Flying the coop ...

While pegging the bottom edge of the wire had thwarted Jo's escape attempts yesterday, it was Judge Judy who did not want to abide by the rules today. 

She is more of a flighty bird and went over the top of the coop - obviously keen to be a law breaker rather than a law enforcer!  Her escapes added some additional excitement to what had already an eventful morning. 


Although Vaughan's right hand was grossly swollen he managed to detain our escapee a few times, largely unaided.  Nick found a solution.  One of our small firewood camping tarps was made into an awning across the coop end of the chook run, so Judge Judy couldn't fly up onto the roof and escape from there. 

It wasn't long after the awning modification that we had our first egg of the morning, Judge Judy's!  We received two others throughout the day, though much later than yesterday.  Vaughan is charting productivity and this afternoon we weighed all six eggs also, just for fun!

What's the buzz?

While at the CERES Harvest Festival on Saturday, we chatted for a while with Lyndon about the bees he had on display. 

He suggested spring as a good time for acquiring a hive.  Not only would the bees be busy then (and more manageable) but we could study beekeeping beforehand.

There were flyers at the stand for classes and Erin collected one, thinking it might be an option for us (given Vaughan's interest in insects and our interest in honey)!  A local beekeeping club runs regular meetings and classes, so I had been looking at those also.  (The same club recently held a Bee Keeping and Honey Festival but we forgot to go)!

All tentative bee-keeping plans have now been put on hold.  Vaughan was stung by a bee yesterday at school.  By home-time his hand had swollen significantly.  Further swelling occurred overnight (in spite of the recommended anti-histamine doses) and we attended a doctor this morning.  She has prescribed anti-biotics and a cortisone fluid.  We are to monitor the hand/arm for colour change or increased swelling - all indicators that a hospital trip is necessary.  Hopefully the medications will have the desired effect and the swelling will have reduced by this evening, though we will return to the doctor tomorrow in any case.

So much for our vague plans of becoming apiarists!  In the circumstances it is probably best we mind our own beeswax - and leave the bees to mind theirs!

Egg-citing Stuff!

Who would have thought four chooks could bring such joy?!

I went into Vaughan's room very early this morning, to tuck his covers around him. We had a bit of a snuggle and he gave me a sleepy kiss, then muttered "we have chooks!" before dozing off again.

When he did get up much later, his first mission was to let the girls out and then he managed a few minutes of cricket-collecting before heading off to school.

Although Vaughan checked for eggs before leaving, there was no action at that stage.  By 10:30am though our girls had laid three eggs - and there was much excited cackling (from us, not them)!  I'm not sure which chook was having an RDO but really today's offerings were a bonus because I wasn't expecting any eggs from our chookies so soon after their arrival.

We left the eggs for Vaughan to collect when he came home from school.  He was so very chuffed to see them!  Given school holidays will soon be upon us, it won't be long before he has the extra excitement of collecting eggs that are newly-laid and still warm.

Nick and I worked in the garden for some of the day.  At one point we wandered down to the mailbox.  We collected two crickets and some slaters on the way back .  Nick seemed to think that if we offered four crickets, they would be shared equally among the girls due to some sort of chook democracy!  Er, no.  It was definitely every chook for herself, though a pecking order is becoming evident.

Scratching the surface ...

Although Hamby Home(in)stead is based on 5 acres, they are certainly not fox-proof and neither do we have a Maremma guard dog to watch over our new acquisitions.

The girls will need to adjust to living on a smaller scale. We already had a townhouse-style chook pen (used as cat accommodation while we were living in the apartment) but wanted to provide a courtyard as roaming area.

Some late-afternoon improvisation was therefore necessary.  We found all that we needed at Bunnings - a 10m roll of chicken wire, four star pickets, a gadget for driving the pickets and some wire clips (with specialised pliers).  Once home again, all helped to create a small fenced area for the girls to scratch about in.  Both it and the chook-house can be moved fairly easily, though further modifications are already being discussed.  

Our chooks enjoyed a few hours of supervised exploration within their courtyard before they were locked in the upstairs section of their townhouse overnight.  Vaughan let them out as his first mission of the day and fed them a few crickets before heading off to school.  One of the girls escaped twice this morning but the bottom edge of the wire is now pegged into place and she hasn't managed any further Houdini stunts!

Kissing Chooks!

Although the Seven Hills Farm site stated they wanted to find "loving" homes for some of their older chickens, I'm sure kissing was not a requirement!  Vaughan has been kissing our new arrivals though and cuddling them also - you just can't get more loving than that! 

Obviously, our chooks have been welcomed with much excitement and are bound to be thoroughly indulged.  Vaughan even caught them crickets as a special treat - and the girls were very appreciative of his efforts!

We had thought that two or three chooks might be a good number for our coop however we were given four, effectively one each for all of us.  At this stage we have named three of our new arrivals - Princess Fiona, Judge Judy and Jo.  By sheer chance, Nick's chook is the fattest.  I have suggested BFC (big, fat chook) as a possible moniker, but he has not yet decided on her name - although Chicken Lickin' was mentioned!

Chook Heaven!

Our weekend definitely had a grow-your-own theme - after Saturday's Harvest Festival, we attended an open day at Seven Hills Organic Farm on Sunday!  The event had been cancelled the previous weekend due to bad weather but we had lovely sunshine for our visit.  It was a brilliant day and one that will be long-remembered! 

We enjoyed all aspects of the tour but without a doubt, the highlight for all of us was seeing the 350+ free-range chooks roaming as they wished, safely confined within the bounds of a 5-acre, fox-proof fence - with additional protection from Joey, the Maremma dog.  What a sight! 

Josh's Rainbow Eggs are sold locally, with 20 dozen collected daily from the happy hens.  As part of our tour, we were able to collect eggs ourselves, from one of the huge "chook tractors" within the fenced enclosure.  Both Erin and Vaughan were equally thrilled by finding warm eggs - in fact, Erin was a little miffed that Vaughan had collected more than his fair share of our carton!  Hopefully their excitement at egg-collecting will continue indefinitely because we were gifted four of Josh's older hens at the end of the day, to enjoy retirement at Hamby Home(in)stead!

Whenever Vaughan sees a group of something en masse, he terms it "... heaven" - and the description was very apt for these chooks.  Not only were there hundreds but they really had a wonderful life, safe from foxes, eagles and crows - free to express their "chicken-ness"!

CERESly Fun!

Yesterday we visited CERES Harvest Festival - such a neat event!  Although our original plan was to spend an hour or so there in the morning and then return later in the day, Saturday city traffic caused some rescheduling. 

By the time our other missions were accomplished and we arrived at CERES Community Environment Park, the free workshops had ended.  Some of the stalls were starting to pack up but even so, there was still plenty to see - and we thoroughly enjoyed looking!

While Erin and I selected some golden carrots (which are yellow, not orange!), Vaughan was very happily feeding honeydew melon to the resident chooks.  A little further along the path, we chatted to a bee-keeper about the life-cycle of bees.  He suggested if we want to keep bees ourselves, it would be best to wait till spring to start the endeavour - as by then the bees would be busy and therefore less interested in us (ie more manageable). 

Vaughan was quite keen to spot the queen bee, which he did without assistance.  Seemingly that particular queen was fairly cranky as were her daughters - though other queens are more sweet-natured.  Interesting stuff!  We purchased a small jar of lovely clear honey, extracted at 11am the previous day.  (Vaughan was keen to know how "fresh" it was)!

We are yet to sample the honey but the golden carrots were part of last night's menu - and now on the list of vegetables that we want to grow ourselves!