Our bantam pekin starts at 4am, then gets the rest going. Not sure is it's a breed thing, he doesn't crow most of the day, only on and off. We have 5 roosters in total.
That's good to know about sunflowers, I considered putting some in.
Darren, I hate weeding so feel your pain.
In my new garden in the Chook paddock, I'm laying cardboard down first to stop weeds I initially. I might even do a seperate post on the whole thing.
What I'll do differently.
Move the veggie patch from under a giant gum tree. (I inherited this garden position from previous owners).
Moving it to "chicken paddock" and combining it with shrubs and some flowery type plants.
This will provide veggies with better soil and more sunlight as well...
Glad your veggies are going well. And the sneaky buggers getting through two nets.
unfortunately I didn't net ours off (actually glad I didn't as they didn't produce much this year).
In terms of birds, apart from our regulars, we get these magnificent black cockatoo's that have yellow tips...
that's the way to go, something local. I'm not having a great hatch rate this time - with the power going on one and in the other not even half have pipped. I've even had a muted one born - I helped it get out of its shell last night. But unfortunately its head is a weird shape and too big...
My rhubarb has suffered in the last few days of heat and also the chickens have managed to get in and dig at the roots too. But it grows amazingly well here due to the colder climate - like apples I guess.
The native birds got most of our other stone fruit and the alpacas and sheep ate the...
Sorry to hear that Darren. Hope it works out next time.
I've actually got 2 incubators hatching now - didn't get my timing right. One of them I accidentally pulled the power plug out on day 21 during hatching. I think I've lost all the pekin eggs. But luckily a few of the isa browns and...
We're harvesting apples and rhubarb at the moment, one of the few things we are actually growing.
I'm restarting the veggie plots again as everyone here has inspired me, but doing it right and will spend time getting the soil right and everything ready for planting.
I'd also rule out the free ranging, as my australorps just about only free range for food and lay daily.
My suggestions are: could they be hiding their eggs. I Have one australorp and one isa brown that hide their eggs all the time.
Another thought is do you know how old they were when you...
Thats fantastic.
We have a shop in town that is an organic fruit and veg, only open a couple of days a week. But they don't sell in any bags either and the best part is you can bring your own home grown in and they will pay you for it and then sell it.
To be honest I've only shopped there a...
Darren you might want to try to get the temp up a little. Ideally for chickens, from what I've read, it should be around 37.5 for first 18 days. Many people then drop it to about 37.2 or 37.3 for last 3 days, but many don't as well. If you can't adjust up, just see how it goes, they might just...
I tired valiantly to go plastic free and it is just so incredibly hard. Almost every grocery item has some form of plastic - even toilet paper which you could buy plastic free is now only in plastic. We decided at one point that we would not buy anything in plastic unless absolutely vital - we...
yum - perhaps some yummy jam. We have native birds eating our fruit - I will net them next year, but this year hasn't been good for anything except the apples.
Good luck with incubating. I've just started incubating on a cheap chinese one. First batch went very well and we bought another incubator the same. I haven't bought an independent thermometer or hyrdometer as the incubating sites say. As my first hatch started a day late, I think the...
Here's my list of which most of the fruit trees I can inherited when we bought the place (although last year I did grow lots of veggies myself, this year the sheep got in and I have let it overgrow)
Spring onions,
Rhubarb
Potatoes
Celery
Mint
Majoram
Plums
Apricots
Apple
Mulberry
Figs
Hazelnut...