tree.

Royal Hobart Show

We went to the Royal Hobart Show yesterday. I was surprised that both of my daughters wanted to come. Our eldest daughter is at that age where everything that her parents do is “boring”, nevertheless, we went as a family and had a good day together.

The Royal Hobart Show is the annual show of the Royal Agricultural Society in Hobart and there are loads of domesticated animals there to be seen along with arts and crafts and the inevitable carnies, show-bags, junk food and crowds. I’m not a big fan of the last four.

We started with the cattle and moved on to sheep, pigs and goats. The cattle were lovely, although there weren’t many different varieties of cow. The Jerseys were looking very good. Some of the sheep were very impressive, I took a fancy to a black faced dorper ram. He was a very good shape with a lovely open face and good meat quality.

We went and had a look at the angora goats in the next pavilion. They were nice looking goats and of good quality. The pigs were in  the same pavilion with the angora goats. There wasn’t much variety in the pig stalls, mostly bacon pairs. Still, I like pigs and they were all sleeping soundly.

The dairy goat pavilion was our next destination. On the previous Saturday, my youngest daughter and I did some work at the pavilion helping to set the pavilion up for Show week, so we had a particular interest in this display. Many of the other dairy goat breeders that we know were there at the pavilion and the goats were lovely. The display of British Alpine kids was fantastic. The breeders had set up a platform and a couple of planks so that the goat kids had some play equipment. The goats loved their play-things.

Of course the Royal wouldn’t be worth going to for our youngest daughter without going to the “Farm Nursery” pavilion. All of those chicks, and ducklings are always an instant hit with children. In the petting display, there were goat kids and lambs along with a piglet that seemed to be taking it’s cue from the older pigs and slept the whole time … maybe it was tired from being adored by children. There was a very nervous Turkey in the petting display too.

We then went on and had a look in the Handcraft pavilion where we had ice-cream and a walk around the cakes. There were some very creative and imaginative decorated cakes among the display. Some of our friends were in the Handcraft pavilion representing the Society for Creative Anachronists (SCA) showing off some of their medieval craft work. They did a fighting display on the green for the entertainment of the show goers.

After that, we walked around to the rides and shoved our daughters into a “Haunted House”. After some screaming and laughing, the girls came out the other end with big smiles on their faces.

Lunch was next … not bad … pretty much what was expected.

Our next destination was the Poultry Pavilion. We had to traipse all the way through the rides and carnies to get to the poultry. The chickens and ducks were very good. We saw some very nice roosters indeed. The first chickens that we saw were Andalusian, these animals were lovely examples of their breed. We also saw some red and white Leghorns, Plymouth Rock, Silkie and loads of Old English Game birds. Among the ducks, there were Muscovy, Indian Runner and of course Pekin. There was a large brooder in the middle of the display with loads of chicks under a heat lamp. Overall, the poultry display was very good. It’s a pity that there weren’t any fowl for sale (although my wife would probably think that that was a good thing).

Finally, we went to the show-bag pavilion so that the girls could buy show-bags. I think that it is a great pity that the show-bag has gone from what it was when I was a kid (a sample bag of products from manufacturers) to an overpriced bag with a few “themed” products that you really don’t want and wouldn’t pay good money for if you were to find them in a shop. Ah well, how times change.

It was a good day and I enjoyed spending that time with my family.

Egg Thief

Something is still taking our eggs. Today, there were only two eggs in the coop and one of them was broken open. Yesterday, the same.

I think I need to rethink the design of the nesting box. At the moment, I have the nesting box attached to the side of the coop with the chickens laying into a tray filled with wood shavings. My aunty and uncle had a chicken coop, when I was young, that allowed the eggs to roll out into a catcher. If I can get the eggs rolling out into a catcher, I can probably eliminate some of the threat to the eggs. If it is the chickens that are eating the eggs, then this should stop them from doing that.

What I will need to do is to take the nesting box off the coop, redesign and rebuild it. I need to make the nesting box so that the floor of the nesting box is slightly sloped so that the eggs roll down into a catcher when they are laid. The nesting box redesign needs to provide a more commodious space for the chickens too. I think that the reason that the chickens lay on the floor of the coop is that the nesting box isn’t spacious enough for them.

I can reuse some of the material from the existing box, so I won’t need to buy much for the rebuild.

The Chicks Development

We have now had the chicks for more than a week now and they are growing nicely. They are all more outgoing and interested in what is going on outside the coop.

They have developed a fine taste for the grasses and weeds that have been growing in the coop since the older chickens moved out more than a year ago. They are depending less and less on the chicken pellets and eating lots of insects and greenery, and this is all for the good.

Some of the chicks are still a little smaller.

But I still think that they are a week behind the rest of the flock in growth. Nevertheless, they are growing nicely. They spend most of their time under the heat lamp.

As you can see, they are bright eyed and very interested in their surroundings.

The last lot of Isa Browns we got had their beaks clipped as they had been bought from a chicken battery. I am very glad that the business has since folded after investigation into their husbandry practices and failure to treat their animals humanely. I am still perplexed by people who make animals their livelihood but feel nothing at all when abusing and mistreating the animals that are their life. I think that the best thing that we can all do to stop this kind of treatment of animals is to keep our own and vote with our wallets.

Besides … what is better than keeping chickens? They are funny, they eat almost all of our table scraps, they keep down the insect population, they give us eggs (most of which I sell to my work colleagues). All of this and they take almost no effort to maintain! Sure, I understand that many people can’t keep chickens, just from the simple fact that they need some space … but those of us who can keep chickens, should keep chickens.

They keep us in touch with our Dinosaur past.

Rooster Renaming

Our youngest daughter took umbrage to my naming of the new rooster. She felt that “Goose” was not a suitable name for our rooster. Frankly, the rooster didn’t care, he had his harem and was no longer scratching around at the local tip.

After much deliberation, we have settled on “Howard” as a name fitting his dignity and masculinity. So … Hello Howard!

He has been in the chicken run for almost one day now and he seems to have convinced the hens that he knows where all of the good food can be found.

It would seem, from observation, that Howard is spending a lot of time telling the hens “I’m strong, I’m tall and I know where the food is!”.

I’d say, from his size and the development of his spurs, that Howard is about a year old … possibly 18 months. He will still get a lot bigger than he is now.

When Howard scratches in the dirt and calls the hens over, I think that, when the hens come running, it is kind of like women laughing at men’s jokes. It’s all about propping up his ego.

New Rooster–Goose

We got a new rooster today, free from the Animal Tuckerbox. My lovely wife rang me at about 3:30 pm today to tell me that she had found us a new rooster and that he was “ugly” and “didn’t play well with other roosters”. Well, that sounds pretty much like a rooster to me, so I said to go ahead and get him.

When I got home, my darling wife showed me her injuries from catching the rooster. She had lost a couple of fingernails and had been badly buffeted by his wings.

As soon as my lovely wife had the rooster in the box, he lay down and played dead. My awesome wife thought that he had had a heart attack from all of his exertions. But, no, he was just stressed and resting.

When I got home, I had a look at him and agreed, he was indeed an unattractive boy … but just the job to give our girls something to settle them down. I took one look at the rooster and thought that a good name for him would be “Goose” … so Goose he is.

We took Goose out to the chicken run and let him introduce himself to the hens. The five white leghorn hens started out being very pensive and reluctant to have anything to do with the newcomer. Then Goose started to crow and scratch, that got the girls attention. Pretty soon the hens started to follow Goose around and peck in his scratching. Goose started to strut around and was acting like a kid in a lolly shop, he was very happy with himself indeed.

That’s Goose in the middle.

Fox Baiting

Our State Governments Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE) has notified us that they will be undertaking a baiting program using 1080 baits on properties that adjoin ours. I am not very happy about this.

Looking into the information provided, and using Google Earth to find the properties, it seems that our property is adjoining one of the 10 sites being targeted.

1080 poisoning is a horrible way of killing an animal, and it is (IMHO) indiscriminate. All of the information from the letter tells me that it is all very safe and that there is very little chance that one of our animals will be poisoned … but … a native, non-targeted carnivore or scavenger (Quolls, Devils, Native Rats, Bandicoots, etc.) takes the bait. It takes a while before the animal dies from the poison and they tend to die hours after they’ve take the bait. Should the animal come onto my property and die, it is there to poison our animals (most likely, our dogs).

Our chickens have been free-ranging on our property for the last couple of years and we have never had to worry about foxes, and we have never lost a chicken to a fox. The nearest evidence to our property of fox activity (scat) is quite a long way away in Campania (about 22km in a direct line, but a fox would have to be a good salt water swimmer to take a direct line).

I believe that the likelihood of foxes in my area in this 14-28 day period of baiting is worth the risk to native scavengers or to my animals. I’ll be honest … I am more interested in my animals, but that is more a question of investment.

The letter from DPIPWE does not give me any choice, just “here we are, we are doing it and if you don’t like it … tough”. I think it stinks.

Heat Up the Chickens

Today, we replaced the heat globe in the heat lamp for the brooder. The lamp that we had in the chicken coop last night, wasn’t really a proper heat lamp. The lamp did put out some heat, but not enough for keeping the chicks warm. Fortunately, the weather is warm enough so the temperature at night is only going down to about 5^o Celsius.

My youngest daughter had a friend visiting today, and they spent a long time out in the coop with the chicks.

The chicks need to have some interaction with humans so that when they are older, they will not be so flighty. I was really proud of my daughter, she handled the chicks with confidence and she was very gentle with them.

I made some home-made pizza for lunch today, yummy ground beef, bacon and prawn pizzas. Our pizza also had chilli on it, but my youngest daughter is a bit soft when it comes to spicy food. They took their pizza out to the chicken coop to have a picnic with the chicks.

I managed to do some sexing of the chicks based on their ruff feathers. It seems that we have two boys and six girls. I’d call that a pretty good result.

Two of the chicks are a lot smaller than the other six, so I’d say that they are about a week behind the others in age.

Despite the problems with Isa Browns (not very hardy) I like them, they are very good layers (about 350 eggs per annum per chook), their eggs are a good size (averaging 70 grams each) and they are a nice brown colour. Of course, the colour of the egg has no bearing on the flavour, but I think that, given the choice, most people will pick a brown egg over a white egg every time.

Chickens are usually at point-of-lay at about 21 weeks of age. Ours are about eight weeks old, so they won’t be laying until about January, 2013.

Chicks in the Coop

The new chicks have been installed in the old chicken coop. Sadly, one of the chicks didn’t make it through the night. Now their are eight.

I’ve put a heat lamp in the coop so that they have a heat source. We need to replace the heat lamp in the brooder lamp since the old one has broken.

The temporary roost was replaced today, an old log isn’t really good enough for the chicks, so I made a roost from a pair of broomstick offcuts and some fence rail offcuts.

They are still very small and I think that they will be staying in the coop for at least the next two months while they get bigger.

I’ve spread some straw over the floor so that the chicks have some insulation from the cold concrete floor.

The chicks are still too small to roost, so they will be staying on the floor for most of the time. Hopefully, there is enough warmth and that the weather improves over the next couple of months.

Nine New Chicks

After the mysterious disappearance of our rooster, Raj, we decided to get some more chickens. The chicks are just 8 weeks old and they haven’t been sexed yet, but I think that at least three of them are boys. The woman that we bought the chicks from had them in a decent sized chicken truck so they are well used to being out-doors. Some of the chicks (about 4) are much smaller than the others and they are a good mix of colours from very pale to deep red.

When these guys grow up they are going to be lovely chickens.

When I have a chance, I will card the chickens feathers to work out which ones are boys and which are girls. To sex the chickens, I look at the feathers on the chickens neck (the ruff). Boys have very pointy feathers (V shaped), while the girls have much more round shaped feathers (U shaped).

One of my friends wants a hen and, if possible, a rooster too. I reckon that I will be able to accommodate that.

Raj the Rooster goes missing!

This morning when I went out to feed the animals, our rooster, Raj wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Usually he comes running with the hens to get his breakfast and to show the hens where the food is. But today … nothing.

We leave the coop open most of the time, only closing it when it is particularly cold, wet and windy. We don’t have any predators near us (apart from the dogs that are owned by our neighbours and kept on their property), so leaving the chickens out to roam when they want to is normally not a problem at all.

I went walking around the boundary of the bottom paddock our property this morning (where the chooks spend a lot of their time) and I couldn’t find him. My lovely wife and daughter also had a look further afield for him, also with no luck. No feathers, nothing … looks like the aliens took him.

The hens have become very spooked by his disappearance, they are running around scattered around where, normally, they hang around together and in a much more relaxed manner.

It is starting to look like I’ll need to get another rooster. When I do, the chickens will need to be cooped up together for a while so that the new rooster has a chance to learn his new environment before free-ranging.

Update on the missing rooster at 5:45pm. Still not found after a day of absence, we think that he has been taken while free-ranging. The hens are very agitated and I think that, without a rooster, the hens will start to argue more … so I’m planning to get some more chickens. Someone on the other side of the river is selling some Isa Brown chicks (about 7 weeks old) for $5 each, so I’m going to take a punt and buy them. I’ll check their ruff feathers to see if any of them are boys. I have a couple of friends that have been asking for chickens for a while, so I’ll sell on the excess chickens to them (at the same price).

The new chickens will go into the old chicken run until they are old enough for the bigger chickens, so they’ll go into the general community in December.

Vermin in the Chicken Coop

We have an unwelcome visitor in our chicken coop that is eating most of our eggs. For the last year or so, we have seen a large native Tasmanian rat (Rattus lutreolus) hanging around the chicken coop. We’ve never been terribly upset by the native rat’s presence because they don’t carry disease (unlike introduced rats: R. Rattus or R. Norvegicus) and they clean up what the chooks leave behind.

However … the visitor is now stealing eggs from the coop, that’s not cool, we are losing eggs from the chickens. Some of the eggs are just being broken in the coop and the albumen is being left behind.

My lovely wife went to the rural store today and bought a small live animal trap and I set the trap up under the coop today so that we can catch the little devil.

We hope to catch the critter and then relocate the rat into the bush far from our property … more news as it breaks.

Shearing Day

Today is shearing day. I’ve arranged for the shearer to come out and shear Gary and give the girls a drench.

This morning went pretty well, I got the sheep into the pen without any problems. Over the past couple of weeks I have been feeding the sheep in the pen so that they would get used to it in there. I walked into the pen with the sheep behind me and they all came in and got their breakfast without a hitch.

Then I went on to feed the goats and the chickens. Still no problems.

Next, I had to go out to the sheep again to connect the power so that the shearer can power up his rig.

Hang on … only two sheep and one sheep bleating to be let back in!

Damn! So I have about half an hour before the shearer arrives and no way of getting the third sheep back into the pen by myself (I am just not very good at round up sheep, and the sheep know it).

Well … at least the sheep that needs to be sheared is in the pen, and one of the sheep can be drenched.

I’ll see how I go with getting Apricot into the pen before the shearer arrives … I don’t fancy my chances though, I expect that I will end up with three out and none in.

The shearer has come and gone now. Peaches got out of the pen before he arrived, so I ended up with just Gary in the pen. That was fine, he was the only one that needed shearing.

Now he is happily sheared again and ready for running around like a goose. He still has a dermatitis rash on his neck, but that’s something that I will need to treat with a cream. I’ll see how I go with that. Gary was very well behaved for the shearer.

For my money, get a local shearer around to shear your sheep, he was so good with the sheep and so knowledgeable about the animals. You really can’t do better than to support locals like this, and shearing is such an old and iconic skill.

Burnie Show

Today was the first of the Agricultural shows of the show season. We left this morning at about 7am and drove for about 4 hours from one end of Tasmania to the other, just my youngest daughter, my lovely wife and I.

We wanted to see the goat judging but we got there too late for that. Still, the goats that were there were lovely.

The show was certainly smaller than the Royal Hobart or Royal Sydney shows that I am more familiar with, but it was very enjoyable. The only thing that I felt was missing from the show was sheep, we didn’t see any sheep!

My youngest had her first go at driving the dodgem-cars and we had a bit of fun driving around hitting each other.

Next weekend is the Launceston show, we should have a nice time … it is about an hour less drive in each direction too, so I shouldn’t be so tired after the drive.