Ashley

When we got our Chickens, Debbie and Ashley were only a few weeks old, with Debbie being the smaller one of the two. The journey from then to now, has been a long and hard one for Debbie. Bailey, our white hen, decided that she would pick on Debbie and would relentlessly peck at Debbie until she drew blood.

So we had to remove Bailey and watch Alice with the two younger chicks to see how she treated them. After a few days we reintroduced Bailey back into the chicken coop / run and it was obvious from the outset that Alice was now the top hen and well in control. Bailey did attempt to peck Debbie, but Alice quickly put a stop to it. – The black patch on Debbie’s head is one of the places Bailey pecked relentlessly, until we quickly removed Bailey from the other chickens.

A few days after Bailey was back living amongst the other hens, Debbie suddenly developed a loss of balance and the inability to stand or use her left leg and wing. No matter what we tried or how much we watched the hens, we could not work out why Debbie was suddenly this way.

After much research and attention to Debbie’s needs, we decided to isolate the two younger chicks from the bigger hens and put food and drink within easy access for Debbie, so she did not have to wander so far and try and use her leg / wing.

Slowly but surely, Debbie started to get better, leading us to believe that she had possibly injured her wing and leg. After around a week, Debbie is almost as good as gold. She is back walking on both legs, standing to feed and her wings are both in active use.

We have now allowed the little chicks back out with the bigger hens. We still watch Bailey with the chicks – So far so good, they all seem to be getting along well. Which is great news.

Ah the fun of raising chickens!

We have only had our Bunnies for around a month now, but it is incredible to see how big they have grown. Also along with their growth, has come the development of their own very different and distinctive personalities.

Sooty is more curious than Fluffy, she is the first one up to the door, when you go to play with them or feed them. She is more jumpy and full of life. Where as Fluffy is more cuddly and happier to be held. She always tries to nibble the children’s shoes and loves to follow them around.

Fluffy is obviously ‘fluffier‘ than Sooty and also bigger in size, but still they are both small bunnies and a pleasure to have as members of our family.

Bailey

Alice

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Pinterest – an online Pinboard!

Cats are stealthy,

They’re there one minute,

And then gone the next,

The Egyptians love them,

And so do you,

Their Black and White,

Grey, Brown and Orange,

A variety of colours,

They may sleep a lot,

But they love you,

They sit on your lap,

Purring as you pat them,

They may not be man’s best friend,

But they are a cat lover’s best friend,

- A Poem by Phinee for her Nan

Debbie and Ashley

Well I guess it had to happen. Chickens being renowned for having to establish and maintain their ‘Pecking order’. Bailey, our white chicken, decided that she will be at the top of the ‘pecking’ order and she has become quite aggressive to poor Debbie, who being the smallest chicken is an easy target.

Bailey had started ‘pecking’ Debbie, which we were aware of and watching, but once the ‘pecking’ became quite aggressive and caused injuries, we had to intervene. After a lot of stress and research we learnt that it is best to remove the aggressor away from the other chickens, and then after a number of days reintroduce them once more to the rest of the chickens in the bigger coop.

So with no where to put Bailey, we had to resort to removing the rabbit run from the rabbit cage and putting Bailey into that. The poor bunnies are now without an extended play area. So our need to get this chicken ‘pecking’ under control is paramount.

We also realised that the area we had designated for the chicken probably was not big enough, so had to find a way to extend their run also. So off to Bunnings Tata and Mama went on Monday to buy some chicken wire, posts and anything else we might need to be able to come home and erect a bigger chicken run for our newest editions to our family.

Starting to put the the new Chicken Run

Tata did a lot to help, but this time he was behind the camera taking photo’s not me….

We moved the old dog house (which has been here since we moved in), into the middle of the new chicken run. we were fortunate enough to have some left over fence paint. So Phinee used it to paint the dog kennel into a new are for the chickens use. The lick of paint makes the kennel look a million dollars and a nicer addition to our garden and chicken run.

I did manage to get a picture of Tata hard at work!

It was a very hot day, and took us quite a number of hours to finish the chicken run, but the end result gives the four chickens quite a large chuck of our back yard to enjoy. We decided to let the chickens out into their new chicken run.

Debbie and Ashley got to enjoy it first. After about 15 minutes, we heard a cry of HELP! the chickens are out! we could not believe it. Part of the wire had a hole in it, so we fixed it, double checked the whole of the chicken run found one other hole and fixed that too. Now hopefully there will be no more escapees!

All we have to do now is reintroduce Bailey to the new Chicken coop and run, and hope she does not attack Debbie again. If she does I am not sure what we are going to do with her… Fingers crossed for an easy ride…..

Well we finally manged to get our chickens – Last Friday to be exact. We had ordered a coop for them before Christmas and had organised to get 4 chickens from a guy at Tata’s work for us to keep. We opted for two chickens around 2 months old and two around 2 weeks old. The bigger chickens are easy to tell apart as one is white and the other brown. The little chickens are a lot harder to distinguish which one is which.

The children are excited about having chickens and have named the as follows:

Bailey

Alice

Ashley

Debbie

So after much trouble, time and effort, the chicken coop is put together and the chickens have been introduced to each other again. They all come from the same place, so we are hoping for no trouble as they learn to live in their new environment.

Today we learnt that if you call your Bunny by it’s name regularly it can learn what it is called and will respond to it in future. So as we have two new bunnies we have been patting each bunny and using their name to help them work out who they are.

We also learnt that Iceberg lettuces are supposed to be toxic to bunnies, so we will not be sharing any of our with them.

Fluffy loves to be groomed, which is great for his long hair, while Sooty loves to be patted, yet not picked up. Slowly the bunnies are getting used to us as we spend more time with them.

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