The best hen ever to hatch!

Vera was a little chick.

She took life in her stride.

Rejected by a broody chook,

She was reared inside.

Vera and her sisters,

Attended sex-ed classes,

She wasn't phased at all,

when discovering eggs came out of arses!

Our Vera was not modest,

As these pictures show.

She aired her fanny on the internet.

Is that a camel toe?

Vera was a chook with style,

Her feathers fairly glowed,

Ginger was her favourite colour,

She wore it where'er she goed.

She was a friendly, confident girl,

Assured of her sexual charms,

She chatted up the roosters,

And had them eating out of her palms.

Always at the gardener's heel,

Pecking at a calf.

No one could ignore this girl

She never did things by half.

One recent moonlit night,

She met her foxy match*

But she will never be forgotten,

Vera, the best hen, to ever hatch!

*Vera wasn't the only one.  We also lost half of the adolescents from the clutch of 15 hatched a few weeks ago, and Zorro the rooster.  Going by the amount of grey feathers, Zorro put in a valiant effort to fight off the fox, but sadly failed. 

Ugly duckling?

The Gang of Fifteen, 

are now mixing it with the big girls.  

They are fending for themselves

and their mother has resigned from her position.

 

Fourteen have enough feathers,

to look like miniature chooks now.

Then there is the ugly chickling.

I thought it might just have been a day or two

behind its siblings. 

But the difference is greater than that.

It is much smaller and its feathering is poor.

Maybe this is what comes of your mother

reproducing with your grandfather. 

'I'm a swan, I tell you...A SWAN!'

Size doesn't matter.

Well, that is something I have been told.  

Not sure if I believe it or not.

Check out this whopper which weighed in at exactly 100 grams.

Now, I know you are all wanting to know

whether it lived up to expectations.

Well, you are asking the wrong person.

However, being the voyeur I am, I can tell you

what I overheard and saw.

There were oooohs and aaahs of pleasure from the kitchen

as the comely cook's tiny hands fondled the giant. 

Her face was slightly flushed...radiant,

her mouth partly open as she hefted the big fella...

weighing, considering, contemplating.

There was a momentary flicker of fear in her eyes as she

comprehended its prodigious girth.

then a smug smile of anticipated pleasure.

Her breathing became shallow

and her pert little bosoms heaved...

up and down, up and down.

Taking the monster in both her hands she beat it gently,

against the edge of the frypan.

She inserted her two thumbs into the crack

and prised it apart with her deft,

and experienced fingers.

As the life-giving contents were released,

somewhat prematurely,

the cook threw back her head, 

eyes closed 

and cried out,

"Wash your hands, dinner will be ready soon."

Yep!  It was a double yolker...so twice the fun!

Who needs fifty shades of grey anyway,

when you can have so many shades of eggshell?

More 'Mother' stuff

Check out how many legs this hen appears to have!

She makes that certain purring cluck and they all huddle for a bit of warmth.

Now they are getting bigger, she has a bit of trouble accommodating them...

hence the one on top.

There are fifteen (one died) and their mother, 

like most hens, is an outstanding mother.

She controls them all by a range of clucks and calls.

She protects them from the cats and the weather

and takes lessons in foraging.

The other hen, who was sitting on a clutch of 21 eggs,

disappeared.  I think Mr Foxy may have come in the night.

When Bubbas become Mummas

I know there are a few readers out there in Blogland who have been hanging out for some goat antics.  Remember last year (about this time) Bubba and Bazza took a little holiday on the farm from whence they came...while I took a trip overseas.  Well, when I came back I realised how easy life was without them...sooooo, they never came back.

It isn't a sad story though.  We have been to visit a few times - not that they could care less.  They are happy members of a large herd.  Even though Bazza is a wether (i.e. had his nuts off  - to put it crudely), Rob the farmer loves him enough to keep him. He says he is so 'humanised'...I wonder why?

Bubba turned out to be a bit of a tart and recently gave birth to twins.  One of which she unceremoniously dropped in a puddle.  When Rob found him, he was still alive but didn't survive.  His brother is a whopper. He may be sold for meat at some stage (sad face) or he may be sold on for breeding as he has good 'milking genes' (happy face).  Rob is waiting a little longer before he decides.

Bubba's bubba.

How can something so cute an innocent be the cause of so much trouble and heartache.

Remember the burglary at Hazel's?

Or the Stairway to Heaven escapade?

Ah....the perpetrators may be gone, but the memories linger on!

H E L P !

This morning, I heard a knock at the door.

But... it wasn't a knock...

it was a peck!

 I am being held captive 

by a flock of feral chooks!

Even Claude the cat is intimidated.

If you don't hear from me for a while,

send in the Chook Busters!

The horror of sweet sixteen

Not fifteen, but sixteen little chicks

(though you can only see fifteen in the photo).

Mum does not have a name

as she is one of the six or so identical girls,

fathered by the Plymouth Rock rooster.

Mum # 2 (another of the unnamed six)

was off the nest when I checked today.

I counted 19 eggs.

That makes a possibility of 35 chicks.

Half of which will likely be roosters.

The whole flock has gone feral.

I can't find any eggs - again.

So presumably, they are laying

another clutch somewhere

for one of them to incubate.

I will have to put on my detective hat again.

If they are let go, Alfred Hitchcock

may be tempted to rise from his grave

to make the movie:

CHOOKS!

More Chook Maths

You can probably tell by the knowing look in Hortense's eye

that  she has hatched her eggs...seven little chicks.

So, to the maths:

21 chooks + 7 new chicks = 28

28 - 4 Araucana roosters that went to the farm = 24

24 - Zorro* = 23

*Zorro - the araucana rooster that is going to live with Phoebe at Ballynoe Cottage

The boys weren't too excited about going to the farm.

Here are Jenny's chicks, there are 4 of them.

They are 8 weeks old and independent now.

I am loving this one...it looks like an adult but is only tiny as yet.
Betcha it's a rooster...the only white one in the batch.

 That makes 11 chicks/teenagers all up.

So that will be another 5 or 6 roosters to deal with.

I do wish we had the stomach for killing them.

It is such a waste giving them away.

That will  leave about 16 or 17 hens 

in Rocky's harem.

Twenty-four and counting!

Hortense has hatched out three chicks today

and when I hold the other four eggs to my ear

I can hear scratching!

So that makes twenty-four fowls...with more likely any moment.

Mmmm!  Some little roosters are going to have move out.

Garlic Chicken

I didn't have time to plait my garlic properly because of my sudden trip in December.  It was harvested but I wanted it to dry out a little before I braided it.  Isn't it beautiful!

These are the rejects...broken, small...inferior.

Rejected but not wasted.

Mushed up in the food processor,

bagged up  in 12 portions

and frozen.

One a month will be thawed

and fed to the chickens.

Great for general health

and a natural worm treatment.

See...they love it.

Today I mixed it with some breakfast cereal.

Weetbix and garlic, anyone?

These are the lavender Araucanas.

I think (think!) there are five hens and three roosters.

All of these photos are mainly of one bird

which I think is a rooster.

His tail is longer and droopier.

I think I know someone who would love him.

Araucanas, I have found, make the strangest noises.

They cluck like the other chooks sometimes,

but at other times make a call more like a turkey.

Definitely a bit of a gobble 

and they have deep voices.

The big girls loved their 'medicine' too.

Heather even had her's off the spoon.

Spoiled!

Fat Fruit Friday #10 - The Tardis

Something you may not have known 

about the Fat Fruit Greenhouse.

Just like the Tardis it is much bigger inside than it appears.

Incorporated in one side, 
is a chicken coop!

The nest box opens from the top for easy egg retrieval.

The whole door (with the nestbox attached) swings out

for easy cleaning.

There is mesh above and below the nest box for ventilation.

At first I was a little worried 

about the heat factor inside the coop.  

But I have been monitoring that with a thermometer

and am very happy that the ventilation works well.

It is ideal for Jenny and her babes.

It would take three or four hens if you were using it as a night coop

and had the door open during the day to allow them to free-range.

In this view from the side you can see that it is a triangular prism.

Daniel is going to make benches with one shelf at the top so,

from now on, the coops will be square in profile.

Can you see the marine ply, on top of the coop, under the shelves?

In the winter these panels come out and there is

a mesh panel to keep the chooks out of the greenhouse.

(You can see this in the second/middle photo)

Two of the panels fit exactly in the grills on the door,

above and below the nest box.

In the colder weather, the chickens are protected from the draught

AND

the warmth from their bodies will help to even out the temperature

in the greenhouse on cold nights. 

Now, isn't that clever!

Fact: Chickens' body temperatures range between 39.8C and 43.6C.

We're all going on a Summer Holiday...

Who's going on a holiday?

'Hey Sis, if we cover our eyes with our ears, 

we won't have to watch the world whizzing by!'

At the Goat Resort.

Also known as 

'The Farm Where We Were Born'.  

'Hey, waddaya mean? You'll see us in a month?  

Come back, you humans!'

Rob, the man who sold us the goats was,

thank goodness, very happy

to have them back while I am away.

He muttered something about

having to keep Bubba away from the boar.

I hope he is successful,

that's all we need...

another goat...

or two or three!

Poor sooky Bazza, bleated miserably,

as we drove away.

It bought a tear to The Cook's eye...

but not to mine!

I am hoping to fix the fences

when I come back...before

they come back!

The bearded woman

I'm sorry little chick,

but araucanas are funny looking!

Who ever heard of a bearded chook?

Or are you a rooster?

I suppose you could always get a job in a circus

as the bearded woman (if you are a hen).

Otherwise, chip chop, in the pot!

Now you will notice that is two posts about

cooking roosters...

but I will never be able to do it!

I'm too chicken!

Tra, la la la la

..la la la,

I'm just like My Daddy, Rocky!

Look at my lovely wing feathers,

Tra la la la la,

They are coming through black and white

just like My Daddy, Rocky's.

Whaddayamean?  

If I am too much like My Daddy Rocky, 

you are going to cook and eat me?