Settling In

The lady at the hatchery told us to keep the chickens in the coop for two weeks to let them get used to their new surroundings.

It was strange to see four little heads bobbing round in there, but they seemed to settle down quickly and it was relaxing to watch them start to act more secure and settled.

                                        Miss Milligan is still not too sure about this new place...

I'd expected the chickens to automatically roost on the perch, but ours didn't, they spent the night crowed around the pop hole. So DS and I went up every night after dark (risking walking into cobwebs!) to lift them onto the perch.

We discovered that once chickens are holding onto a perch, it's surprisingly hard to shift them, although now I'm thinking about it, if they're perching in a tree in the wild then they'd need to hang on tight on a windy night.

Daisy May was the hardest to get onto the perch and we'd occasionally accidentally bump one of the other chickens while we were trying and they'd wobble but wouldn't fall off. After all, they do have lovely strong toes to grip with.

After about three weeks of going up to the coop every night and putting sleepy chickens on the perch we gave up. If they wanted to sleep crowded around the pop hole, who were we to argue? They obviously knew more about where they wanted to sleep than we did. A friend told me that you need to put younger chickens on the perch or they'll huddle together and suffocate each other, but ours were old enough to not do that.

Happy dreams, girls.

Thank You

September 29 is Police Remembrance Day.

It’s a day where we remember the officers who have lost their lives while on duty or through other circumstances.

It’s also a day to give a smile and say thanks to the officers who are on the beat today.

                                                   Where would we be without them.

The First Night

The hens were about 16 weeks old when we got them from the local hatchery. We took them out of the box and they were nervous. Me too.

They stretched their necks and tried to get a sense of where they were. There was much walking and looking...and when one of them decided she was hungry or thirsty and went to the feeder or drinker, the others decided they were too and rushed over to join her.

That night, we waited for them to go into their ‘bedroom’ and roost on the perch. I had agonised over that perch, reading everything I could about how high off the ground it should be, what it should be made of, if it should be round or square and what diameter. Then, when the coop arrived, it came with a roosting bar with the brackets already on the walls so all we needed to do was to slide it into place. All that agonising for nothing. 

(This bit is really embarrassing.) That first night we waited for them to go up the ramp to roost. But they didn't and I became convinced they didn't know they were suppose to sleep up there, so into the coop I went and lifted them up one by one and poked them through the pop hole. 

The doorway at the top of the ramp is called the 'pop' hole. My best guess is because the chickens 'pop' in and out of it, but I don't really know. 

They didn't appreciate it. One by one they simply scurried back down the ramp.

“That’s it,” I said to Lovely Hubby. “We’ll have to put them up there again and put a cover over the pop hole to keep them in there.” (I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't know anything about chickens.)

Anyway, while poor Lovely Hubby was finding something to block up the hole, the chickens started to make their own way up. Mind you, they kept coming down again, but eventually they made it all the way up and stayed there.

I learned something else about chickens that evening. 

Here They Are

We took the hens our of their travel box and they were...well... a little stunned. All four chooks are in the picture. The two on the ramp are Rhode Island Reds and the black ones are Australorps, one is hiding behind the other. I learned early that chooks don't always co-operate when you're taking photos :)

Here they are, home at last.

and look who was interested...

We Have Chickens!

It was a wet, windy and stormy day when we went to the hatchery. It was a real family affair, with my dad and our older son and his girlfriend coming along.

Dad supplied the box to put them in (and I wondered if it would be big enough for four chickens – I tell you, I knew nothing). Turns out it was plenty big enough as they all huddled and squashed together taking up a fraction of the area. We probably could have fit 20 chickens in the box.

At the hatchery I followed the lady into the chicken area which was surrounded by wire - wire fences, wire roof and a wire door. I was so excited that I forgot the first rule of being in the country and that is that if you see a gate open, leave it open and if you see a gate shut, leave it shut. Luckily Lovely Hubby closed it before there was a mass escape.

The lady caught the hens using a net on a pole, then handed them to me to hold to make sure I was happy with them. Well, never having held a chicken before, I didn't hold one firmly enough and she flew out of my arms and ran back in with the rest of the flock before I even knew what had happened, but the lady was lovely and didn't hit me over the head with the pole.

She needed more patience with me than with the hens.

That's a big box for four little hens

Every other time we've acquired a new pet I've felt confident that it was coming to a good home, but this time I wasn't sure. I’d never had chickens before and I was worried sick about foxes. I was having sleepless nights. Were the hens coming to a good home, or were they coming to be a fox’s dinner?

Ready for the Flock (I Hope)

We put the coop together, lifted it into place then started the job of fox proofing. We get a lot foxes out our way, in fact, the previous week there had been two on our front lawn. Through all the research I knew that we needed to think high and low to make sure the coop was safe.

We ended up putting extra wire out about 18 inches all around the outside of the coop then hammered in about a hundred tent pegs to hold it down. (As I said before, we've been married over 30 years so Lovely Hubby knows better than to argue. It was easier for him to just keep hammering in more tent pegs.)

A fox would have to be pretty nimble to wriggle through that, but I was still worried.

We put an extra lock on the nesting box lid because I’d read that foxes can stand on their hind legs and lift up to 5 kilos of weight.

We also cut an extra door at the back of the coop to make cleaning it out easier and every morning I bless that idea. Our coop came with a pull out shelf for cleaning, but it’s big and awkward and I find this much easier. I can also collect the eggs using this door rather than needing to lift the nesting box lid.

Once we’d used some more chicken wire and sectioned off an extra area of the garden to give the chickadees some extra space to run, flap and peck around in, we were done.

Next weekend we’d get the chickens. 

More to do Before the Family Arrives

Because I’d ordered the coop from Melbourne and we live in Sydney, we had to wait almost two weeks for it to be delivered. I think it was the longest two weeks of my life. I kept checking the shipment details and it kept reading ‘in transit’, which I’m assuming meant it was somewhere between there and here.

Finally the coop arrived safely with the help of a friendly delivery man who told us all about his chickens. It didn't look much like a chicken coop at this stage and we still had to decide where to set it up.

I guess we had more choices than some people because we live on an acre, so I spent ages looking at the different options. I decided to put it close to the shed so that when we sectioned off an extra area of the garden for them, we could use the shed as part of the wall. I wasn’t sure how Lovely Hubby would feel about losing what we called ‘the orchard’ because of the lone orange tree, but luckily he thought it was a good spot for them.  

I didn’t want them too close to the house (council regs forbid that anyway) nor did I want them too far away from the house because that seem unfriendly, and I really wanted to be able to see them easily from inside the house as I think they enhance a garden.

It was only after we’d had the chickens for a while that it dawned on me that it had been a good idea to put the coop near the shed as it was handy to where we stored the buckets, food and all things chooky, but being a chicken beginner, I didn't even think about that at the time.

So, the coop had arrived and the spot chosen. Now all we had to do was to put the plan together.

The Journey Begins

After deciding we’d get some chooks, I spent two weeks on the computer researching chickens. I printed off information and visited libraries finding everything I could about them.

Then Lovely Hubby told me he’d seen a sign on a neighbours’ house advertising a chicken coop for sale. My dad is an old country lad so he came over and we went to have a look. The sign was gone, but because Dad had made the effort to come with me, I thought I’d go in and ask anyway. 

The coop had already been sold (was gone in a day), but the neighbours only sold it because they’d upgraded to a larger one.

That was the day I discovered how nice chicken people are. They introduced me to their girls, let me pat them, answered all my dumb questions and gave me websites and addresses of the best places to source what I needed. I think we talked chickens for hours.

Back home I got onto the computer and that night had decided which coop we should get. I placed the order and we were on our way.

Another little baby chook.

Welcome!

Hi everyone and welcome to my blog.

If you've ever thought about popping a couple (or many) chooks into your backyard, I can tell you how we did it. You might even be able to avoid some of the mistakes I made along the way.

Be warned, though. I had no idea how much I was going to fall in love with our hens; it took me completely by surprise. Mind you, it was one of the nicest surprises I've ever had.

It all started one day when Lovely Hubby said, "Do you want to get some chickens?"

Now, we have been married for over 30 years and that was the first time he had ever suggested getting an animal/creature/insect so of course I jumped at the chance of getting something to love.

So I was flat out saying, "Well, sure, great, fantastic. Yeah, we'll do that." But I was thinking, Chickens?! What do I know about chickens?!

 And that's how it started.

 Here is our friends' gorgeous little baby to admire. I hope this little one turns out to be a hen as I've named her Rosie :)