yes i dont know what to do with my wanderers! miley is LOVELY, but i can not have the front do open as she will come in , eat the cat food and then wander in further to see what we are doing. i also have to have a baracade up on the deck to stop her coming in there too. a few of the others get out aswell, but they are happy to roam the section. a friend had a wanderer too, she got an old pair of stockings and tied it round the hens leg and tied it to a large stake for a few days so she learnt she couldnt go too far, and now all is well :) they are lovely, but they are SUCH a pest! hehe
popelka1,
Dec 13, 4:42pm
If you can find an out of business milk man grab his plastic milk crates, they are the perfect size for stacking in rows and laying straw in for your chooks to sleep/lay in.
purplegoanna,
Dec 16, 3:53am
woop woop.my hennys back laying again.and if im correct my other teen LS hen drucilla has layed her first egg too.i though henny may have gone of the lay for good but someone said try a plate of porridge, so i made up a bowl of porridge with bee pollen and eggshell grit and it worked!.oh and i have a new use for my incubator when not being used for eggs.its drying all my garden herbs ready for storing dryed in jars over winter! im currently drying my marigold leaves for my calendula balm for xmas pressies.it works a treat.
bev00,
Dec 18, 9:56pm
keeping alive for chookie raisers
aeromo,
Dec 18, 11:56pm
I am thinking of gettingchooks again The eggs were lovely and at the moment I am paying a lot for free range. I am a softie though and sometimes ya have to cull. When breeding, roosters seem to abound and I never met a rooster I liked. One pecked the eye out of my fav old chook. Nasty aholes that like to get rid of the old gals so they can mate with the young'ns.
aeromo,
Dec 18, 11:58pm
One of my girls got eggbound and I sat her over a bowl of steaming water at the vets advice. She did come right but it took a while. And then they can get flyblown and have to be put down.
akl439,
Dec 19, 7:47pm
How do you know if they've got mites! My three are freerange and all look quite happy and healthy, but how do you know if they actually have mites!
pandaeye,
Dec 19, 9:30pm
wait till it's dark, shine a bright torchlight on their perches/ coop, if you see some tiny black dots, squeeze it, if it bled, red mites. They don't live on the birds, but around their housing.
tarawera99,
Dec 20, 4:15pm
Tinart - there is a lady in Lichfield just south of Putaruru who sells free range shavers past their first season, usually for about $5 each.I bought 5 and they were great layers for another year or 2.
One of them even lay an egg on the trip home!The place is on your right hand side past the timber museum.
babyluthi,
Dec 20, 4:26pm
Our chickens We had bantham chickens years ago, they lived their lives out raoming through paddocks and used to (for the most part) come into their hen house at sunset.Occassionally they would roost (yest roost) up in the macrocarpa hedges that were around us.They were uber friendly and whenever we pulled up the the car some of them would jump over the fence and run up to us and stomp their feet.This was how they would ask to be picked up.Excellent chookies they were.They laid eggs in the nesting boxes we provided in their hen house or some of them would lay under the hedges.My daughter was little at the time and she would go egg searching.They would follow her around like she was the pied piper.We never had a rooster and we never had babies:)We fed them some grain and leftovers and of course they grazed on the land.Best chooks out!:)
jules.,
Dec 23, 3:45am
bump for christmas!
cleverdicky,
Dec 23, 3:16pm
New Hampshire chooks Does anybody know where I can buy some young New Hampshire chooks for my new free range set-up in Dunedin or something similar.
tractor9,
Dec 26, 9:49pm
How do you know if your chicken is eggbound ! One of my girls has been a bit "off colour" - still alert, but does not move around too much,but when she does, it's quite slow. Still drinking, but off her food a bit. Has runny poos, so I've had to wash her bottom every couple of days(been a bit worried about her getting flyblown)I visited a vet - she did not accompany me - and he said it is old age. At three and a half - four years old! This condition happened quite suddenly (overnite) and I initially thought she had eaten something. Started about two weeks ago. HELP! Thanks.
jules.,
Dec 27, 6:51pm
chooks can live for longer than that, but for some breeds that is old. what breed is she! sounds more like old age than anything else. have they been wormed lately! one of my old girls (4 1/2) was doing just that a few months ago, she just got slower and slower, she couldnt jump up to roost, then she couldnt even get in the nesting boxes on the house floor, so i took her to the vet and had her put down. sad but better for her!
tractor9,
Dec 28, 1:58am
Thanks for answering jules. She is a shaver hen and I have been putting cider vinegar in the girls drinking water for the past couple of days for worms. I just thought it was strange that the condition happenedso quickly. I sat her in a bath of warm water today hoping that it might relax her to pass any possible blockage. She seemed to really enjoy it! It perked her up a bit and her feathered friends spent a while helping to preen her feathers when she got out of the bath. I'll try this again over the next couple of days while the weather is hot and see what happens.
sooseque,
Dec 28, 3:50am
Chicken experts please, my handsome Black Orpington rooster died on Christmas day, he was 8 months old. For the last week he was subdued and not crowing, tail feathers down, all the hens are fine.
evenmore,
Dec 30, 3:43pm
bump for cleverdicky New Hampshire question.!
beaker59,
Dec 30, 7:02pm
Possibly a rat or two getting the eggs if they only dissapear at night.
pandaeye,
Dec 30, 7:10pm
it's a chook. darken your nest boxes by putting some fabric in front. you can usually find the culprit. she'll be the one with sticky feather around the face/ chest. a bit of flour on the box floor will make it even more obvious.
purplegoanna,
Dec 31, 7:33pm
Bumping for bonnyT to find.lots of lovely friendly advice in here.anyways im of on holiday.happy new year everyone.
maryteatowel1,
Jan 19, 2:46am
so you did But step back from the scrub-cutter.your chickens will love you more if you don't do much to their run.our 10x10m run was head height with weeds but we just cleared out any wire and plastic and a couple of months later.well all the weeds have gone.chooks are amazing at clearing their runs. A neighbour saw us about to take the scrub-cutter in when we first moved and told us not to clear it because the chickens will love it and they have!
purplegoanna,
Jan 19, 3:15am
mm the only thing is i cant get to the fenceline to check for holes, this is a bit more than grass! lol, i'll take some snaps when i go down next.its a head height jungle! theres a orange, pear & plum tree in there too.its just crying out saying.clean me up and put some rescue hens in here.one issue though id like to raise the hen house of the ground.hubbys going to see if its a possibility. I was thinking of giving the inside of the house a spray a initial spray with asuntol, it will be a few months at least b4 it gets guests. Apart from chemicals is there any other mixes i could use! vinegar!
gateaux,
Jan 22, 1:43am
An update The 4 chooks we brought home on Sunday have now laid 15 eggs. We can't keep up!
jules.,
Jan 24, 3:41am
bump. .
maryteatowel1,
Jan 24, 4:54pm
purplegoanna .we are organic so we are having to look into what we can spray for mites and lice.although we haven't had any yet.neem oil is what we will start with (only because that is what we use in the garden).read that you can use a mix of vinegar and garlic.but any other suggestions would be good.
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