Chicken Adventures – Day 55

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It’s possible that having the run so close to the house might have been a strategic error. Coping with the 5am wake-up just outside the bedroom window call every-single-morning has been quite the little challenge to come to grips with. Clearly memories fade after a decade of no chickens or some slightly different choices might have been made when planning this little lot. Fortunately, I’m an early riser and an even earlier lie-awake-and-ponderer so at least I don’t suffer an unduly startling wake-up call. Himself, however, has had to hone his capacity for ignoring extraneous noises to a whole new level. As of yesterday, I think the chickens are probably winning, given the grumbling!

Since my last post, we have renamed Braveheart. Her seemingly unlimited capacity for standing in the middle of the run and SHOUTING at the world is to blame for this. She’s particularly vocal when Chicken-little clucks off into the nesting box to snuggle down in the straw to lay an egg. So much so that, if no response is forthcoming, she’ll stomp up the little ramp into the nesting box and CHASE her sister out into the run! This seems to be because being all aloooooooone with a couple of (apparently) marauding pigeons who’ve fluttered in to snack on the leftover grain is very dangerous when she’s all on her own! Chicken-little eventually caves under the pressure – and chivvying – and scuttles out to see what’s up. She wanders around for a while, looking confused because the pigeons are gone and there’s clearly nothing noteworthy, then goes back to her disturbed egg-laying.

With all this in play, Braveheart somehow no longer seems to fit the bill! Coincidentally, I came across a tiktok-snippet in which a rooster is crowing very enthusiastically and his noise been voiced-over to sound like he’s shouting EliZ-zabeth(!). The name seems to suit her personality and I must confess that it’s easier to sound exasperated muttering EliZ-zabeth(!) as I head out to the run to save the neighbours – and my own – ears.

I reassure her (only somewhat impatiently…) that all is well and that the pigeons pose little risk. I go on to suggest that she quietens RIGHT DOWN about now ‘cos the number of her days remaining on this planet is probably more at risk from me than any imagined alternative! She’s less than impressed, but does settle down for a bit after that. Since having the wireless on when I’m out seems to comfort our little fox, I’ve also taken to leaving one on in my craft room all day, tuned to ABC Radio National. It seems that the chitchat of various podcasts and news broadcasts provides the chooks with the illusion of company and some sense of security. They both seem more settled, although they’ve taken to standing at the  edge of the run at various times and staring in through the window. It’s disconcerting, but moderately quiet – so I’ll cope.

Anyhow, about a week ago, EliZ-zabeth(!) laid a shell-less egg. This, in addition to her previous two offerings looking rather like thin papier-mâché, was a decided worry. My on-call chicken whisperer’s comment was, ‘She’s fine. It happens sometimes. If you’re worried, cook up a ration of oats and mix in some grit to make sure she eats it (the grit).’  So, bright and early the next day, there I was cooking up oats porridge for the ladies! When it was cool enough, I duly mixed in a couple of tablespoons of shell grit and served it – still warm – with some mushroom and sweet potato leftovers. Gourmet chook food apparently, compared to the grain I put out at the same time. That they left for the pigeons!

Of course the next egg EliZzabeth(!) produced was of a good size and looked (mostly) normal. So, there you go – Chicken-whisperer knows her stuff!

Fortunately, Chicken-little has caused less stress and has consistently laid medium-large eggs, all with good shells. She’s also shown no sign of any need for creative artistry in their production or started to indulge in pronouncements of the sky being about to fall or the pigeons invading. She even copes with being bullied. Small mercies. 

We’re averaging 9 eggs a week, which is pretty good, and I’m starting to give some of them away now. Not too sure that the eggs make up for the noise and fuss, but at least the rodents haven’t been eating my zucchini, tomatoes, etc., so I’m hopeful that the primary reason for getting the ladies has – possibly, probably – paid off.

Chicken adventures – part 1

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As part of our mini-sustainability programme, we’ve been growing an assortment of vegetables to see what works in our garden and what we can actually use. Our root vegetable adventures have all gone well but, other than tomatoes and spinach, our above-ground crops tell a whole other story. It turns out that we have rather active resident rodents lurking behind / under the compost bins. These charming little critters seem to have quite the refined palate and consistently pipped us to the post on the broccoli and the Italian cucumbers. Being the refined eaters that they are, they prefer to sample and move on – causing just enough damage to ensure what’s left isn’t useable. The last straw was when they then went for the plums, nibbling and discarding as they foraged. The little blighters even ventured to gnaw on the pink grapefruit when pickings got a bit slim!

Clearly it was well past time to do something more than put out ‘eco-friendly’ traps of various sorts that have zero effect except perhaps to make the rodents snigger to themselves at the human ineptness as they nom their way through zucchini and so forth. Discussing this with DaughterDearest – my local equivalent of wildlife-and-farming wrangler – we came up with two alternatives, neither of which held enormous appeal: 1) get a kitten / cat, or 2) get some chickens – replacing the pair we had about 10 years ago, who were admittedly excellent little raptors.

Now, although I’m very fond of my five grand-kitties and enjoying spending cuddle time with them, petting them and telling them they’re beautiful, I’m very happy to then go home to my little fox of a dog, no kitty litter boxes and no dramas about keeping her indoors. Ignoring any feeding and/or cleaning aspects of cat ownership, acquiring one sounded like a complicated and also seemed to come with all manner of complicated issues that sounded unlikely to make my life easier. For best outcomes, DD suggested keeping the cat indoors for the first six months or so to ensure she knew where and who home was. After that, it would be good to walk her on a harness to get her used to the scope of her domain (the garden edges), then move on to walking her OUTSIDE the property so that she learned how to come home and not to venture onto the road.

Right. That’s so not happening! The rodents are eating the crops NOW and watching the decimation of my hard work for an additional 6 – 9 months across the prime growing seasons of spring and summer whilst training up a possible solution didn’t sound like the best investment of my time. Also, our little fox is a free ranging hound – she comes and goes as she pleases and wouldn’t take well to being shut in – or out – of the house during kitty-training.

That left us with the chicken option to consider. Coincidentally, DD had a few spares up at the farm from a fairly recent hatching and said she was happy to pass a couple of the young ones on to us. As an undertaking it seemed fairly straightforward: build a hutch, whack up some fencing, get some feed and straw, install chickens – and goodbye rats. After discussions with Himself, we decided to give it a go. After all, we’d had backyard chickens once before and, although the memories of them had dimmed somewhat after a decade, neither of us remembered it being unduly tricksome. The words “how hard could it be” were voiced…

Some research later saw me ordering a flatpack ’chicken cabana’ – which sounds a lot fancier than it actually is, although it is pretty nifty. In due course said cabana was constructed (despite the instructions included) and the next phase commenced. This involved a number of cascading events, because no plan is ever as simple as it sounds to start with. Over the next couple of weeks we had to:

  • relocate a small tangelo tree to our verge garden, but
  • only after relocating a small lemon tree from there into a pot for rehoming,
  • moving the compost bins, but
  • only after emptying them first
  • erecting a run under the fruit trees, but
  • only after constructing an access way (steps and gate)

In due course all was done and a positively palatial domain awaited the arrival of our two rather bedraggled-looking fowls. Bedraggled because they’d been given a bit of a hard time by a young rooster up on the farm, but also because they’re naked neck chickens and tend to look a bit that way at the best of times. Although sometimes known as turkens, naked necks are simply fearsomely ugly chickens (fuglies) with no neck feathers and quite distinctively featherless bottoms. They’re pretty much flightless, good layers and don’t suffer heat stress as much as other chickens – definitely a plus in Perth and a win for us.

On top of all that, our girls are frizzles. This means they have curly, rather than flat, feathers, apparently caused by an incomplete dominant gene (F) that results in the feather shafts curling upwards and outwards rather than straight (like a regular chicken). This anomaly makes the ‘pretty much flightless’ naked necks very definitely flightless, making free ranging them  a lot simpler for us as we won’t have to factor in clipping wings and so forth. But the frizzle-factor doesn’t reduced their general fugliness, or not yet anyway. Perhaps when their feathers – lost in the stress of the move and seasonal moulting – grow back, we’ll be amazed by their quirky beauty!

Empty Nest

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My daughter and I have grown up together. I had her fairly young and learned about being mum at pretty much the same rate she learned about being her. It seems to have all worked out okay: I’m still her mum and she’s definitely 100% her 🙂

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Daughter-dearest left home after finishing her first uni degree, heading off to work overseas for a year, then travelling around South America and Europe for several months before heading back to home base. Having flexed her wings and found that they provided more than adequate lift, it wasn’t long before she moved into a share house with some friends.

At the time many of my friends asked whether our nest felt empty, whether I felt sad or even lonely with her gone again so soon. In short, the answer was a simple – but firm – no. I was both pleased and proud when she moved out of the family home to set up independently. I guess it’s a bit silly, but I had one of those ‘Yes!’ moments, a moment when I did a happy dance and thought, ‘Wow, she grew up – we made it – how good is that?!’

It was enormous fun to help her in small (and unobtrusive) ways: with the move, by buying some bits & pieces for her kitchen and by dropping off a banana loaf (or whatever baking I felt in the mood for) every now and then. Share houses being generally notoriously random in the pantry department, both she and her two housemates always received these deliveries with enthusiasm and rather raptor-like self-interest 😛

She moved house once or twice after that first share house – including going to the UK for a while, then to Melbourne – before settling back in Perth and putting down some more permanent roots with a partner. For the past few years they’ve been developing a small acreage about an hour out of the city, digging swales, planting trees, improving the soil, camping out occasionally and, finally, building a house.

This last element has been a stressful journey for them, with many building and bank complications along the way. For a variety of reasons they ended up moving in with us for a few months whilst the house was being completed. This meant that our house of two plus dog(1) & chickens(2), became a house of four plus dog(1), kittens(3), chickens(6) & quail(3) for most of 2015. Quite the little menagerie, really.

This weekend the move to their new house finally happened. They’d already spent a week or so unpacking all their furniture from storage and on Friday they hired a truck to move the many (many!) pot plants and assorted paraphernalia from our house to theirs. After a good night’s sleep (here) and some final packing, they loaded up the kittens (now almost full grown) and headed for home.

It was a great feeling to wave them goodbye, knowing that the next stage of their dream can finally start to take shape. There’ll be days of unpacking and settling in, followed by days of planting and building. But there’ll also be many evenings of simply sitting on their verandah and kicking back – just enjoying being at home in their own home at last.

As a mum, I couldn’t ask for more. But I must admit to a little lurch of my heart when daughter-dearest brought her adorable kittens in one by one to say goodbye to me. Our cat free, guest-free, quail and chicken-free life will seem just that little bit more ordinary and pale for a while. I’ll miss them – all of them… (well, perhaps not the very noisy chickens) … but I look forward to some ‘grandpets’ from SunChaser Ocicats in the not too distant future – and to joining them on their verandah from time to time to share some of that serenity.

Kittehs!

The kittehs in their temp daytime run at our place

Growing things

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I was sitting outside the other day and I noticed just how many passionfruit are hanging on the vines. There are more than many – perhaps even many-many! I’m starting to think along the lines of passionfruit sorbet and pavlova and suchlike and really looking forward to harvesting some of the garden produce. Actually, come to think of it, the plum tree is also pretty laden down with fruit and so is the grapefruit tree and at least one of the olives trees. It’s only a matter of time before we’re knee deep in preserves, pies and chutneys – again.

Little did we know when we planted our first three fruit trees just over a decade ago that we’d end up with our own urban orchard. A quick count tells me that we have somewhere around 20 productive trees or vines: blood orange, calamondin, finger lime, three passionfruit vines, a bay tree (in a half wine barrel) and two grapevines (just planted) at the back. Then our original three: the ruby blood plum, Tahitian lime and pink grapefruit around the side of the house, along with an ornamental(ish) plum (which appears to fertilise the other plum), an olive tree and a blueberry bush. Moving to our (not very large) front garden, we have a black cherry, a lillipilly, two miniature apple trees, another olive and a cumquat. Oh, and a pear tree (also in a half wine barrel) and another bay tree (ditto).

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What were we thinking? Or, more to the point, what was I thinking?! Every time we’ve done any serious work in the garden (redoing reticulation, putting in a small retaining wall, replacing the fish pond), I seem to have  had a rush of blood to the brain and headed off to the local nursery / purveyor of fine fruit trees. Sometimes I just wandered in there to  pick up some essential item relating to the current project… but the outcome is always fairly predictable: we suddenly need to find a space for yet another fruit tree!

Since we also have three raised garden beds for growing vegetables – and since I find seed propagation only intermittently successful, this also requires the occasional stop to select seedlings and, since I’m there…

I guess some people shop for yet another pair of natty high heels, others for that perfect piece of jewellery or technology… my weakness appears to be plants, specifically fruit trees. As long as I don’t go near the nursery section of the local hardware store or – even worse – happen to stop in at the more well stocked nursery, conveniently on my way home from work (if I take the long way home), then all is well.

So what is it about gardening, about planting a tree and watching it grow and, in time, become productive that has such appeal? Part of it is that work/home life tend to be busy, time is perennially at a premium and stress piggybacks all too easily on top of all that. So I find it relaxing to actively take time to potter around in the garden, to plant and trim, prune and mulch. The simple acts of watering the veggie garden and picking and eating a cherry tomato while I do so, of throwing the windfall fruit to the chickens and of noticing how much things grow day by day – these are amongst my meditative practices. They replenish my chi and make my world a better place.

Raptor domesticus?

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Over the past six months or so I’ve become quite accustomed to the sights and sounds (and even the smells) associated with keeping a couple of backyard chickens. I’ve definitely grown used to the idea of fresh fresh eggs every day and feel quite the urban farmer when I present half a dozen of them to friends or family. There’s that odd little surge of happy as I hand them over, almost as though I (and not the backyard chooks) have laid them 🙂

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Despite all of this, it’s taken me a while to get my head around some aspects of chicken-wrangling, specifically actually handling them. Birds have never been my thing – I’m more of a dogs person and have always viewed birds as best admired from a distance. They flap – and have beaks – and beady little eyes.

However, since I do want these chooks to have a happy-chicken-life, I generally let them out of their run every day. In theory, this means that they’ll sally forth and forage merrily in the garden, eating bugs and slugs and fertilising as they go. But, sadly, this is not the case. It turns out that chickens are not overburdened with intellect and ‘sally forth’ is not part of their avian mindset. This means that they need some encouragement in the sallying department and, as my methods tend to be forthright, this was initially along the lines of herding them with a garden broom. Not super successful, I must confess, as it resulted in panicked chickens making a run for their hutch and huddling in a corner muttering and clucking nervously to themselves.

Plan B was no more successful, as it was really a variation of Plan A: I trapped them OUTside their hutch and herded them with the broom. They ran in all directions and clucked like, well, panicked chickens, really.

On to Plan C. It turns out that the best way to get them to go where I want them is to don a pair of gardening gloves, manoeuvre the chickens into their hutch, then grab them (gently) – one at a time – and pop them down in the appropriate garden bed. This has to be done quite quickly, otherwise there is more of the wild clucking and running around in a panicky sort of way. By the chickens, not me – although there have been moments…

I’ve now done this  twice – and do feel rather proud of myself for having conquered this key component of chicken-wrangling successfully.

So it was slightly startling to look out of my study window this afternoon and find two sets of beady little eyes checking me out. It’s a bit creepy to realise that they know where I live… and hunted me down… and then lurked their making their ‘I’ve found something tasty to eat’ cooing noises. Backyard chooks… or backyard raptors…?

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