The Greening of Gavin

The Power of Chook

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Is there no stopping the broodyness of my two little Pekin Bantams, Pippa and Poppy?  Apparently not.  For the second time this year they have decided that they want to be mums again.  So it was back into Coventry / The Cooler for both of them, in the attempt to make them as uncomfortable as possible so that they snap out of the habit and start laying again.

I figured out why they started this time around.  It coincided with a big egg day.  Every chicken, bar one, laid an egg.  There were four in one nesting box and three in the other.  As it was a very hot day, Kim did not check on the girls at lunch time like she normally does due to fatigue.  The eggs didn’t get collected until I got home at 6pm.  Much to my surprise I found both little ladies warming up each clutch of eggs, rolling them over every so often to heat them evenly.  I watched them for a little while to check out what they were up too, and they were definitely settled in for the duration.  They were most upset when I turfed them both out of the boxes and stole their supposed “babies”.

Last Thursday morning, Kim called me to let me know that they were at it again and that she was too scared to nudge them lest they peck her. I suggested that we buy some fertile eggs and move the clucky girls to isolation to let them hatch.  I was quite serious, but Kim was not impressed.  “Too much hard work”, she said.  “But Ben would love it”, I replied.  “You would have to remodel the run”, she added.  I stopped, thought, and then replied, “Lets not get any fertile eggs!”  Maybe later.

I let the little girls out of isolation on Saturday afternoon, which may have been too early.  They rushed straight back into a nesting box.  So, I gathered them up and put them back into the cage.  Another night would not hurt them.

7am Sunday morning, all of the chickens were quite vocal, with the bantams making the most racket.  I let the little ones out into the front run with the other hens where they all waited for me to serve up breakfast for them in the back run.  No sooner had I opened the flap on their house, they all stampeded to the feeder, including Pippa and Poppy.  Great, they have snapped out of it, I thought to myself.  I continued to check on them during the day, making sure I collected the eggs regularly so as not to give them an excuse to continue their broody ways.

One final head count before lock up for the night around dusk and we were two chooks short!  Lo and behold, the two bantams were back in the nesting boxes, sitting on imaginary eggs.  I turfed them off, they jumped onto a perch and I let Kim know what was going on.  “Back to Coventry tomorrow?”, was her question.  I agreed.

Yesterday morning, the naughty little ladies were back in the nesting boxes settling in for the day, or so they thought.  I scooped them both up, popped them in the isolation cage and gave them fresh water and food.  They are still in there today, with an estimated release date of Thursday evening or until their combs turn red again.

These beautiful little hens have such a powerful motherly instinct, and they are so bloody determined to hatch eggs that are just not theirs.  The other hens really don’t know what all the fuss is about, as this instinct has been breed out of the ISA Brown.  I like the bantams determination and grit.  In a weird way they remind me of me!

Bantams Put in Coventry!

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A while back we bought two Pekin bantams, now named Poppy and Pippa.  You may remember Poppy from the Crook Chook post when she was really sick but pulled through.

Now not being a chook expert, I thought that these two little darlings would behave just like the ISA Brown hen that I already have. Not on your nelly.  These two have been pretending to be mums for the last 3 weeks, and now as it is starting to get hotter, I don’t want the girls to cook in the chook house by sitting on the nest all day.  Broody, broody, broody!  Besides, I only have two nesting boxes and the other girls are really complaining to me about not being able to get a seat at the theatre!

So, I did some reading.  I found a really good blog called ‘The Cottage Smallholder‘ written by Fiona who suggests that I should make a broody coop.  Well I had such a cage of wire mesh used for Holly when we first got her, so I took out the big pillow and the tray that went under it and put it in the caged chicken run.  This is what they look like all locked up.

It is under shade cloth so is fairly cool, much better than the larger run out the back.  They will stay in here for a few days and nights until they are so uncomfortable that it will break their broodiness.  The other chooks don’t know what to think of the cage.  It has confused them to no end.  The two little girls were very upset a first because they don’t like sitting down on the wire mesh on the floor and can’t get comfortable like their nesting box.  They will get over it, I hope.  Here is a short video clip to show you how they are behaving now.



You will have noticed from the clip that they are not very happy Jan!

They have settled down for the evening, and are not too upset now, but miss their nest and perch.  Hopefully they will not have to stay in the broody coop for too long.  I will let you know how it pans out over the next few days. Maybe I should have just gotten fertile eggs and let them hatch. Apparently they do make great mums.

A Huge Chicken Run Weekend

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Huge, because that is the size of my muscles from all the hard work I did over the last two days.

This weekend was a re-org of the chicken run, so that we could fence off the path and get into the shed occasionally.  I want to reclaim the vegetable bed so that I can plant in it and lay an irrigation system to the bed as well.  I still have enough bits left over from the main veggie patch project (which is working exceptionally well I may say).  The garden on that side has never grown so fast!  Sure the rain helped, but the drip irrigation every few days from the tank and twice weekly from the mains as per our water restrictions have done wonders for the growth rate.  I think it will survive any scorcher we get this year.

Anyway, back to the chicken run.  I started by removing these three posts.

3 posts
Yes, it is an old shot as you will see in a minute.  I thought last week, that what is the point of having these three posts up against the fence when the new fence is just a high.  So with my reuse hat on, I decided to dig them out and reuse them.  This is one I prepared earlier.
Notice all of the attention the hole has created with our fine feathered friends.  The ground is so rich in worms, they went absolutely crazy over all these tasty morsels.  The soil is so moist from all that rain we have had lately down to at least 60 cm which was as deep as the posts were in the ground.  It took about 30 minutes to get these out and I though it would take much longer.  A bit of digging, a bit of rocking and out they came.  I knocked the quick set concrete block off of the bottom with the mattock without any problems (will have to think of a use for that concrete now).  The photo was taken by Kim, my trusty, yet padawan construction worker.  Her heart was really in it, but is still learning from the master jedi builder of all things green!  I love to see her so excited about helping out.
With all the posts on the other side of the enclosure, I started digging the post holes with my trusty auger that I have had since we moved into the place, 9 years ago. I measured a 90 cm span between posts to ensure that it all looked even as there were still 3 posts still in the ground where I needed them.
Post hole for chicken run
Notice the feathers in the background.  This is Pippa, Poppy’s sister.  I dug a pilot hole out of shot, and this is her digging in it for worms.
She was having a ball.  The soil and clay on this side of the chicken run was just as moist all the way down.  Great place to store water if you ask me!  Anyway, we got all three post holes dug.  It was time for a rest, and a quick trip to the hardware store for two bags of quick-set concrete to set the posts.  As I am going to hang a picket gate off of one the posts I had to make sure that it was firmly in the ground.
With Kim as my height guide, I levelled the posts on the vertical, and then, after a quick measure between the posts, I started to pour the dry quick-set into the first hole with post in the ground.  Kim had spirit level in hand to check if the posts were level on the horizontal all around whilst I poured in the water to set the mix.  It sets in about 15 minutes, but you can’t bang any nails into the posts until the next day.  With the chickens looking confused, but happy from their worm feast it was time to call it a day having put all three posts in the ground and fixed down to 60 cm with quick-set.  We had friends coming over at 5 pm, so I did a little bit of gardening for about an hour to kill the time.  Here is a worm feast picture;

Today, after a one hour session to the gym to build up the core muscles for the day ahead, I got stuck back into it at around 1030.  Now that we had all the posts where they were required, I started with the wire.  I chose to use 13 mm chicken wire up to a height of 1.8 metres.  It seemed about right, and I know now from experience that they cannot fly that high.  Kim was still tired so she went back to bed for another hour, so I slogged it out in the blazing sun by myself.  Fencing is quite painful when there is only one of you, so I took it slow and steady.  After two hours of banging my thumb and pricking myself with the wire, this is what I achieved.  Wire all the way up, double span, and dug down about 5 cm with about 5 cm pointing toward the path so that the dogs, or heaven forbid, a fox tries to get in.  I pegged all bottom sections down with long tent pegs and will bury it all when I get the chance.

Here is a better shot of this part;

Do you like my sewing job?  I joined the two spans together with the wire that came wrapped around the bundle of chick wire.  It was just enough, but took me about 45 minutes to finish and my fingers were covered in zinc from the wire by the time I had finished.  The sweat was pouring off of my brow from under my wide-brimmed hat by this time as the sun was at its zenith.  I finished this part at about 1330, and took a lunch break.  It took me a while to scrub the zinc off of my fingers, but I didn’t want to ingest it with my sandwich.

When I dug the trench for the bottom of the wire, there was another worm feast for the hens, and one of them, Esther, was so close to the spade, that I nearly chopped her head off three times.  We nearly had roast chicken for dinner.  Here is a pic of some of the cheeky chickens.  Esther is the white one standing bottom right on the old lumps of concrete.

After lunch, I was getting real hot.  I had to figure out a quick way of letting the hens through to their favourite dust bath area behind the shed.  They have made it their weekend playground and quickly round-up any insects and weeds, which works out as a win-win for all of us.  Here is what I came up with as an interim solution until Kim suggested a gate that swings outward and blocks off the path.  Now why didn’t I think of that.  Maybe she will be a master jedi sooner than I think!

It is a bit like a trap door that has battens down the side of each post as a guide.  You can also see their behind the shed playground in this shot as well.  Here it is with the door in it.

It seems to keep them in and they are getting used to all the new wire.  With the last bit of chicken wire in place above the trap door and the left side of it, I called it a day at about 1500, as I didn’t want to over heat. One dose of heat stroke is enough for this summer, thank-you very much.

Time for a beer and a movie to relax for the rest of the day.  Mind you, after the movie, I still spent another hour at 1800 watering all the pot plants and fertilising the fruit orchard out the front yard.  I must have ants in my pants, and find it hard to sit still until after sunset.  Why waste all that wonderful sunlight when you only get long days for half the year?  Pippa and Poppy sure don’t!