Blue Tamago

Yesterday we made the decision to have a hormone implanted into Spot. This decision was made because she had very thin, wrinkly shelled eggs that no amount of calcium supplementation was able to fix. Spot ran the risk of having an egg break inside of her during laying, which could lead to a fatal infection.  I had heard of a hormone implant that would stop her from laying eggs, which would allow her body to recover (she has pretty much laid non stop for about 2.5 years). With a vet examining her eggs and confirming that she would benefit with the implant, we went ahead. I had posed this question on the Chicken Instagram community and received a lot of questions about it. So I thought I would share what I have learned and the vet's comments. What is Suprelorin? Suprelorin is the trade name given to the hormone implant. Proud to say that this implant is an Australian invention! Manufactured by Peptech Animal Health in NSW, the patent was granted in 2002. Looking through the p...

So on some chicken forums I've heard that people are using Ivermectin "off-label" to treat their poultry for parasites (such as mites and lice) and they recommend an egg witholding period of 7 days. It's off-label as there have been very few studies looking at the metabolism of this drug through avians. In December last year, there has been one scientific study done on Ivermectin and poultry. So is there a clear answer to it's safety in poultry and more importantly, how long before you can eat the eggs?

There is this idea going around that egg yolks from bantam chickens are the same size as yolks from normal sized chickens (actually, someone on Instagram asked me to find out). I have to say, the first time we cracked our bantam's egg, we thought the yolk looked the same size as our normal laying hens egg. So just to prove this point, I did a bit of literature research. So is it true, bantam yolks are the same size as normal yolks?

"Pant pant. It's sooo hot!" We are sitting through this heatwave and waiting for it to pass with agonizing slowness. We've been sweltering through 4 days of over 40C with a final trump card from nature delivered to us today. Each time I look at the weather forecast, the top temperature for today has been hiked UP. It's currently going to have a top of 44C with a cool change predicted for late afternoon. We've pretty much been lying under the fan all day (we don't have A/C in the house) but for our chickens, we've hatched out new cooling strategies.

Yeah, yeah, I know, a pretty horrific picture for our two ladies! (Plus I've stopped eating chicken now, can't stand the guilt when I see my little ones). Anyway, onto the point of this post...

It's time to celebrate! Our little Goldilocks is now a young lady! Hmm..is it me or do Pekins have this perpetual terrified or startled look?  Anyway, I digress... Looked into the nest box and found a little egg amongst the Leghorn and Maran eggs.

More breakfasts I have served my chickens! To start off with, a fruit salad, nectarines and strawberries. Looks absolutely yummy right? My chickens didn't think so, ignored it completely. Maybe it wasn't sweet enough?

Chocolate colour eggs from our lovely Maran chicken. The dark colour improved over the next few days, starting with a lighter brown egg (right) with dark speckles to a deep milk chocolate colour (left).

This morning we saw Buffy having a dust bath with Spot and Goldilocks. Boy were they loving it! Buffy was even falling asleep. It must be therapeutic for them, like a spa day, and it's always more fun when others join in. I've read that chickens have dust baths to keep the population of lice and mites down. Being winter, a dry area anywhere is a bit hard to find, but I tried to provide one for Buffy's run.

Came home from work last night to find this in the nest box! One of our French Marans has laid her very first egg! Now the question is, which one laid the egg? Chocolat or Fromage?

Penguin looking very relaxed during his morning cuddle Brrrr....I thought last year was cold, but up in the Hills, it's even colder! So what do you do when it is cold? CUDDLE YOUR CHICKEN!!!!

Aaah, autumn, that's when the leaves start turning, the air is clear and crisp right? Well, all I'm thinking about now is that it's friggin freezing. Seriously, it's only the end of April and we're get sub 10 degree temps already? And what is with this freezing arctic wind? This morning in the coop, 6.2 degrees and the inside of the coop was dripping with condensation, despite the ventilation. Mind you, the bedroom in the house wasn't much better, 8 degrees and the windows were dripping with condensation. Makes me wonder what winter will have in store for us. Penguin and I have a morning ritual. I give them their treats/breakfast for the day, (today was raisin toast) and he gets a cuddle and preen. He falls asleep during his cuddle and gets nice and warm while my toes in the wellies loose all sensation and freeze. I still feel rather amazed that Penguin trusts me so much that he'll fall fast asleep in my arms. None of the other hens tolerate...

You know when it's cold when you go out to greet your chickens in the morning and you get a chicken wanting to be picked up and cuddled. Buffy decided that being held by a warm human was such a good idea that he really snuggled down. His rested his head back to such an extent that he was having trouble breathing! No thanks at all to the human holding him, shielding him from the wind -__- This made me realise that I had better start preparing their coops for winter. I've read on many forums that chickens can brave sub-zero temperatures and they will be fine in the much milder Adelaide winters. But it's hard to think that when you go out in the morning, it's 7 degrees and Penguin and Buffy both want to be picked up because they are shivering. These are a few things that I did to keep their coops warmer at night.

As the days start rolling towards winter, daylight hours get shorter. For our chickens, this means more time in their run and supervised less free-range time outside their runs. I know that when winter is here, I'll be driving home from work in the dark and I won't be able to let them roam around outside after work. So we started thinking of several environment enrichment options. 

Ever since Ash's demise, we've been on a mission to predator proof the chicken runs as much as possible. For us, this meant fully enclosing the run. We had two choices, use bird netting over the top or chicken mesh. As we had no idea what took Ash, we decided on the the mesh.

Checked the chickens in the morning, all was fine, gave them their treats, cleaned up their poo etc. etc. Came home to find a headless chicken. RIP little Ash.

Adelaide managed to swelter through another hot weekend. This time with both days over 40 degrees. It was so hot even a kangaroo decided to take shelter in our shade house.

Adelaide is due for another heatwave and today the temperature is forecast to be 41 degrees! Chicken owners all know the signs of heat stress, wings out from the body and panting.  When there is a heatwave forecast, these are the things I do to try and prevent my chickens from getting heat stress, like poor Penguin above panting in the heat.

I had a tight deadline to get Buffy's coop finished as I was due to head interstate for work for a week. It would have been too much for one person to look after the animals in three different locations, Buffy in his bachelor cage (since he fights with Penguin), Penguin with his hens and the chicks in their two different cages.

Since Buffy and Penguin absolutely hate each other we had to build a new coop and a run to keep the two separated. Buffy will have a cohort of hens and Penguin will keep the Araucanas. Just before Christmas, the fencing was started and the area for the run marked out. It's actually larger than the current one, but just devoid of much vegetation. Trench digging and laying out a skirt is a must. Foxes are in the area and notorious for digging through fencing. We could have spent about $1000 for a brand new coop, but I had mainly pallets and other scrap material. This way, I could tailor the coop to the space (slightly slopey and under a tree), plus it is significantly cheaper. Had to mark out the base and get them level. First wall is up. Not long after, the second section went up too. The second section included the space for the chicken door and a window. They were kept up by bracing until I could get the proper frame up. Unfortunately, we had a rain and wind ...