jules make sure the rabbits have no opportunity to eat the hen food.i gave my yepdaughter some bantams and they put nthem in with the rabbits.every rabbit died,pen had to be sprayed and left for 3 months before more could be put in.meat products in hen food gives rabbits a deadly virus
jules.,
Apr 30, 9:31pm
yesterday i heard a lot of clucking.someone just layed an egg. i knew some were still laying but i couldnt find where(of course the hen house is too good for them and easy for me). so when i heard the noise i rushed out, i saw 1 girl come from behind our flax bushes, i poked my head in to find a nest of 19 eggs! 2 of our girls have been laying in there. i dont think they are more that a couple of weeks old, but will be cracking them in seperate dishes before using them! little beggers are out to try me im sure :)
purplegoanna,
Apr 30, 11:08pm
lol thats what the inlaws hens are doing, couldnt find the egss anywhere until we saw them jump onto the tree branch climb out of the run, lay the egg in the compost bin corner then go back into the run, we've replaced the real eggs with fake ones so they keep going back to the same place.if you cant beat em.steal them!
jules.,
May 1, 4:52am
oh crap mothergoose, have on occasion given the rabbit a bit of warm chook mash while feeding the chooks, he wasnt too keen on it so havnt done it for a while. however, wont be doing it again either. thanks for the tip.
peter148,
May 1, 9:38am
yeah i found 19 eggs in a car tire lying on the ground at the other end of the Chooks run, after I bought them.A car tire is an excellent thing to attract a chicken to lay eggs in, if they do not want to lay in your nesting box.The other thing they will lay in is a shrub similar to a flax.They will hollow out the inside to make room to sit and lay their eggs.If you do not find them every day then the hedgehogs will take them very quickly.
jules.,
May 2, 3:11am
all very interesting! i think i will try the tyre nest, they do my head in, they find these secret spots and i cant for the life of me find them 1/2 the time. but now i have taken all the eggs, they havnt laid in there for the past 2 days, i know where it is so its not good enough for them now, grrrrr. my neighbour was cutting back her rambling grapevine and 2 her surprise found a nest of 10 eggs, but i think they had been there for a while by the look of them. it certainly is good excercise though, crouching, squeezing into tight spots, sometimes i feel im doing the limbo to get to the eggs. they have lovely big straw filled nesting boxes in the house but they see that as too easy for me so they wont use them :(hopefully they will like the idea of the tyres, i will get a few and place them around the place and see what happens. thanks for the tip :)
jules.,
May 6, 1:34am
Our big blue orpington rooster, Cletis, is off to a new home on a farm on Saturday. No more early morning wakeup calls. Well hes very good really, he doesnt start till around 7am, but we cant keep him as we are in city limits. The kids are a bit sad, hes so beautiful!
jules.,
May 8, 5:56am
well cletis has gone to his new home. i then discovered that anne is actually a roo too, didnt realise untill i saw 'her' next to her brother today. hubby kept telling me, but i wanted so bad for him to be a girl i wouldnt see it till today :(so now have another 1 to go to a new home.
oh and all 19 eggs were good, they went into a bacon and egg pie and filo pie with egg, chicken, bacon, spinich, mushroom etc, YUM!
purplegoanna,
May 9, 5:35am
I FOUND AN EGG!henny penny my only current layer stopped about a month ago due to the moult and now today theres a elongated egg in the run (cause meany mummy locks them out of the house on fine days). i dont know who laid it though. ive got 2 LS due to lay (a while ago! grr) and ole HP so i cant fathom who it belongs to but hubby was most impressed.he dosnt like store bought eggs anymore.he profoundly told me when i showed him my discovery.ill wait with anticipation to see if im gifted another tomorrow
purplegoanna,
May 9, 5:51pm
ok its my SLW drucilla thats laying.i just heard a huge commotion and went racing around to find her standing outside the hen house clucking her lungs out announcing shed just laid another wee egg.about time too shes about 2-3mths overdue from her expected begin laying date! lol
jules.,
May 10, 2:34am
well done drucilla! we are getting about 4 eggs every few days, Ive stopped looking everyday now. as for the lot who have changed their nesting place AGAIN, i have not found the new nest yet, but when i do i will leave a couple of eggs this time rather than take the whole lot and see if they stay in the same place this time.
jules.,
May 10, 3:59am
bump. back to the top
koru_designs,
May 11, 12:20am
Re #237 Biggest consideration is your council's bylaws.they might have specs regarding how far away from boundaries or dwellings you can have coops, numbers you can keep, etc. I live in suburban Melbourne & our only bylaw is regarding noise - if someone complains, they may get removed (so I don't keep roosters) but other Councils are a lot stricter. Then you have to decide on breed. We keep Pekins - they're a bantam & are perfect for backyards.they don't dig up your garden (because of their feathered feet, they just scratch), they're very friendly, we haven't had any fly over the fence yet (they can fly but mine don't seem too interested) & they're reasonably good layers.
koru_designs,
May 11, 12:20am
cont. Then you need to decide if you'll 100% free range, use a chook tractor (movable coop) or have an enclosed run. We let ours free range over the entire garden, so the main coop has no run but if you want to keep them contained for all or part of the day, you might want to consider building them an enclosed run (make sure they have a decent amount of space). There are lots of design ideas on the net.have a look at http://forum.backyardpoultry.com/viewforum.php!f=8 for some good ideas. As for other pets.we have a cat & she's more afraid of the chooks than they are of her - they beat her into submission pretty quickly (they're usually pretty good at taking care of themselves). But some dogs can take an unhealthy approach to sharing space with a chook & attack them. It's really down to your animals' personality.
koru_designs,
May 11, 12:23am
oh.& as for neighbours. Ours didn't even realise they were there until they looked out the window one day& into our backyard. Both our neighbours love our girls.they don't make enough noise to irritate the neighbours or anything :)
jules.,
May 14, 3:32am
my chooks sleep in the fiejoa trees, they wont sleep in the house my husband built, do you think they will be ok thru winter out in the cold! i had thought about building them another house to see if it made any difference.
Jules - mine are forever hidding their eggs from me, the little sneaks!I get a glass/beaker and half fill it with cold water and pop each egg in and see if it sinks.If it sinks immediately then it's really fresh, if it sort of bounces but still sinks then it's slightly older.bin any that float because they are definately off!
koru_designs,
May 16, 10:45am
Have you tried physically moving them into the coop after dark! It'll take a few days (maybe a week) but they should get the idea eventually. You could also try only feeding them in the coop to encourage them to go in there (make sure you put them in there & show them the food so they know it's there). If worst comes to worst & you can't get them to go into the coop, they'll probably be ok outside.I wouldn't think it gets so cold in Whangarei that they're at risk of dying from the cold (after all, it's what they do naturally & they have a big feather duvet on their backs!). I'd be more concerned about potential attack (eg stray dog or cat). Do they go into the coop to lay! Or do they lay out in the garden! Because if they have a coop they use regularly, they're more likely to lay there - much better than finding rotten eggs lying round outside.
jules.,
May 17, 1:29am
thanks for all the ideas. not so easy to get them out of the trees, most of them sleep up quite high. most of them normally lay in the nesting boxes when they are laying, only one likes to lay elsewhere. although, i thought she had stopped laying, but then found a weeks worth of eggs in the nesting box of all places, she must have decided while its been raining they really arnt so bad to lay in after all. but then again, today she found a 'better'new spot in the garden today. argh, i just cant win. just as long as they wont get too cold over winter, but if they get more feathers to keep warm they should be ok. and im sure if they get sick of the rain they will go into thier house.
lhsheps,
May 18, 5:56pm
I was wondering when it starts getting cold and frosty can I give my chickens warm porridge. I also have some linseed's can I make a linsed tea for them and add this to the porridge!
jules.,
May 21, 4:38am
brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr its a cold one tonight. hows everyone doing with all the terrible weather at the moment! hope all the babies are tucked up nice and warm. best of luck to all those that have been effected by the floods and snow etc.
jules.,
May 22, 4:53pm
thanks for that redrustie, i have heard of that before but was unsure how it really worked so i will keep it in mind next time.
lhsheps-i give mine mash in the winter, just mix it to a porridge like state with some warm water, they love it. i give mine the kids left over porridge, but dont know how good it would be for them every meal in bulk, maybe someone else will come along and give some advice.
jules.,
May 24, 5:15am
anyone need a couple of roos! much to the kids dissapointment we have to finally get rid of 'peggy and cleo'. peggy crowed at the crack of dawn this morning, so much for the sleep in :)
jules.,
May 28, 2:24am
my daughters topic at school at the moment is 'town and country', so we are taking the 2 youngest chooks to school tomorrow for show and tell. shes so excited. we chose the younger ones as they are the ones most used to being handled and picked up. hope they dont get too worried with all the kids :)
Since the public registrations are closed, you must have an invite from a current member to be able to register and post in this thread.
Have an account? Login here.