Tuesday, November 08, 2011

It's Spring already?

Things are busy lately, and I've been slack about letting you know what's happening! We had the builder around who put up a wall and door. It's between the bedroom and loungeroom. I havn't had a chance to take a picture as yet, but I will! (Especially once it's finished and looking nice. Right now it's just plasterboard.)

We've halted renovations for a bit because we've been concentrating on new arrivals!



There are 6 little barnevelder chicks just out of the incubator. :)

They're all happy living with a broody chook outside in the A frame. She's been great with them and looking after them carefully.

Since we have more eggs hatching as I type, we've been working hard getting a new brooder box set up for another broody to look after these next chicks too! We finally finished it today..




It's made almost entirely of scrap materials, and we're really happy with the outcome.

The most expensive item was the mouse mesh we used for the bottom, which was (I think) $50 for the roll. Otherwise, everything else came to around $25 plus screws and the value of the scrap wood and second hand chook wire.
I'm not counting the purchase of the staple gun. :) That was obviously a necessity and will be used for other projects! It did make putting the wire on less of a (painful) chore!

We'll be enjoying a couple of days off now watching houdan chicks hatch and putting another broody hen to work. This time it's Funky's turn. There are also 4 other broody hens that need to be convinced that motherhood isn't for them this time around. Did I say days off? ha!

Until next time.

5 comments:

  1. Great run - what sort of staple gun did you buy? I bought one and it won't even send staples into fresh pine ... useless. A good one would be worth its weight in gold!

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  2. Hi Jo! I got a Tacwise staple gun. It was in the middle pricewise ($50) between the expensive Rapidfire ($100) and the cheap as chips Medalist ($25-ish).
    It went through the hard wood on the extra power setting, using a smaller 8mm staple.

    I think it's my new favourite tool.. :)

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  3. Oh the chicks are so cute! That tractor is EXCELLENT! Perhaps I should make one for my next foray into chick rearing.
    How did you go putting the chicks under their broody mum? I had beginners luck I think - do you have any tips?

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  4. We've only done it twice ourselves. :) I can only recommend what others have said; do it at night, cover the chicks so broody can't see them as they go under, and wake up early the next morning to see if she took them.
    The tractor needs slight adjustment before we can put anyone else in there.
    We had Funky in there overnight and it was rainy and stormy all night. Poor girl had rain on her head!
    We have to make some adjustments to the iron on the roof before we put another broody in. (More of an angled roof.) No rest for the wicked. :)

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  5. In that picture, it looks like you have 4 girls and 2 boys hatch. It all depends on the genes of the original Barnevelder stock, but traditionally, the pale ones tend to be boys and the darker ones girls.

    Lovely chicken collecting you've got happening now. Very exciting. :)

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