Wow, I can't believe its been almost 6 months since my last post. Alas, not a lot has changed & life has gone on!

Our menagerie of pets has both increased and decreased.  The 6 Araucana chicks I purchased late last year turned into 4 Araucanas and 2 ring ins....One I believe was a Malay game bird, and the other was some other variety unknown (probably mixed breed, certainly not an Araucana). Unfortunately the Malay, the unknown and 2 of the Araucanas turned out to be roosters. Although all nice looking birds, we couldn't keep any roosters so one by one they all met their fate and become chicken dinners.

The 2 remaining Araucana hens are now laying us their blue eggs which was very exciting when the kids found the first one. Although these araucana eggs are only bantam size, they taste just the same as the other eggs we have.

The only issue seems to be that the Araucana have a problem with excess feathers around their eyes and I've twice now had to clip them so the poor things can see where they are going.

The 2 remaining Araucana hens, who are now laying lovely blue eggs

One of the Araucana roosters

The Malay rooster

 

The unknown suspected mixbreed rooster

Then of course, there is Daisy..... named such in the hope of ending up with a female.... well no such luck, Daisy has grown into a very cheeky drake. He is rather regal looking now with the green neck feathers, and just lives for watermelon. We thought about changing his name but Daisy had kinda stuck by then. Daisy, being a now mature male, is starting to get abit amorous with the chooks so I am on the hunt for another Khaki female as a companion. Maybe I'll call her Gus or something very male just to even things out.

Daisy the Khaki Campbell drake

I had grown disshevelled with the chook water system I had previously. It was a Wet-a-chook which is a brilliant product, just wasn't enough for 10 chooks and 3 ducks...duh!  Even though we now only have 6 chooks and 1 duck, I decided on trying an idea I came across on youtube - the chook waterer.
There are several variations on the products and equipment you can use, but essentially it is a water container with a pipe attached and several 'nipple's for the chooks to drink from. Seems to work okay for ducks too (although I still use a small wading pool for Daisy as well).

I used a 25litre plastic container with a lid (to keep mozzies out), drilled a hole through for a pipe connection, then added some irrigation pipe which connects to a section of pvc pipe which has 5 nipples.  The nipples can be purchased online very cheaply, and all the other bits and pieces were either in my shed or easily found at Bunnings. I find I only need to refill the container about every week or so depending on how hot it is, and the chooks learnt how to use it very quickly. Daisy can make a bit of a mess because he likes to guzzle water rather than delicately drink likes the chooks.

Chook waterer

I had ended up with a section of large concrete pipe in my yard. Long story but basically it came from another property we had renovated and my brother had decided it could be turned into a nice pond. He had the vision and I had the trailer and so it ended up sitting in my back yard for several months.  One day, John arrived on my doorstep with a bag of cement and announced he was going to help me make a pond. After several weeks of concreting the base, applying pond paint, and then waiting for it all to dry completely, I filled it with water and some pond plants I acquired and voila.... one concrete pipe pond. It has an edible water lily along with some other plants, a couple of swordtails and a quickly growing population of white clouds and snails.

My vege garden is also finally back up and gaining enough attention to be flourishing again.  It was slow to get going again mainly because I was postponing replanting until I had 2 large trees cut down at the back of our property. I wanted to relocate 2 of the raised  garden beds but unfortunately that was right in the path the tree lopping machines needed to take to get access to the trees.  Once the trees were gone, I relocated the chook run and the garden beds and now its full steam ahead....

In this bed - Celery, eggplant, chia, tomato, basil and comfrey

In this area - Corn, turnips, pumpkin, parsley, coriander, pak choy, tatsoi, lettuce, carrots and more

Another invention - mesh covered frame, sprinkle bag of chook-friendly fodder seeds, water, and voila.....growing plants the chooks can graze on but not dig up.