tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91767151623255245822024-03-18T15:38:53.825+13:00Keeping Chickens NZKeeping Chickens NZKeeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-5272754891269612892019-11-18T15:25:00.001+13:002020-04-16T06:26:02.475+12:00How to really put your chickens to work in the gardenI’m very interested in how to use chickens as tools for a better vegetable garden and how to simultaneously give them a better life with plenty of greens and insects. I'm searching for the cleverest ways to do it. After all, we've got great fundamentals to start with: chickens eat weeds and pests, and they produce manure. There are ways of making this come together! But it’s also quite possible to keep chickens without making the most of their garden-enhancing potential.<br />
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At the outset, it’s worth stating that letting chickens roam in your garden is not an option. Everyone who has chickens will already know that! They can be very destructive.<br />
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So how can we best combine them without actually, well, combining them? I’m curious to explore this further and have some upcoming posts on it.<br />
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I got a head start recently when I visited some sustainable gardens in New Plymouth as part of the <a href="https://www.sustainablebackyards.org.nz/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Taranaki Sustainable Backyards Trail</a>.<br />
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In this post I'll describe two gardens that taught me plenty. I’m sure there were more that were worth visiting for new takes on this topic, but I ran out of time to get to them.<br />
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<h3>
Eco-Gran’s retreat</h3>
One of my favourite gardens was the garden of ‘EcoGran’. What a great permaculture garden! It’s a compact area that’s packed with food-producing plants (and, of course, chickens).<br />
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Tricia keeps her chickens quite separate from the garden and seemed to have at least two coops and runs, which were separated from each other by a little pop door.<br />
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One of those runs and the chickens that call it home are her main composting system. All her garden waste gets thrown in there. Here she explains what she does with it.<br />
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She told me that she rakes it up every couple of weeks. She also sometimes makes a heap of the smaller stuff that gathers in the run and piles sticks over it, which gives the compost protection from the birds and time to mature underneath it. Aside from that she often gathers the loose stuff that has broken down and decayed across the ground of the run, and has of course been mixed with chicken poo, and uses that directly as compost on her garden.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The pile and one of its workers.</td></tr>
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I think the key here is to gather it up fairly regularly, perhaps three times a year. Over the years I have thrown a lot of food scraps and green waste into the coop, but left it too long before gathering it up – as in years, I’m embarrassed to say – and ended up with extremely alkaline soil, as proven by certain crops that fail in it and laboratory soil testing. Some crops thrive in it, though.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpedNk98wmz-L9dYFhAZjubkWcAuoOrNqGncPXZrpfP1nK_afpKefUQipjlg9s0UuziZskLXaBPGsp43EEZH5o1HSY8YWlApJi4QBLrJN6NLozGxtzLTs4vr8h0zDvJnyrQIIF1gHQR7CN/s1600/IMG_4072.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpedNk98wmz-L9dYFhAZjubkWcAuoOrNqGncPXZrpfP1nK_afpKefUQipjlg9s0UuziZskLXaBPGsp43EEZH5o1HSY8YWlApJi4QBLrJN6NLozGxtzLTs4vr8h0zDvJnyrQIIF1gHQR7CN/s400/IMG_4072.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of Tricia's simple but perfectly functional coops.</td></tr>
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<br />Korito</h3>
If you are interested in permaculture, this garden is to die for. I felt like a fashionista must feel in a high-class shopping mall. It’s a much bigger space than most of us have in town, but oh, productive garden inspiration doesn’t get better than this.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbkG8YRrRdQQxJCe02aV0NkJCsgtdM2zWRrxfm_4xG7LmEUB-PcgSJS2VBxUPnFsatiyJmDGA1_S3gutsJGy5ai3BhUSGv_bHyAc2ZHz5YK95H4V_9iU9Wndu60APX5j0o9O850coIDhy8/s1600/IMG_4105.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbkG8YRrRdQQxJCe02aV0NkJCsgtdM2zWRrxfm_4xG7LmEUB-PcgSJS2VBxUPnFsatiyJmDGA1_S3gutsJGy5ai3BhUSGv_bHyAc2ZHz5YK95H4V_9iU9Wndu60APX5j0o9O850coIDhy8/s400/IMG_4105.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There's a stream and an old patch of stunning native bush at the bottom of the garden.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Owner Dee in her food forest</td></tr>
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I joined a tour with the owner, Dee, who showed us the round raised ‘mandala’ beds she’s built. First she built a moveable chicken “tractor” out of lightweight pipe, then she built several round garden beds to fit it!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZidIhSzKs9pY5J9SRNnaKFHwh1yAqhiOFIXF89_P_WOXgKGZyB4wozBKGvNwrEgrb-lN0-ftvfJfCjr931hbZbRBPSYFLVmbbpy8HYU2TQCHQc6OTEsUfgqm903a8OBE9XVBQs-wak_U8/s1600/IMG_4096.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZidIhSzKs9pY5J9SRNnaKFHwh1yAqhiOFIXF89_P_WOXgKGZyB4wozBKGvNwrEgrb-lN0-ftvfJfCjr931hbZbRBPSYFLVmbbpy8HYU2TQCHQc6OTEsUfgqm903a8OBE9XVBQs-wak_U8/s400/IMG_4096.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mandala gardens.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyZo5x0Mr81xTtq4kBZC4tE4VawRkDedFqHAaMEjdIUbEKNeGhXS4wC7NIJ-clxbVOw6RKz43d1w4usI_-3bIdLV1PW-5UjRzZ6H8r1Qj88KxsHvTYsGwZnvALZ2J5PGbdZh-lt18tSZdj/s1600/IMG_4091.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyZo5x0Mr81xTtq4kBZC4tE4VawRkDedFqHAaMEjdIUbEKNeGhXS4wC7NIJ-clxbVOw6RKz43d1w4usI_-3bIdLV1PW-5UjRzZ6H8r1Qj88KxsHvTYsGwZnvALZ2J5PGbdZh-lt18tSZdj/s400/IMG_4091.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The coop.</td></tr>
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When the crops in each garden are finished with, on goes the chicken tractor and her three hens. The chooks work it over for a while, living and sleeping onsite as they do. Inside the coop are a perch, a water dish (weighted by stones) and a nest box made out of an old lawnmower catcher! It has holes drilled in the bottom of it and straw inside. The chicken tractor has shade and wind protection attached to it, so the birds are protected from the elements. Dee also gives them commercial food each day.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ0pgzZiDL-i4qjGzxg6T6ME7rp1aKMP9tnh54vyuZOL4qIXYdby7rT7iOr3A19k_1ZwaVgoLbizGh0-RgDM22V9V0F5COG-Ib1VaOhwwX53Eyu5MHwBaRhjhZgcMzE-ZheIasLCcr1jt1/s1600/IMG_4103.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ0pgzZiDL-i4qjGzxg6T6ME7rp1aKMP9tnh54vyuZOL4qIXYdby7rT7iOr3A19k_1ZwaVgoLbizGh0-RgDM22V9V0F5COG-Ib1VaOhwwX53Eyu5MHwBaRhjhZgcMzE-ZheIasLCcr1jt1/s400/IMG_4103.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chickens are always a hit with the crowd!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfS1l9QA5MfWtx6Q6UfQgzttwAvO_Btm2IyOvLE1MedUNMEcsCXL_K4tvOzSzuSs9gwA_98qLCmNRqgEuE_wiRYNSMC8VCJa_ROL8foRg9nkeDfigrRWRVfF004HoKQgm4OhZhPeIj36qz/s1600/IMG_4092.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfS1l9QA5MfWtx6Q6UfQgzttwAvO_Btm2IyOvLE1MedUNMEcsCXL_K4tvOzSzuSs9gwA_98qLCmNRqgEuE_wiRYNSMC8VCJa_ROL8foRg9nkeDfigrRWRVfF004HoKQgm4OhZhPeIj36qz/s400/IMG_4092.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside the coop.</td></tr>
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Once the chickens have done their work removing crop remnants, decimating any weeds and their seeds, and adding their droppings, they’re moved away. Onto the garden Dee piles a layer of organic matter such as compost, then cardboard and some hay. She makes holes in this to plant the next crop.<br />
If there’s no work for them to do in the mandala garden, Dee has other greens-filled places she puts them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiposy0CLQpKYpYd4djX9-QGgaFC92122r8ymLvhgy939esGn_RD6j-HtuGNG6Es6PNFu4SRAbnhsniylVhqQAXWDX2Du0w9S9RAokLeBU5dBQG2JAKPeL_IvMulIlf2nrY7ImAt3-JgNpJ/s1600/IMG_4095.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiposy0CLQpKYpYd4djX9-QGgaFC92122r8ymLvhgy939esGn_RD6j-HtuGNG6Es6PNFu4SRAbnhsniylVhqQAXWDX2Du0w9S9RAokLeBU5dBQG2JAKPeL_IvMulIlf2nrY7ImAt3-JgNpJ/s400/IMG_4095.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The finished product - until the cycle begins again!</td></tr>
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Dee's website is at <a href="http://korito.co.nz/">korito.co.nz</a>. Personally I am very keen on doing a weekend course with her.<br />
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I hope this has given you some ideas of how to make the most of your birds in the garden. Please leave comments below with any strategies you have!<br />
<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com2Hamilton, New Zealand-37.7870012 175.27925300000004-37.987814199999995 174.95652950000004 -37.5861882 175.60197650000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-91335711830413764912019-01-29T16:57:00.000+13:002019-01-31T17:16:55.365+13:00Lead in backyard eggs: Should we care?I recently shared a <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/109806925/lead-found-in-hens-blood-and-eggs-a-crack-in-backyard-chicken-popularity?fbclid=IwAR3brr-6MRNj598m1MERY3l5CNvw6jXoRzGMXYQdQ7NxFHTLwSUsNpbNTqU" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Stuff article about lead in NZ backyard eggs</a> on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/KeepingChickensNZ/posts/2241332012804392?__xts__[0]=68.ARAhALfiDQ-dVcCv1Sif6QnLk8ds7auir6KSXe32LX-pOHgs72bNf3uPWmkM2LNyvRMVc2KJPol6tt1p38o5jXcAP91rzlve_KrRE9Kad3uiFqCKv1eXsPMoIEo2a0whRvwUP94WA_CBb09wQc1hzuo_FRbdnFYRynFJ-8bJMOdRuIQSItuWPF4J-yYSB4_MMk4IsbHY44LA-mIHU8sq4u5WKjpPlT9mOBvYS4tpB6chf7ufTxLoLw66rorfGXMVDgn4HprmYoy5PiudUSgfgd_cEHxFf8ZGFRqEUTbyVAG-HNoeaVC740FHrRYq9JHnkS9TzfuJbwd6__Z0UkREBf5ZYetY&__tn__=-R" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Keeping Chickens NZ Facebook page</a>. Since then I've read plenty and discussed the issue with some experts. I specifically wanted to find out for you:<br />
(1) Is this worth being concerned about, or is it scaremongering?<br />
(2) If you're concerned, what should you do?<br />
(3) If your land has lead in it, can you still keep chickens and eat their eggs?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMtFmX9yHpP104VlppjgBUjQje2-RuawhRhH__ExxijM586-NZunCMvry5j2Q8Ci1xDHPCMJabu4aI8gZJgfBBs7u-w52Br9_jSqBMhIqtlOhLgSbXl9prq7xLmd1et5dYU-8YQsgVDpDy/s1600/IMG_3360.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMtFmX9yHpP104VlppjgBUjQje2-RuawhRhH__ExxijM586-NZunCMvry5j2Q8Ci1xDHPCMJabu4aI8gZJgfBBs7u-w52Br9_jSqBMhIqtlOhLgSbXl9prq7xLmd1et5dYU-8YQsgVDpDy/s400/IMG_3360.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Are these all good?</td></tr>
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<h4>
Is Stuff full of stupid stuff?</h4>
A couple of FB-followers commented that they don't believe what they read on Stuff. In this case, at least, Stuff's report is valid: it's an accurate report of a paper that was published in December 2018 in the <i>New Zealand Veterinary Journal</i>. A summary of that study is <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00480169.2018.1561340" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>. It looks like a well-conducted, rigorous study.<br />
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<h4>
Is lead anything to worry about?</h4>
One FB follower commented that they'd rather have backyard eggs with lead than eggs with antibiotics from stressed hens. I get that - I am a lover of things natural and homegrown. Our family's food comes as much as possible from our garden and the Farmer's Market. But if I had to choose, give me antibiotics over secretive, damaging lead any day.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsxYKDzZzEv7lpkU7CwVsobBExoqcT75FE9uUkR6gPcwKhQXakDCuLQyOVfinR8p-kyw4_-9Xfq5JDgO0rHN5IR3MThZi5pzNjcIXENzzKC5FrmXseBfhVgIAnzeDzb1QcCDgilloURnnU/s1600/IMG_3364.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsxYKDzZzEv7lpkU7CwVsobBExoqcT75FE9uUkR6gPcwKhQXakDCuLQyOVfinR8p-kyw4_-9Xfq5JDgO0rHN5IR3MThZi5pzNjcIXENzzKC5FrmXseBfhVgIAnzeDzb1QcCDgilloURnnU/s400/IMG_3364.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our outdoor pantry.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Our bodies need certain metals for good health - zinc and iron, for example - but lead is not a natural part of the human diet. It is an odourless, tasteless neurotoxin for which zero is the only safe level. It is never expelled from our bodies but simply accumulates. It does not biodegrade. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that it damages brains and lowers intelligence.<br />
<br />
Just last week a <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2720691" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">new study was released </a>showing an association between high blood levels at age 11 and psychopathology in adulthood. The results came from nearly 600 people who were children in Dunedin in the 1970s.<br />
<br />
There's information <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lead-poisoning-and-health?fbclid=IwAR1aGkzh_RTEpgG7XN9Pwvxh4JX1NR8Sv07TjVTG8uGymjMTbzgPHkabuzE" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> from the World Health Organisation on the problem.<br />
<br />
But lead is a fact of modern life, and below a certain level of it in our bodies (which is not zero), we seem to be okay. We cannot completely escape the lead that our predecessors put into our environment, not realising that it was harmful, so we'll all have some inside us. We just need to minimize it.<br />
<br />
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If we have babies and children, it's worth being more paranoid: they tend to ingest more of it and their developing brains are more vulnerable. The effects are thought to be irreversible. So, in my opinion, if you're a parent of little ones, it's not really your "personal choice" whether you care about lead.<br />
<br />
However, to put things in context, since New Zealand has tackled the lead problem, modern-day children have a lot less lead in their blood than they did in the 1970s when I was born (although who wouldn't like a few more IQ points ...)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP4ovfMQ-4ZA0MS3nOnWU99ibUUD5pB-gcputldIYsmLYz8FG8miy0EzrlGRFidCC3Xb1G4BRBtZqAjBWBlEFwnMiE6LcTewtrzuGGsCmPBKkidIvrTkjKSbj6eVHjqboaNx_ygD7npQfk/s1600/IMG_6886.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP4ovfMQ-4ZA0MS3nOnWU99ibUUD5pB-gcputldIYsmLYz8FG8miy0EzrlGRFidCC3Xb1G4BRBtZqAjBWBlEFwnMiE6LcTewtrzuGGsCmPBKkidIvrTkjKSbj6eVHjqboaNx_ygD7npQfk/s400/IMG_6886.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our family's earliest days of chicken-keeping.</td></tr>
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<h4>
<br />
What the study showed</h4>
The <i>NZ Vet Journal</i> study showed that all the eggs in their study contained lead. Over half of them had a higher-than-safe level of lead. They also took blood samples from the chickens which, as you can imagine, had similar levels of lead as were found in their eggs.<br />
<br />
It's worth noting that this study was conducted in backyard eggs from central Auckland, which is an area with plenty of old weatherboard houses that were likely to have been painted with lead paint. But there are plenty of those all over the country.<br />
<br />
The study concluded that higher lead levels came from chickens living outside houses that were:<br />
1) Clad with weatherboard;<br />
2) Built before 1940.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Where lead comes from: paint, petrol, pesticides</h4>
We've all seen our chickens gobble cockroaches and worms covered in dirt. Yum. But chickens get lead from the soil in which they forage, and from the invertebrates they eat that live in that soil.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxVeWjkqbH3PUSLBn-Y6s3EpbDq6FXvl_Bko6nDX2v4nHtJfpk9XiaDYDhIrJtlTe6iqv7wknfaqNwQ5f0DE3vr8gaS3FvDcB4YBa3ctoEHESNfR4HaUmLsRLk23_hc7q80j0BgqgAmJ2b/s1600/IMG_3377.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxVeWjkqbH3PUSLBn-Y6s3EpbDq6FXvl_Bko6nDX2v4nHtJfpk9XiaDYDhIrJtlTe6iqv7wknfaqNwQ5f0DE3vr8gaS3FvDcB4YBa3ctoEHESNfR4HaUmLsRLk23_hc7q80j0BgqgAmJ2b/s400/IMG_3377.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chickens eat dirty stuff - much dirtier than this.</td></tr>
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<br />
Sometimes there is lead in that soil, resting there from historical contamination. There is no way to detect it without lab tests, but there are some clues that lead might be there. Before we hand over money to lead-testers, I wanted to find out how each of us can figure out if we might have lead on our land.<br />
<br />
I spoke to <a href="https://hailenvironmental.co.nz/contaminated-site-consultancy/team" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dave Bull, a director of Hail Environmental</a>. As we spoke, I realized that if there is anything about lead worth knowing, this guy knows it. And until he had to move house recently, he was a chicken keeper! Perfect. So, what did I learn?<br />
<br />
<i>Paint</i><br />
NZ houses used to be painted with lead paint, and in some cases that persisted until the 1980s. Little ol' NZ was pretty slow to the international lead paint-banning party that was held to celebrate the realization of how toxic the stuff is. Dave reckons that if your house is not brick-clad and was built before 1950, it's very likely to have been painted with lead paint, and in the interim someone has probably sanded it and repainted. The sanding dust sunk into the soil and its lead will still be there.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Tli8V4bX6o1QiW23hxGeoxVKwns8nCyQY_iY4RUF4X6VEHXlTEl77gwp9zyqHfXA4GhjlZzOOgT6G1Ao7bsbczpjMJjqazBGZZJrCEXEskEZjKxfrwtqEfIIHbao5Fv_dELJPBwoUmmd/s1600/IMG_2889.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Tli8V4bX6o1QiW23hxGeoxVKwns8nCyQY_iY4RUF4X6VEHXlTEl77gwp9zyqHfXA4GhjlZzOOgT6G1Ao7bsbczpjMJjqazBGZZJrCEXEskEZjKxfrwtqEfIIHbao5Fv_dELJPBwoUmmd/s400/IMG_2889.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I adore old houses. Except for the lead.</td></tr>
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Most of it will probably be within two metres of your house - or your garage, if you have one of that era, as that was probably also painted with lead paint.<br />
<br />
If your chickens are many metres away from your house and garage along your back fence boundary, there is probably less lead there.<br />
<br />
Resene does free tests for lead paint - you can just take in a flake or board and give it to them. They can only tell what's on it now, of course.<br />
<br />
<i>Petrol</i><br />
Obviously we have unleaded petrol these days, and by now you know what motivated the 1987 change to unleaded petrol. Exhaust emissions used to contain lead.<br />
<br />
If you live on a road that was a busy traffic road before the 1990s, your front yard probably has lead in it. Happily, that lead doesn't spread far, so although it would be a bad idea to keep chooks at the front of your house, the backyard is likely to be unaffected. Dave says that the land within eight metres of the road is the bit to avoid.<br />
<br />
<i>Pesticides</i><br />
I hate the passion-vine hoppers sucking the life out of our citrus and beans! Insect pests have been a problem for a long time, and many of our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents sprayed them, especially if they were growing crops for a living. A commonly-used spray was lead arsenate. Apparently it was brilliant at controlling all sorts of insects: grass grub, codling moth in apples, and aphids on roses. But it left lead (and arsenic) in the soil.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwHKnCG0sJiF1vsTgdNdpxUXMGnHgCoprv2e07yhaQGcbnIWDj2cbx8Fzqz7q1-GBpuB6yU3tbw7CtcucP6-K4ekiRoUkIgtV9e_U4LaK4MQAqN2mj_0BcttNOizy6O03CqZo9HsuBRMcC/s1600/IMG_3385.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwHKnCG0sJiF1vsTgdNdpxUXMGnHgCoprv2e07yhaQGcbnIWDj2cbx8Fzqz7q1-GBpuB6yU3tbw7CtcucP6-K4ekiRoUkIgtV9e_U4LaK4MQAqN2mj_0BcttNOizy6O03CqZo9HsuBRMcC/s400/IMG_3385.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ever-present annoyance of insect pests.</td></tr>
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It's impossible to know how people gardened on your property in the past, which is a worry. But if your land used to be orchard land or market gardens - and several towns in New Zealand have expanded their housing over old horticultural land - it might be worth testing for lead.<br />
<br />
<i>Old industry</i><br />
There are some industrial land uses that have left a legacy of high lead levels in soil. There was once a battery factory in Onehunga, for example, that has left behind lead to within 100 to 300 metres of its site.<br />
<br />
<h4>
But what about lead in commercial eggs?</h4>
Commercial eggs have been tested for lead, and the lead was below detectable levels, which is much more desirable than the studied Auckland backyard eggs. This result is from a 2016 Ministry of Primary Industries <a href="https://www.mpi.govt.nz/dmsdocument/28976/loggedIn" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"New Zealand Total Diet Study<span id="goog_72099248"></span><span id="goog_72099249"></span>"</a> (see page 173 - I'm guessing these are battery cage eggs, not free range).<br />
<br />
<h4>
How do I find out if our eggs have lead?</h4>
<div>
Firstly, unless your chickens have very high lead levels, they may still appear healthy - but the levels can still be worryingly high.<br />
<br />
If you have an old house, or keep your chickens close to a busy road, or live on old horticultural land, or have young children, it might be worth having some testing done.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
You have two options:<br />
1. Take at least one of your hens to a vet and ask for a blood test for lead. I've been told by a lovely vet at <a href="https://www.cambridgevets.co.nz/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cambridge Vets</a> that the test will cost $100 plus the consultation fee to take the blood. She advised that a trip to the vet and the blood sampling is likely to be stressful to your hens, and more expensive than the next option:<br />
2. Send an egg or eggs to <a href="https://www.hill-laboratories.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hill Laboratories in Hamilton</a> (confession: my husband works there, although not in the food section! But this recommendation comes from the study author. I am not even sure there's another commercial lab in the country that can do it).<br />
<br />
At Hill Labs, the cost is $66+GST per analysis. You can ask for that to be an analysis of one egg, or you can ask them to mix together the content of several eggs (three would provide a good average) and do one analysis on that combination. You can also ask for each egg to be analysed individually, in which case each egg will cost you the $66+GST. Just be very clear in your instructions, they tell me!<br />
Package the eggs very carefully so they won't break when you send them. To encourage the courier to treat eggs as fragile, write FRAGILE! EGGS! on the package. You'll need to accompany your eggs with a filled-out version of <a href="https://www.hill-laboratories.com/assets/Documents/Analysis-Request-Forms/General-Food-Analysis-Request-Form.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this form</a>. <a href="https://www.hill-laboratories.com/contact-us" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Contact them</a> with any questions.<br />
<br />
<h4>
How high is too high?</h4>
In eggs, if the result is more than 0.1 mg/kg of lead, it's too high. The paper authors say that:<br />
"There is no maximum permissible level for lead in eggs in New Zealand ... the Ministry for Primary Industries advises that lead concentrations in eggs should be ‘as low as reasonably achievable’. In the edible portion of eggs, this is a target of 0.002 mg/kg or less, based on the 2009 New Zealand Total Diet Study ... ". In the <i>NZ Vet Journal</i> study, all the eggs had more lead than that! Instead, they treated the maximum level as 0.1 mg/kg, which is the maximum permissible level for lead in meat, according to the Ministry for Primary Industries.<br />
<br />
<h4>
What if our eggs do have a high level of lead?</h4>
This is the toughest question to answer. I'd be talking to the people at Hill Labs about having soil testing done. Contaminants such as lead tend to be patchily distributed, and there may be low-lead parts of your property that are better suited for chicken-keeping. At that point you would probably need to get new chickens, because lead will have built up in the old ones (although see the comments from Lena, below).<br />
<br />
If your whole property contains lead, here are some recommendations for reducing lead uptake:<br />
- keeping new chickens away from soil on paved surfaces (you could add straw), possibly elevating the coop;<br />
- not allowing them to free range where they can access soil and invertebrates;<br />
- keeping them on grassed areas with no bare soil (they'd still get contaminated invertebrates, though);<br />
- never feeding them their eggshells (buy oyster-shell grit for them instead) - and don't compost the eggshells;<br />
- provide uncontaminated soil, ash or sand for them to dust-bathe in.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://hailenvironmental.co.nz/contaminated-site-consultancy/team" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dave Bull of Hail Environmental</a> is a consultant who can help you figure out anything you want to know about contamination with lead or other substances, including just how worried you should be. He tells me he spends quite a lot of time telling people that the problem isn't as bad as they think.<br />
<br />
One follower of the Keeping Chickens NZ Facebook page found out her chickens had high levels of lead, as did her soil, and shared this excellent information about her experience:<br />
<br />
"The problem then was that I could treat them - you can inject a solution that binds lead and encourages them to excrete it from their bodies - but as soon as you got their levels down - which you can do in some cases if their load's not too high - they would reingest lead from our contaminated soil. I loved those little lasses (they were ex-battery so they'd had a tough life already) so I went as far as researching how to remediate soil. I put down matting in an area that covered their coop and run and got fresh topsoil (one garden supplies shop was able to supply guaranteed clean topsoil from a farm in the Far North). My plan was to try and rehome them but one died from egg peritonitis some months later and the second's levels kept going up (possibly from eating worms or other dirt-dwellers around the coop area).<br />
<br />
"And then the saddest part - they excrete the lead, so their pee and poo recontaminates, or contaminates other areas."<br />
<br />
You can read the rest of her helpful comments underneath the original <a href="https://www.facebook.com/KeepingChickensNZ/posts/2241332012804392?__xts__[0]=68.ARAhALfiDQ-dVcCv1Sif6QnLk8ds7auir6KSXe32LX-pOHgs72bNf3uPWmkM2LNyvRMVc2KJPol6tt1p38o5jXcAP91rzlve_KrRE9Kad3uiFqCKv1eXsPMoIEo2a0whRvwUP94WA_CBb09wQc1hzuo_FRbdnFYRynFJ-8bJMOdRuIQSItuWPF4J-yYSB4_MMk4IsbHY44LA-mIHU8sq4u5WKjpPlT9mOBvYS4tpB6chf7ufTxLoLw66rorfGXMVDgn4HprmYoy5PiudUSgfgd_cEHxFf8ZGFRqEUTbyVAG-HNoeaVC740FHrRYq9JHnkS9TzfuJbwd6__Z0UkREBf5ZYetY&__tn__=-R" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Facebook page post</a>.<br />
_________________________<br />
<br />
<i>Thank you to all the experts who helped me gather this information: Professor Brett Gartrell (Massey University), Graham Corban (Hill Laboratories), Dave Bull (Hail Environmental) and Cecilia van Velsen (Cambridge Vets).</i>Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com0Hamilton, New Zealand-37.7870012 175.27925300000004-37.987814199999995 174.95652950000004 -37.5861882 175.60197650000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-37970231540431759672018-11-02T08:20:00.000+13:002018-11-02T08:20:01.929+13:00Help, my chickens are fading!Actually, ignore the first part of that title - I don't need help. But my chickens are definitely fading.<br />
<br />
This is a normal part of ageing for brown shavers and Hy-Line Browns. They become less brown and more blonde as they grow older.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ9bP7haY8OVp_OBkwCcY2P9A0uOnDgj4HYCcghs6cImryNzujgmOCYT0a69ST4-voxT6x1zCUGBpNDuvVQGDIo4fe6gCRBLe3R280Qc-D4W4M2bKk4lvs_HcPOiI9OE4BqIl-XDL1LQkc/s1600/019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ9bP7haY8OVp_OBkwCcY2P9A0uOnDgj4HYCcghs6cImryNzujgmOCYT0a69ST4-voxT6x1zCUGBpNDuvVQGDIo4fe6gCRBLe3R280Qc-D4W4M2bKk4lvs_HcPOiI9OE4BqIl-XDL1LQkc/s400/019.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At two years of age, this girl has become more caramel than cocoa (in real life she looks lighter than this)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />This beautiful friend of mine, for example, was quite cocoa. Then she lost a lot of her feathers in a thorough moulting session over a few weeks, and when they grew back she'd turned into caramel!<br />
<br />
The other two haven't moulted as comprehensively, but you can easily tell which feathers are the new ones. They are a now a camouflage-like combination of chocolate and caramel (yum!).<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD5VWMWVCVRciNoAO0237T6Pv7IrNXrhesYM5_a2qpP5Uca9McYNoDhiHY5nq-vBmkHKwjvVIgbB91SaxxkflTplse1SbYUVn8ZfVBES5G7HGF-PhRJ0bDKASlxxlWfnojZ6uQqHdrJ887/s1600/017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD5VWMWVCVRciNoAO0237T6Pv7IrNXrhesYM5_a2qpP5Uca9McYNoDhiHY5nq-vBmkHKwjvVIgbB91SaxxkflTplse1SbYUVn8ZfVBES5G7HGF-PhRJ0bDKASlxxlWfnojZ6uQqHdrJ887/s400/017.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My two dappled browns.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Their legs fade, too, becoming fairer and fairer with the years.<br />
<br />
So in the same way as you can tell a horse's age by the length of its teeth, you can get an idea of a brown chicken's age by its degree of paleness. Except, of course, that due to natural variation in feather colour, some are pale to start with, so don't go placing any bets on the basis of colour ...Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com6Hamilton, New Zealand-37.7870012 175.27925300000004-37.987814199999995 174.95652950000004 -37.5861882 175.60197650000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-29981797860608074772018-10-01T08:09:00.000+13:002018-10-01T08:48:29.910+13:00A chicken's favourite pastimeMost of us chicken keepers are keen to give our birds what they really, really want.<br />
<br />
Well, this is what chickens love to do:<br />
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<br />
I love their total enthusiasm for kicking aside the leaves and rapidly diving in, beak first, to peck up whatever little insect or spider was hiding underneath. They'll do it again and again and again.<br />
<br />
How do we know it's so important to them? In the wild, this is what they do for most of the day, and clever experiments have shown they'll work to get access to litter so that they can do it:<br />
<br />
Life's sad for a chicken with nothing on the ground to scratch and peck at. At heart they're still junglefowl, so when you're creating an environment for your birds, think about what it's like at the edges of jungles (junglefowl hang out at jungle edges, not in the deep dark depths). Think piles of leaves, preferably with the deepest levels starting to decompose to feed a wealth of insects underneath.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihWfNBEPvXDHbxpYsmZAiOC_YvOgr7lGoDcWn-ERY2CymRZ1PS_EqyT29EtaiMYhSgSsEEnSCuyCElJivvtljA2FkjsYJ6dejx6gk_6JwsOXrLL6MixVCdxyrOQZEOBiqQhrah3oS1EPDg/s1600/IMG_2314.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihWfNBEPvXDHbxpYsmZAiOC_YvOgr7lGoDcWn-ERY2CymRZ1PS_EqyT29EtaiMYhSgSsEEnSCuyCElJivvtljA2FkjsYJ6dejx6gk_6JwsOXrLL6MixVCdxyrOQZEOBiqQhrah3oS1EPDg/s400/IMG_2314.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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If your birds are free-range, they'll find their own favourite places in your garden to scratch and peck. Anyone who's mulched their garden and been thrilled that it now looks like a bought one will testify to this: give the chooks 10 minutes in the garden and they'll kick aside that pretty mulch.<br />
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If your chickens are contained in a run, it can be hard work to maintain the ground to their liking. Whenever you weed the garden or sweep leaves or produce almost any vegetative matter, chuck it in their run! Throw them some spadefuls of compost. At the very least, dig over the soil in the coop to loosen it for them so they can move that around - it gets compacted quickly, especially in rainy weather, and then becomes useless for them to scratch at.<br />
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Notice in the video above how the ground level is raised. This was not intentional - it's just a result of years of throwing organic matter in there! Together with our chickens we have created a mound of goodness.<br />
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<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com0Hamilton, New Zealand-37.7870012 175.27925300000004-37.9878147 174.95652950000004 -37.586187699999996 175.60197650000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-78266704165887492682018-09-08T08:24:00.000+12:002018-09-08T08:26:27.568+12:00The case of the bald head: why pecking isn't always aggressiveIt's easy to assume that when one hen pecks another, it's an aggressive act. "Ah, the pecking order," you might think, and feel sorry for the victim.<br />
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And sometimes it is like that, but often not. And the good news is that by setting up your chicken-keeping arrangement well, you can prevent at least one type of pecking happening.<br />
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<h3>
Gentle feather pecking</h3>
Recently I witnessed something I've never seen in my birds. One hen stood over the other, delicately plucking out the feathers from either side of and behind her comb. The 'victim', who looked slightly uncomfortable, stood and allowed it to happen. You can see it in this video.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPcTlRoG6ciGmlN38iNCe5RojbTCiKXiaqJ6IfUay_NOnWjyvpSNXgcmbyoDjJSeKckmNlNZfrUvszlDIGN9fcrWbYYQ8MC5sPiWYEeiWFlXv4B_to8YJtuzLNWY86AYbqdd0hbvrhNSI1/s1600/MVI_2064.MOV" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="320" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPcTlRoG6ciGmlN38iNCe5RojbTCiKXiaqJ6IfUay_NOnWjyvpSNXgcmbyoDjJSeKckmNlNZfrUvszlDIGN9fcrWbYYQ8MC5sPiWYEeiWFlXv4B_to8YJtuzLNWY86AYbqdd0hbvrhNSI1/s640/MVI_2064.MOV" width="640" /></a></div>
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There was no aggression. The pecking was so gentle that the victim's skin was clear and unmarked. She was unattractively bald, but there wasn't a patch of blood or even pink skin.<br />
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What's more, these two birds are pals. They hang out together, and dominate their flockmate quite aggressively.<br />
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The pecker reminded me of an overly thorough cleaner who just couldn't bear to leave behind a speck of dust.<br />
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<h3>
Severe feather pecking</h3>
When I was studying for my PhD with chickens, I saw something far nastier. Again, the pecks were not aggressive, and the victim did not dodge the blows. The pecks were directed not at the victim's head, but at the base of her back, above her tail. However, the 'cleaners' were not gentle, and the victim's back was bleeding.<br />
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When this happens, the instinctive blood lust of chickens takes over. They are omnivores, after all! They tend to hone in on the victim and ramp up their pecking (mmmm - flesh!), and it gets very ugly. It turns into cannibalism.<br />
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If this happens, the victim will have to be removed until she heals, or even put out of her misery.<br />
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<h3>
Give them litter!</h3>
Giving hens access to litter to peck and scratch at is vital for preventing this type of bad behaviour. In fact, it's not bad behaviour that's the problem, but a bad environment.<br />
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Chickens naturally spend the majority of their day pecking and scratching at loose litter under their feet. This is not optional depending on whether they are hungry or not, although it is a food-seeking behaviour. It's just what they must do, in the same way that a cat must sleep a lot, lick its fur and seek warm places to sleep in winter and cool places in summer. It is their nature.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-8mxU7IMsKlZIU3TvNeeG8n5RApFh8ryqIuEdQ5TizgtVkbyJz39ey-YUnLL79J9Phyysxs20YEF8X_pbSP1oMDBIEopzIEkVxR_8DhCQvWkZYvHNl8fzsvQ0fvxxcM8E1u5Rikixgxey/s1600/026.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-8mxU7IMsKlZIU3TvNeeG8n5RApFh8ryqIuEdQ5TizgtVkbyJz39ey-YUnLL79J9Phyysxs20YEF8X_pbSP1oMDBIEopzIEkVxR_8DhCQvWkZYvHNl8fzsvQ0fvxxcM8E1u5Rikixgxey/s640/026.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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But I had done my birds a disservice. I'd gone away for five weeks during a wet winter, and my husband had no inclination or time to care for their run the way I would have. Let's just say that keeping food in their hopper was challenge enough. The ground was bare and muddy. The autumn leaves I usually collect and spread in their run in winter had gone into the neighbours' green bins (horror).<br />
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A bare ground is abhorrent to chickens, especially if it's wet, and they turn to a readily available source of something that seems a bit litter-like: their flockmates' feathers.<br />
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You can hear more about this <a href="http://www.coursera.org/lecture/chickens/feather-pecking-and-cannibalism-sLVuO" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>, in a short educational video from the University of Edinburgh. You can't see the whole thing unless you enrol in the course, but what you can watch is useful.<br />
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<h3>
It's hard to fix - but I was lucky</h3>
I only noticed the obsessive little behaviour happening in my backyard because the victim became sick (this was the <a href="http://www.keepingchickensnz.com/2018/08/how-i-poisoned-and-choked-my-chicken.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">foxglove poisoning episode</a> - in fact you can even see the gnawed foxglove plant in the background of the video above!). That fact alone shows that I wasn't caring for my birds very well, otherwise I would already have noticed the bald head.<br />
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I separated the sick bird, but I expected that when she was returned she would again be plucked. I did indeed see one more plucking episode. But then, strangely, her feathers began to grow back! Now she has a new crop of feathers, and no further problems.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN0BQGlU_u8H-gCXCYfh3_I68yaQx68gUSzvR6IfGwjAidrSL8roYJ7q4V82rNkJ4bg9n41EpLgvAJYy6qUQx04iXVzFCC0mV_urFN5NlNYIMZNaDNbX8IkLBskFxkw5kaoBhL_Uk62Fgf/s1600/017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN0BQGlU_u8H-gCXCYfh3_I68yaQx68gUSzvR6IfGwjAidrSL8roYJ7q4V82rNkJ4bg9n41EpLgvAJYy6qUQx04iXVzFCC0mV_urFN5NlNYIMZNaDNbX8IkLBskFxkw5kaoBhL_Uk62Fgf/s640/017.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The new feathers are a little bit crimped.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5qA6dHJllOrGIohKdAJ0YCBY6SC6omMompPMNGsjxfXtCzG4aDrv4l0xzzZ-cxOgZtLopkGCiDOikoOArf1EWgZAxDkEtHsc_ykRcARHEzHIc38GCXkMof6HM2YZeYup3a355xmTvZD3T/s1600/019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5qA6dHJllOrGIohKdAJ0YCBY6SC6omMompPMNGsjxfXtCzG4aDrv4l0xzzZ-cxOgZtLopkGCiDOikoOArf1EWgZAxDkEtHsc_ykRcARHEzHIc38GCXkMof6HM2YZeYup3a355xmTvZD3T/s640/019.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The new feathers are also slightly more ginger. I like redheads.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivrUvg82RPbfdzpw5EYzKMnuLMtdvk20W3p20Hxq10R00UIcsrd896ihIg82gY8uXJD9PN0r6U4weSrh9UF1BmDoyVOd2DiTkI3JB0DCkP0rDJ1fsX8wcQMzVlIuMwEA2PrDtUalmjfnXX/s1600/022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivrUvg82RPbfdzpw5EYzKMnuLMtdvk20W3p20Hxq10R00UIcsrd896ihIg82gY8uXJD9PN0r6U4weSrh9UF1BmDoyVOd2DiTkI3JB0DCkP0rDJ1fsX8wcQMzVlIuMwEA2PrDtUalmjfnXX/s640/022.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These pin-like feathers beside her comb are fortunately no longer proving irresistible to the pecker.</td></tr>
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<h3>
A solution</h3>
Once this type of obsessive pecking begins, it can become an entrenched habit. It can even be copied by other birds. So always give them something to peck at that is not each other!<br />
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If you see feather pecking happening, top up their run with weeds, leaves, compost, fresh soil - whatever you can get your hands on.<br />
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Separate the victim if necessary (and definitely if there is any blood).<br />
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You can cover the area being attacked with a repugnant solution known as coal tar. This is an old-fashioned remedy for humans, and used on irritated skin in conditions such as psoriasis. It smells really, really strong, and I can hardly imagine how it must taste.<br />
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If you have some in your medicine cabinet or can find a strong version at a pharmacy, you could spread it on the victim's skin. In spite of its smell, it is a healing thing, so it won't hurt the bird, and it should repulse the pecker.<br />
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You can buy a poultry-specific version <a href="http://www.chooks.co.nz/anti-feather-pecking-spray" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<h3>
Aggression is also a problem</h3>
Aggressive attacks happen. They are how hens establish and maintain the social order, and in those cases you'll see that the peck is fast, hard and aggressive, and the victim cowers and moves away, often with a cry of what sounds like fear. This happens a lot when you first mix new birds together.<br />
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Often if you keep the birds together from a young age, with no newcomers, there is no obvious hierarchy or aggression. Sometimes there is, though. Once everyone knows their place, the attacks become rare.<br />
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When new birds are mixed in with a flock, the attacks can be brutal and frequent, and draw blood. Even your most beloved, placid hen can turn into a monster in this situation! I find that the best solution is to provide:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li> Plenty of space to escape.</li>
<li> More than one source of food and water, spread apart, so the bullies can't dominate these resources.</li>
<li>A situation where the new birds outnumber the existing ones.</li>
<li>Age parity - birds that haven't started laying (because they are pre-pubertal) are less able to defend themselves than sexually mature birds.</li>
<li>Time - it will probably take at least two weeks for things to settle.</li>
</ul>
<br />
No matter what you do, it's a very unpleasant situation, and I try to avoid it. An all-in, all-out situation is ideal when you change flocks. That way no newcomers have to run the gauntlet of existing birds that bully them aggressively.<br />
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<h3>
Does the victim mind?</h3>
To figure out what kind of pecking problem you have, ask yourself firstly whether the victim seems to mind. If she stands there and takes it, it's feather pecking, not aggression, and you probably have a litter problem. Sort that out first. In fact, sort that out right now so that the problem never occurs.<br />
<br />
I firmly believe that the most important knowledge for chicken keepers is not what this sickness or that sickness is, but how to avoid problems in the first place. Give your birds litter, as much space as you can, a private nesting spot and a perch to sleep on. Those fundamentals will go a long way to stop you having to look up what's wrong with them, because they will be healthy and lovely!Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-86627827477240680182018-08-08T13:49:00.000+12:002018-08-08T13:49:09.860+12:00How I poisoned and choked my chicken - and she survived<br />
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This week I have three vigorous, healthy hens. Only one is giving me eggs, but these are only year-old birds, and I know that as the days lengthen, their egg-laying hormones will switch on and omelette time will be with us again.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilpSNLxXYKHAlZhQVySBZl5NEZJ3hqodJ1-mH16XJnH5FrEJmCEldNyyyMCfKaz8385SoMuZpEk4i3gs228P3ZHR4H1VstRo27fY2dpPpOR5YwWhQoZCOa0-XGH-FSf2fXAvkyjWi57-gj/s1600/IMG_2132.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilpSNLxXYKHAlZhQVySBZl5NEZJ3hqodJ1-mH16XJnH5FrEJmCEldNyyyMCfKaz8385SoMuZpEk4i3gs228P3ZHR4H1VstRo27fY2dpPpOR5YwWhQoZCOa0-XGH-FSf2fXAvkyjWi57-gj/s400/IMG_2132.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
But last week I was ready to dig a big hole and bury all three of them. One was mysteriously sick, one was obsessively plucking the sick one's head, and the other was just coming out of a severe moult.<br />
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I had been away from home for weeks, and they had lacked the extra TLC I usually give them over winter. There were even a couple of days when their Grandpa's Feeder was empty. Woops.<br />
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<h3>
The poisoning</h3>
After my return home, I spent a sunny few hours weeding the vegetable garden and tossing the weeds into their run. It was paradise for them, as they nibbled and pecked and scratched! I love their happy, busy sounds at such times.<br />
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I also threw in a foxglove plant. Those things come up like weeds around our garden. The plant got well chomped by at least one hen, and looked like a bigger version of this:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGdv3UPXaAI0ifpDAAEWO0nGprcAac6n1kv_poI3RmWiS5yhxxVILsa7Kx1PHeAAG_EYK7RZ9gV8Aw9aCHj-WhaOGa9Vw-Cf-9iPO7Na3bJIGqZdiU3ebZF2qLipHF4HVQTUNeV_6G-kiy/s1600/IMG_2148.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGdv3UPXaAI0ifpDAAEWO0nGprcAac6n1kv_poI3RmWiS5yhxxVILsa7Kx1PHeAAG_EYK7RZ9gV8Aw9aCHj-WhaOGa9Vw-Cf-9iPO7Na3bJIGqZdiU3ebZF2qLipHF4HVQTUNeV_6G-kiy/s400/IMG_2148.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A common foxglove plant in winter. They like to grow in sunny spots.</td></tr>
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The next day, I noticed one of the girls was sitting still and hunched. At one point she moved quickly to get some chickweed I threw them, and she stumbled and fell.<br />
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<h3>
The health inspection</h3>
I haven't had to deal with a lot of chicken sickness in the eight or so years I've been an urban chicken keeper, but I checked her for what I know to look for:<br />
- her vent - but it was pale pink and clean.<br />
- her throat area - but it was not fluid-filled, and no liquid came out of her when I tipped her upside down.<br />
- her legs and feet - were they red, swollen or broken? Nope.<br />
<br />
I did notice she had a bald patch on her head. The exposed skin was perfectly clean and undamaged.<br />
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Mystery upon mystery.<br />
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<h3>
The realisation</h3>
On day 4 she looked so miserable that I decided I had to put her out of her misery. She was skinny and still. Her feathers were fluffed up and her tail pointed towards the ground. Her comb, however, was very red and pert, which confused me. At the last minute I decided to check with Dr Google about sick chickens with no other symptoms.<br />
<br />
There it was: digitalis poisoning. I had known foxglove contains digitalis, from which the heart drug digoxin is made (or modelled on these days, possibly). But throwing foxglove into the coop? This apparently used a completely different part of my brain. Doh.<br />
<br />
Digitalis alters heart muscle contractions, in a way that can help if you are a human with heart failure or an ineffective heart rhythm, but in a way that is very unhelpful in the wrong dose to a creature or person with a normal heart.<br />
<br />
I had poisoned my hen.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, one helpful message board said that it would take a few days to clear her system, and that she should be separated from the others and kept warm.<br />
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<h3>
Nursing the sick hen</h3>
Each night I brought her inside, sitting her in our roadside recycling bin lined with barley straw. I covered the bin with an old woollen jumper with the corner folded back to provide an air hole. This cover made it dark for her, and therefore kept her calm (she wasn't well enough to jump out, but I didn't want to frighten her).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdXuXHHyvdbxDCkZAtXefJP3xe7EVA1HOu3iLZk06cNRJsBQA38Mlu3k-CYp0z1KqVj1yB7oHQQpO4uuODg8mSu4V6dDk_ft9sqywzgKM35tVzopqmnZsoJLOkgHtaiJVvigsEVcESEbJ3/s1600/IMG_2140.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdXuXHHyvdbxDCkZAtXefJP3xe7EVA1HOu3iLZk06cNRJsBQA38Mlu3k-CYp0z1KqVj1yB7oHQQpO4uuODg8mSu4V6dDk_ft9sqywzgKM35tVzopqmnZsoJLOkgHtaiJVvigsEVcESEbJ3/s400/IMG_2140.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The night-time hospital bed.</td></tr>
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I sat her just inside our back door, because although beside the fire in the lounge is warmer, I decided she wasn't used to such temperatures and it might be too hot for her.<br />
<br />
During the day I put her in a pen next to her friends to keep her happy. Sometimes sick birds need to be completely separated, but her illness wasn't contagious, and hens like their friends. She had food and water on offer, but barely touched it. She got skinnier and skinnier.<br />
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<h3>
Recovery and a terrible near miss</h3>
After a week I noticed she was eating a bit and producing a bit more poo. Next day, I took her outside in the morning, and before I put her down I offered her some of her regular pellets from my hand. She was hungry, and ate!<br />
<br />
<i>Then things went wrong.</i> Her head twisted to one side, and soon she started twitching. I put her on the ground and she lay on her back spasming. Her eyes were closed. I was sure she was dying in front of me.<br />
<br />
Oddly, my brain kept working calmly. She had been getting better - she was hungry - she ate a solid pellet. Could she be choking?<br />
<br />
I picked her up and held her upside down, head first, gently rocking her repeatedly downwards. She stopped spasming and became very still. Sadly, I laid her down on her patch of dry barley straw. Her eyes were closed and her head and beak lay flopped on the ground.<br />
<br />
Then I noticed she was breathing hard. She took huge, laboured breaths as if she had suffocated and was recovering. I think she had been choking, and it had cleared.<br />
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A few hours later she was wandering around, tail perky, pecking at things as if nothing had happened!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgPhHoDOEsodocAXPWECjLKhwrkYyQCaHuCukCq34KY4SgKXo845U7qgCdD7ElgGkqzlCxqYqrPbSe5ZNNcf0G9vkqZ8Pl_5YI12OJCe47dq5zjW_fzoU6Bmuzp-Zi6fEGISAn64j0ift7/s1600/IMG_2136.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgPhHoDOEsodocAXPWECjLKhwrkYyQCaHuCukCq34KY4SgKXo845U7qgCdD7ElgGkqzlCxqYqrPbSe5ZNNcf0G9vkqZ8Pl_5YI12OJCe47dq5zjW_fzoU6Bmuzp-Zi6fEGISAn64j0ift7/s400/IMG_2136.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There is nothing wrong with me now.</td></tr>
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Today, she is wildly healthy, and I suspect it's her giving me the daily egg. Her head feathers are growing back. That was another mystery I solved - she had been at the mercy of her flockmate's beak - but I'll save that for another post!<br />
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Have you dealt with digitalis or other accidental poisoning before? Does foxglove grow in your garden? When it's flowering, which is in summer, it looks like the image below. Bumblebees love it, and I think it's beautiful. But it's also terrible.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="300" src="http://ketenewplymouth.peoplesnetworknz.info/image_files/0000/0002/4264/Digitalis_purpurea__Common_foxglove_5.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thanks to TERRAIN.net for this image. <br />They have more photos, and good close-ups of the leaves: click <a href="http://www.terrain.net.nz/friends-of-te-henui-group/weeds/foxglove-purple-digitalis-purpurea.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> for their full report. </td></tr>
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<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com4Hamilton, New Zealand-37.7870012 175.27925300000004-37.7870012 175.27925300000004 -37.7870012 175.27925300000004tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-44340510488394606812017-02-13T14:16:00.000+13:002017-02-15T13:45:57.095+13:00The foodie who keeps chickens: pavlova and omeletSometimes as I beat eggs I imagine an alien watching the process. Wouldn't he/she/it be amazed that a simple egg can be transformed into something so unrecognisable and delicious - and into such a range of dishes?<br />
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It's something we take for granted, but I love to look at things as if I came from outside our culture in order to get rushes of pleasure from the many wonderful things we see as ordinary, just because we see them all the time.<br />
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One of those things is the ability, even on small urban sections, to keep feathery livestock and grow our own fruit and vegetables. The part of me that is still a little girl sees that as a fairy tale opportunity, and longs to do that when she grows up. The part of me that is turning 45 this year hears that child, and gets out there to tend the chickens and plant the seeds to make sure I make the most of the opportunity afforded to me, even when there a million other things to do in this busy life. Some things I just will not compromise on!<br />
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<h3>
Chickens for the Foodie</h3>
I'm also unable to compromise on good food. I am a thorough food lover and cook, and this works well with a bit of urban homesteading. Yes, I may be eating plums for the 20th day in a row, but they are only ripe on the tree for a few weeks, taste far better than anything you can buy in the shops, and I'm going to damn well make the most of them!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our Luisa plum tree today</td></tr>
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Last weekend I made a large pavlova (with our own eggs) for a neighbourhood barbeque, and topped it with our own sliced deeply red and flavoursome Hawera plums. I forgot to photograph it, but the top photo of this post shows a little extra one I made for my family at the same time, so we could enjoy it the next day. It's decorated with our homegrown blueberries. I'm a bit of a pavlova queen, and use Nigella Lawson's recipe in <i>How To Eat</i>. I'm sorry I can't share a link to it; it's not one of her online recipes. I'm sure your local library will have the book. She has more elaborately flavoured pavlova recipes on her website, <a href="https://www.nigella.com/">https://www.nigella.com/</a>, but I haven't tried them.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My daughter, niece and nephew taking turns beating the <br />
Christmas pavlova last year, under my instruction.<br />
It was one of my favourite parts of Christmas!</td></tr>
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<h3>
Top tips</h3>
My top pavlova tips are to beat in the sugar thoroughly, just a tablespoon or so at a time, and to use somewhat aged eggs. You want them to be at least a week old - not a problem for supermarket egg buyers, obviously, but a matter of management for chicken keepers.<br />
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Another thing to think about from a fresh perspective: how about those electric beaters, eh? Aren't we lucky? Our grandmothers used egg-beaters, the muscle-powered kind! I once made a pav like that, with a couple of other women taking turns beating, because the electric beater was nowhere to be found. All agreed that it was the best pavlova we'd ever had.<br />
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My next use-up-eggs recipe is to be the <i>Buckwheat and Cherry Cake</i> recipe <a href="http://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/nz-house-garden/20170101/283025464280129" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>. It comes from the January 2017 <i>New Zealand House and Garden</i> magazine. It's basically a classic sponge cake with buckwheat flour instead of cornflour and plain flour - a bit Black Forest Gateaux-ish. I'll use our homegrown berries instead of cherries.<br />
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<h3>
The perfect omelet</h3>
The omelet - something so hard to spell correctly, I find, but so quick to make to use your backyard protein source. I pack my omelets with vegetables, herbs and cheese for a great lunch. Mine aren't overly photogenic, but after just reading <a href="http://www.bite.co.nz/kitchen-tips/ask-peter-gordon/3233/Ask-Peter-How-to-make-the-perfect-omelette/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this article</a> on <a href="http://bite.co.nz/">bite.co.nz</a>, I think they're about to get better. I hope you find it inspiring, too.<br />
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<h3>
Eggs = good food</h3>
So, from my tastebuds and stomach, I say each day as I collect eggs from the nest box: Thank you, ladies.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Today's haul (from three hens)</td></tr>
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I wish you much happy, healthy eating with your own eggs and produce!<br />
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<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com0Polynesia-37.550378646680407 175.6664514541626-61.894575646680408 134.1820764541626 -13.206181646680406 -142.8491735458374tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-80701470443527854002016-01-27T13:21:00.000+13:002016-01-30T12:21:21.937+13:00How to deal with a broody henEarlier this month I got this question from a follower: <i>"<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.32px;">One of the chooks keeps heading back to the coop to sit in the nesting box, sometimes, not always, sitting on an egg. She is all puffed up & filling the whole nesting box. When I give them their mash in the evening, she's not as interested as she used to be. She looks much fatter (or fluffed up?) than the other 2. What's going on? Does anyone know?"</span></i><br />
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This is a fantastic description of a broody hen: fluffed up and refusing to leave the nest box. She might also have a paler comb and, when she does go out for a quick snack and a drink, make a quiet, clucky sound, which is why another word for the condition is 'clucky'.<br />
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<h3>
Madness</h3>
To me, broodiness is like a kind of craziness has grasped the bird. She can think about nothing other than sitting on her eggs, keeping them warm. Whether they are actually fertile is neither here nor there to her. In fact, although eggs make her more likely to stay on the nest, she'll sit in there even after you've taken them away. By the time she's noticeably broody she'll have paused her own egg-laying and will be tucking the other hens' eggs under her warm belly, which has probably become fairly bald to allow skin-to-shell contact.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Competition for space in the nest box.</td></tr>
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<h3>
Chicks</h3>
It takes three weeks of incubation for chicken eggs to hatch, so your broody hen is likely to be in this state for a long time if you don't do anything about it. Without the stimulus of chicks appearing out of the eggs she may stay broody even longer. She'll get very thin, as incubating hens rarely eat.<br />
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If you want chicks, of course, broodiness is wonderful. You can buy fertile eggs cheaply off Trade Me, pop them under your hen, and in three weeks they'll probably hatch. A broody hen needs a quiet nest box to herself, and a safe place for her and her chicks (i.e. where cats, dogs and adult hens can't get to the chicks). They'll also need a water container that chicks can drink from but not drown in, and chick starter food. Having a mother hen and chicks is delightful.<br />
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If you don't want chicks, broodiness is a downright nuisance, and requires attention. It will be ongoing, too, because a hen that's prone to going broody will keep doing so again and again, even if you let her have chicks. She's valuable to people who want chicks, though, so you can easily sell her.<br />
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<h3>
How to break broodiness</h3>
The most important thing is to keep her away from the nest. Some hens snap out of their broodiness more easily than others, and it may be a simple case of blocking off the nest box as soon as the other hens have laid, then unblocking it once darkness falls and all the birds are roosting.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A failed attempt to block off the nest box</td></tr>
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Once I had a huge Orpington who occasionally went broody. I blocked off the main nest box, which was slightly raised, and put straw underneath it, because the Orpington's brown shaver flockmates could get under there to lay, but she was too big to squeeze in. That way the broody bird was completely excluded from a nest box, but the others had a reasonable substitute available. After about three days the Orpington would come right - but she was a particularly easy fix.<br />
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More persistent brooders will just sit somewhere else, even if it doesn't resemble a nest. My most persistent one, a blue Orpington, once just sat in mud as the rain fell on her. She was completely gripped.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A nicely constructed broody cage (in foreground)</td></tr>
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In this case, a broody cage is a good solution. This can be anything patched together as long as it has a roof that shades and shields, four walls (wire mesh is good) and a wire mesh floor, with plenty of food and water available. The idea is to get "air under her skirts". The hen needs to stay in there for, well, as long as it takes for her to stop seeming broody! This is a shorter time than it will take for her to lay again, so you needn't leave her in there that long, as it is a bit mean. Just look out for her standing rather than sitting, feathers sitting flat and normal sounds. If she goes to the nest box when you return her to her coop, she needs longer in the broody cage.<br />
<h3>
<br />An alternative solution</h3>
<div>
Not having a broody cage, I recently came up with a different approach. I fenced off a paved area of our property well away from the coop, and put the broody in there, alone. She squawked terribly, and escaped repeatedly until I secured the fence properly. She was so distressed at being isolated in this way that she never sat down at all (this bird has a particularly reactive personality). At night I let her go back to her pals, and made sure she was on the perch at dusk. After three or so days of this treatment she snapped out of her broodiness.</div>
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A couple of weeks later, there she was, back in the nest box all day. Intolerant as I am of broodies, and greedy for eggs, I abandoned the fight and gave her away to someone who celebrated her broodiness and let her have chicks.<br />
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<h3>
Choose your breeds carefully</h3>
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Sometimes modern hybrid breeds like brown shavers go broody, but it's rare. The heavy, beautiful breeds that I love so much are the worst offenders, as are the delightful little Silkies. However, even within a breed there will be unpredictable variation: some individuals just do go broody, and some just won't even if you want them to. Such is nature, teaching us yet again that we cannot control her!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIddXubqo6o2CFioRooBegLO7FnorG2dj4kst65cZls0owj41W_446ArInPkQR4BcehZBqvG3hw9WDDTX851c-44u2Y9qzXuu-bR0cs3GxcFGq_duPZ4vOmiRoTr9pST4b_lcD4Cy-heVK/s1600/IMG_6928.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIddXubqo6o2CFioRooBegLO7FnorG2dj4kst65cZls0owj41W_446ArInPkQR4BcehZBqvG3hw9WDDTX851c-44u2Y9qzXuu-bR0cs3GxcFGq_duPZ4vOmiRoTr9pST4b_lcD4Cy-heVK/s400/IMG_6928.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goodbye, pretty hen. You were too broody.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-68713431299978489282015-11-15T07:37:00.000+13:002015-11-15T07:37:38.673+13:00What to grow for your chickens<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In urban gardens, it’s hard to let chickens free range,
although obviously that’s what they’d prefer and is better for them. But to compensate, we can grow a few easy, hardy plants that they love and are great for their health.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I don't feel guilty about this arrangement. Our vegetable garden is an extension of our fridge
and pantry, and chickens cannot range through a vegetable garden that is also
productive. Our chickens' lives are much happier than their counterparts in battery cages or even commercial free range flocks.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Plants they can reach</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Every winter we sow oats (and other manure crops) in unused
parts of our garden. We don't leave them in long enough to actually turn into oats, but the tall,
grass-like leaves are sweet, even to human taste. Chickens love them.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvPbsVNWEw575vtbJQg05ld6YiEFp4HzCxMSBanUn64fzPL_Ope86X6nsG7KLJjZmQfzTdEXSHL49_v2BL8eRAwr9APEjjy8vYoknu4NkqgPzx1EljGeuvYzjcrhkZnvzp_YQzyW3YJJyz/s1600/IMG_6640.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvPbsVNWEw575vtbJQg05ld6YiEFp4HzCxMSBanUn64fzPL_Ope86X6nsG7KLJjZmQfzTdEXSHL49_v2BL8eRAwr9APEjjy8vYoknu4NkqgPzx1EljGeuvYzjcrhkZnvzp_YQzyW3YJJyz/s320/IMG_6640.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The oat leaves are most easily seen to the right of the photo.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The ones planted near the chicken run get a thorough gnawing by
our birds, because the plastic mesh of their fence is big enough for them to
poke their heads through. They can reach leaves that wave close to their fence,
but they can’t dig up and destroy those plants. The same goes for silverbeet and broccoli that sometimes grows there.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Last month we moved their fence a bit so the oats were growing inside their run. It was short-lived pleasure for them: the next day the plants were completely destroyed.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_G-INC2J_qUcE8wM6AoD7OyqYx-_7434tHn0sDAZxVXTpkdOLb5jOeQ5JSEBJ-Rm7JI2irY5JImZxyTOU32FRYGZbzzfVIyU-7ker7w8VEJry2-geYGAR7KezCY_Xbz9HcjROI2DNs-2q/s1600/IMG_6626.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_G-INC2J_qUcE8wM6AoD7OyqYx-_7434tHn0sDAZxVXTpkdOLb5jOeQ5JSEBJ-Rm7JI2irY5JImZxyTOU32FRYGZbzzfVIyU-7ker7w8VEJry2-geYGAR7KezCY_Xbz9HcjROI2DNs-2q/s320/IMG_6626.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New access to oats!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXvtmLkWJ_kygsN1v7xxkqRCXM_HoaZMDhip3Q6CsLl-vJS8ubDvUi5_S-HML4w3fi7hDMLPiadUKshVIH2SdWt_GYLI9CGWz4gskz2gN7HY64F4Ux75ODCosd9GCynclwmVJc4i6cLkG9/s1600/IMG_6641.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXvtmLkWJ_kygsN1v7xxkqRCXM_HoaZMDhip3Q6CsLl-vJS8ubDvUi5_S-HML4w3fi7hDMLPiadUKshVIH2SdWt_GYLI9CGWz4gskz2gN7HY64F4Ux75ODCosd9GCynclwmVJc4i6cLkG9/s320/IMG_6641.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The next day: all gone.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Plants to throw them</span></h3>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Most days when I wander through the garden, I tear off
some oat leaves and throw them into the run. It’s not quite as easy as it
sounds, because I tear them into smallish pieces (5 cm long or so). Very long bits of grassy stuff can occasionally cause blockages in their crops.
(This is not a problem when they are able to tear bits off plants rooted into
the ground, because they can tear off whatever size they like.) <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Silverbeet and lettuce leaves are soft enough that chickens can tear off mouthful-sized portions even from loose leaves.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You can also throw them anything that has done its dash in the garden. At the moment ours have been feasting on bolted kale, broccoli, lettuce and carrot tops. (We don't rip everything out as soon as it bolts, though - it's good to leave some to flower for the bees, and to set seed and therefore turn into free self-seeded plants in the future.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<h3>
Planning</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the moment there's a clear strip of soil outside the chicken run where the fence was moved inwards a bit. Once it rains (tonight, I hope - the garden is so dry!) I plan to transplant a small bunch of self-seeded baby silverbeet plants into that strip, and to scatter some oat seeds. I might have to think of a way to protect them from hungry beaks until the plants are big enough to cope with gnawing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h3>
The lazy way</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All this might sound like too much work, but it's easy. Oats and silverbeet grow like weeds and take no tending at all, apart from a bit of moisture to get them started. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Nutrition</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Best of all, what's good for your chickens is good for you. Lots of greens and insects delight your birds, plus make their eggs richer in healthy fats. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h3>
For everybody</h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oat leaves may be sweet, but they probably won't make their way into your salad any time soon. However, there is another creature who might be delighted at what you've grown. Our cat eats oat leaves every day! It's funny watching his carnivore teeth trying to chew a leaf. He manages, though.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRoxtxUY_wy-9uG1N73eFZU-Mk370kZa7QnBy7FZD8nSBWMWgZEwi2x8h9Mw3PXZzWJVPNb1Bzl_UcMdaf5xFTobdQRZqeOAvstljaukrCsodB7DJGgI-3q3B03AToG1d-YupBlVCDa0nM/s1600/IMG_6663.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRoxtxUY_wy-9uG1N73eFZU-Mk370kZa7QnBy7FZD8nSBWMWgZEwi2x8h9Mw3PXZzWJVPNb1Bzl_UcMdaf5xFTobdQRZqeOAvstljaukrCsodB7DJGgI-3q3B03AToG1d-YupBlVCDa0nM/s320/IMG_6663.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<h3>
Other treats</h3>
<div>
Remember that chickens are not vegetarians. I often notice that when they escape into our vegetable garden their first priority is tossing aside the mulch to get to the tiny beasties that live underneath. Give them some wild flesh by tossing them snails, worms and insects whenever you can can get your hands on them.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTuAyyDo0nn44RoDrL8BNkpA7ZL77XznD-5E2RwxJus9UoNPAvYv2P4s75F3qkUww6XgKlktdUF5Bi7FSd0CeufEvmdJszewSQXuoNeEpQEXWvWnDFc-AbWZE9r5-jHAsLXsiUSxem3-xG/s1600/IMG_6630.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTuAyyDo0nn44RoDrL8BNkpA7ZL77XznD-5E2RwxJus9UoNPAvYv2P4s75F3qkUww6XgKlktdUF5Bi7FSd0CeufEvmdJszewSQXuoNeEpQEXWvWnDFc-AbWZE9r5-jHAsLXsiUSxem3-xG/s320/IMG_6630.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Four happy hens ignoring the oat leaves for a start, while<br />they concentrate on the soil organisms they've uncovered<br />in the newly-accessed ground.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com3Australasia-40.979898069620134 174.375-66.572232569620127 133.066406 -15.387563569620134 -144.31640600000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-55705023907687738162015-10-13T16:35:00.000+13:002015-10-13T16:35:30.672+13:00How to introduce new chickens to your homeNo matter how carefully you choose your first batch of chickens - the right number, the breed that suits you - one day you'll find yourself wanting new ones, probably because you long for that first youthful year when you had so many eggs that you were giving them away.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZQdVAV1kXCRg0TY7dtA5TqdBu09kB9ePncI6inZBTX-BIx74smCZs9jwVROZkJVVaLzFbk36pPfq718OXXmS81hxtw8Z0kp30KeQXKqyQq2WGCEWjtcuarpVs61TQhDYS_uAJg5QIid5w/s1600/IMG_6297.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZQdVAV1kXCRg0TY7dtA5TqdBu09kB9ePncI6inZBTX-BIx74smCZs9jwVROZkJVVaLzFbk36pPfq718OXXmS81hxtw8Z0kp30KeQXKqyQq2WGCEWjtcuarpVs61TQhDYS_uAJg5QIid5w/s320/IMG_6297.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
This is the position I found myself in recently, with these two old hens that rarely laid, and having to <i>buy</i> eggs. Horrors! What did I do?<br />
<br />
<h3>
Strategies</h3>
There are two ways to go about the upgrade. Firstly, you could get rid of all your chickens, and start afresh. There are people who say this is the best way to go because it reduces disease transmission between old and new birds. This assumes you have a disease problem, though! I don't, and never have, I think because of the way I keep my birds. (I did have a little clean up before the new ones arrived, though.)<br />
<br />
Sometimes there are advantages to keeping one or more of the old flock. I took this second approach: keep the goodies, ditch the duds and bring in some new blood.<br />
<br />
In the past I've held on to good layers or a beauty who has stolen a place in my heart. But this time it was pure practicality: new birds learn from the existing birds how to use a Grandpa's feeder (a hopper-style feeder where they stand on a platform to open the lid to the food). They pick it up very fast when they see it done. Otherwise, training them is a plain nuisance.<br />
<br />
This time I kept one older bird purely to show the others how to use the feeder. After two or three weeks she too went to my Fiji-Indian friend, a renowned cook who upcycles her into a curry. The downside was that she was distressed that her friend disappeared before she did, and, as predicted, she became a bully.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Bullying</h3>
The urge to attack new birds is deeply ingrained in chickens' nature. It can be a shock to see this if your existing birds have always been peaceful!<br />
<br />
The attacks are more of a problem in urban situations like mine where chickens are likely to be enclosed rather than free-ranging, because the victims can't escape as easily. But even then they are unlikely to result in serious injury.<br />
<br />
A big advantage to the old-out/new-in approach is that it avoids older birds brutalising new birds. A group of completely new birds is likely to dwell in peace from the start.<br />
<br />
I'd always try to get new ones all the same age though: if some are sexually mature and some aren't, there may still be a bit of bullying from older to younger. Very young birds are definitely vulnerable to more serious attack from mature ones if they can't escape. (<br />
<br />
This time I bought an Orpington cross who had already been laying a month, and three brown shaver pullets about 18 weeks old but decidedly immature. The Orpington has been an imperious queen from the start, the young madam - she even declared herself equal to the old brown shaver from day one. The now-lonely old one immediately accepted the newcomer as a substitute buddy, which surprised me greatly.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDyvNy0OpKLwnd2mjFWSnbOIragom7Xya1-3Q7JfwePQsuMOzygsRj5mc1890ImVgcOiOWLobXiz-L_ZFjoosG59QVjJ6zA4Bdcmdmb-tnD6Pey77TA9MryJq4beSnbYUFWWo_1JbhP1sV/s1600/IMG_6314.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDyvNy0OpKLwnd2mjFWSnbOIragom7Xya1-3Q7JfwePQsuMOzygsRj5mc1890ImVgcOiOWLobXiz-L_ZFjoosG59QVjJ6zA4Bdcmdmb-tnD6Pey77TA9MryJq4beSnbYUFWWo_1JbhP1sV/s320/IMG_6314.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the first day the old brown shaver accepted this<br />bolshy young Orpington cross.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
It helps to make sure that food is ample and spread out widely during the troubled time. I flung scraps left, right and centre. That way even the victims get enough to eat, and nobody's irritable with hunger. For a few days my new brown shavers stood huddled together and unmoving to avoid the bullies, so I put some containers of food and water near their safe spot under the shrubs. It was hard to believe it would ever happen, the poor terrified things, but they soon grew brave.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ksMG-c4t9a1HnD2bNvSGRDILZDwNoNTjP-js2PgnURDzY5a0JRUuKKpUpOKeM6e5JYgGWz2tmuso-QBxBamrQOpW-BlFBXeDUtB1gbeJBIAQ1abcbNp-QO_wArqlG4Hl1GXDAM7PlHKR/s1600/IMG_6326.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ksMG-c4t9a1HnD2bNvSGRDILZDwNoNTjP-js2PgnURDzY5a0JRUuKKpUpOKeM6e5JYgGWz2tmuso-QBxBamrQOpW-BlFBXeDUtB1gbeJBIAQ1abcbNp-QO_wArqlG4Hl1GXDAM7PlHKR/s320/IMG_6326.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eventually I could lure the three young brown shavers out<br />from their hidey hole under the trees, but it took a few days.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The unsettling scene seems to be better when the newcomers are in the majority, so I try to keep just one or two older birds and get three or more new ones.<br />
<br />
No matter how brutal the bullying seems, or how petrified the new birds are, it usually settles down in a couple of weeks. By then the under-hens have learnt to submit to the stronger ones, and the strong ones feel assured of their power. Sometimes it settles down so completely that they all seem to be good friends. Other times there might be some persistent but mild acts of dominance - as per Queen Orpington, in my case - but mostly they'll be confident and content.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL65v3tNA4eydzLTCSEDHRl6SCoEVMd6JzOI2Zio6FCqiqLngGaZQlUcWhEq7EHFwoyE7zs80X8bHIaM3PSQzlNvT7gkNPUBxI_dNQqWmU6xR0C5O3dvhXa8DAXrJnJkeLup0hVvhD7i8k/s1600/IMG_6346.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL65v3tNA4eydzLTCSEDHRl6SCoEVMd6JzOI2Zio6FCqiqLngGaZQlUcWhEq7EHFwoyE7zs80X8bHIaM3PSQzlNvT7gkNPUBxI_dNQqWmU6xR0C5O3dvhXa8DAXrJnJkeLup0hVvhD7i8k/s320/IMG_6346.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The imperious Queen, who has one heck of a beak.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h3>
Good perching habits</h3>
<div>
I'm a big fan of chickens sleeping on their perch, so their nest boxes stay clean and they don't suffer the health effects of sleeping in their own excrement. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Sometimes new chickens need to be encouraged onto their perch. From the first day of arrival you can go out after dark with a perch and do a head count. If anyone's missing from the perch, find them and lift them onto the perch, making sure they're stable before removing your hands. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Mine were keen to perch from day one - in fact every chicken I've ever had has been - but the young brown shavers were too scared to go inside next to the older birds. Instead they perched on some precarious sticks outside. When I put them on the proper perch, the old brown shaver knocked them off! So I put the generous figure of Queen Orpington, who was never quite so rough, between them and her. By the fourth night at dusk they were all getting up on the perch by themselves. Phew.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Shutting them in</h3>
<div>
If your set-up is such that your birds could escape to Neverland, then it's wise to shut a new batch of birds in their coop during day and night for a few days (not with bullies, of course). When they are used to where they sleep and feed - and lay eggs, if they're old enough to lay - then they can be allowed to roam, and they probably won't go far.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Once a friend of mine got chickens for the first time, failed to shut them in, and from then on only saw them in the distance as they roamed wild forever more over the surrounding lifestyle blocks!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
Rewards</h3>
<div>
Some people feel it's wrong to get rid of old birds just because they don't lay well. I feel that as long as it's done gently and as humanely as possible, it's really worth the inevitable disruption. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This is what greets me most days again now - wonderful. </div>
<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-21746020084852862032015-09-18T14:05:00.001+12:002015-09-18T14:05:57.470+12:00The true gift of chickensWhen it comes to keeping chickens, there are so many how-tos, and that's what this blog is usually about. But what I really want to shout about right now is how fascinating and lovely these birds are!<br />
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It's spring at the moment, and as the season warms many people are getting chickens for the first time. They're keen enough to do the required legwork before bringing them home, but the truth is that most of them are going to be surprised at how much they love having them.<br />
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Not only are these birds physically lovely, with their fabulous feathers and colourful combs, but they are fascinating, moving from activity to activity, and often get passionate about what they're doing. They are intent on scratching up litter to find treats, grooming their gorgeous feathers and jostling for space on the perch. They are rapturous as they dust bathe. And because it is written in the ancestral chicken rule book that these birds are bound to follow, their behaviours are done in unison with their pals. Chickens are intensely social creatures.<br />
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I was once given a book called <a href="http://www.bookdepository.com/Zen-and-the-Art-of-Raising-Chickens/9781907332388" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens</a>. I understood it, straight away. A few minutes spent with your chickens is so soothing and grounding. That's when you realise that despite this plastic-coated, screen-filled world of convenience we live in, we are still thoroughly part of nature, and we need it.<br />
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That is the true gift of chickens. Plus the eggs of course.<br />
<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-41037634899694281632015-08-28T10:52:00.000+12:002015-08-30T15:25:35.259+12:00Charlie's new chooks: how he started from scratchMy friend Charlie and his wife Anne are turning their smallish backyard into a little urban homestead. To complete the picture of vegetable garden, fruit trees and compost, they just HAD to have some chickens. Good plan, I say.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji1Ta0y1h99C5LWnbWEakSpVqWV0fOG2qqwSsANLx5Ycr8sHGpehGFHP5M9nue0dy8AHGsfCAv05hhH67UL_XtImKGoVbvgz9sUnc6Q4FQjAzHzmqkce6mBu-FukxpEa8FXqYXmcnZ6nI6/s1600/IMG_6382.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji1Ta0y1h99C5LWnbWEakSpVqWV0fOG2qqwSsANLx5Ycr8sHGpehGFHP5M9nue0dy8AHGsfCAv05hhH67UL_XtImKGoVbvgz9sUnc6Q4FQjAzHzmqkce6mBu-FukxpEa8FXqYXmcnZ6nI6/s320/IMG_6382.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charlie and Anne's back garden, ready to go for spring.<br />
Naturally he has already planted some silverbeet plants for his chooks.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Charlie's been working on the set up for a few weeks now, building his own coop and fencing, and re-using an old screen door as a gate. Here's what he did.<br />
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<h3>
Location</h3>
Firstly he looked at his garden to think which corner the chickens might occupy. He had an area between the back of his garage and his rear boundary fence that was unused. It has some overhanging trees for shade (although he has trimmed them back quite a lot - they will regrow though), but gets a reasonable amount of sun.<br />
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Bonus: in one corner the terrible weed Tradescantia is growing. Chickens love this weed! They can even eradicate it.<br />
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Another bonus: Charlie won't have to mow this area any more. It may even become denuded. His hens will be thrilled if he digs some of it over every now and then so they have loose material to dustbathe, peck and scratch in, or maybe he will throw in leaves, etc. to provide that vital loose material.<br />
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<h3>
The coop</h3>
The coop is always a big sticking point when it comes to getting chooks. It's hard to find coops that are well designed, sturdy and come at a reasonable price. I gave Charlie a quick run down on what I think is important in a coop - briefly, a perch that is suitably thick with rounded edges, and a nest box lower than the perch.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JH5_vHyghka_5yJnKNLC6X_WjjM7pFG9r2r8vSYQNV4VexNTka9UtOJhcKF_9hSCXQWUygrdhC49cZ76IHEQBDKj2p-hEIyizQ7YRvnYk9tovWE0zyRR5rhLQ884c3zlLVRnZcxESzdO/s1600/IMG_6338.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JH5_vHyghka_5yJnKNLC6X_WjjM7pFG9r2r8vSYQNV4VexNTka9UtOJhcKF_9hSCXQWUygrdhC49cZ76IHEQBDKj2p-hEIyizQ7YRvnYk9tovWE0zyRR5rhLQ884c3zlLVRnZcxESzdO/s320/IMG_6338.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It looks very stylish with the black stain and the<br />
ventilation holes across the top. The dimensions<br />
are 915 x 915 x 1220 mm.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioYSyx2qEjH7dvx7tyy58sulCx3VEd5LYlBfRj4v5qahdDcHuzxnzPY9d56AV1v2UWd15afVcvTE3X5ZyENd8vgDNWOruZH2sYrha3yVai3aERnXnwKy0ak2RLyMFpEs05yGxFSx_Zq7JI/s1600/IMG_6340_1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioYSyx2qEjH7dvx7tyy58sulCx3VEd5LYlBfRj4v5qahdDcHuzxnzPY9d56AV1v2UWd15afVcvTE3X5ZyENd8vgDNWOruZH2sYrha3yVai3aERnXnwKy0ak2RLyMFpEs05yGxFSx_Zq7JI/s320/IMG_6340_1.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The inside waiting to be lined with wood shavings.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Charlie built this coop in his garage. He bought the plans online from <a href="http://www.thegardencoop.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Garden Coop</a> for US$24.95 (his is the 'basic coop' model) and spent about $300 on the materials. He said the plans were incredibly easy to follow and you don't have to be an experienced woodworker to make it. He worked on it during weekends for a few weeks. Best of all, he really enjoyed doing it and feels pretty damn pleased with himself!<br />
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I think it looks pretty good too. A few thoughts on it:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>I'm not sure he'll have enough perch space if he wants more birds; this coop is designed for four of them, and that's all he wants at present. </li>
<li>Possibly the nest box is not sufficiently lower than the perch (nest boxes higher than perches encourage hens to sleep in the nest boxes), but he tells me he can move it down quite easily. </li>
<li>It's not an easy coop to move around, but then he doesn't need to move it.</li>
<li>I like the way the drinker can hang from underneath the nestbox. That's a good use of space.</li>
</ul>
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What you can't see in the photo are two little doors from the outside. One goes into the nest box for easy egg collection, and the other is a little hen-sized door. For the photo I opened the human-sized cleaning/access door.</div>
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Charlie bought a <a href="http://www.chooketeria.com/Welcome.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Chooketeria feeder</a> to keep out the sparrows, but unfortunately it is too big to fit inside the coop, so he's going to situate it outside, possibly under a small shelter he's planning to build.<br />
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<h3>
The fencing</h3>
<div>
Charlie is planning to eat plenty of the vegetables he grows himself. That means KEEP OUT CHICKENS. Those strong legs and beaks would decimate his garden. At 1.1 metres high, plus another 20 cm of height created by the wire running across the top, Charlie's fence should successfully protect his garden. If the chickens do jump to the top of the wire mesh, he'll run something between the mesh and the top wire to fill in the gap.</div>
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Check out the old screen door on its side, which he's repurposed as a gate. Nice recycling.</div>
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<h3>
The birds</h3>
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Charlie chose to go with brown shavers, which lay extremely well - he can expect frequent eggs when they start laying at about 20 weeks of age. He got them for $25 each from <a href="http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=1964564" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this trader</a> on Trade Me. They were 15 weeks of age, and he had to drive about an hour to get them. Ideally he would have got them a few weeks older so he didn't have to wait so long to get eggs, but it's a small point.<br />
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Brown shavers are quite sprightly at getting over fences, and Charlie will probably want some fresh ones in two or three years, as they are generally worn out by then. Heavier breeds are much easier to contain and lay for longer, but may go annoyingly broody and certainly don't lay as well. Heavy heritage breeds cost more, too.<br />
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NOTE ON TRANSPORT: When Charlie returned from his chicken-collecting mission, he had the four birds squashed into a small cat cage (you can see it to the right of the photo above). I forgot to advise him to take cardboard boxes with plenty of head room, and some tape to hold them closed. Make sure there are air holes, too, and that the birds aren't left in a hot car.<br />
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Showing no ill effects upon release, the lovely little birds almost immediately started pecking and scratching, and looked very settled.<br />
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Charlie has to lift them onto their perch because they are sleeping in the nest box, but he's planning to block that off to force them onto the perch. They are too young to need it for its true purpose yet, anyway.<br />
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With the birds happy in their new home, all that was left for us to do was sit down near them and have a civilized cup of tea and slice of warm, home-made gingerbread. Lovely.<br />
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<h3>
What Charlie thinks</h3>
<i>"Certainly we are finding the chickens to be little characters, the way they are cantering
around their run exploring. They are making serious inroads into getting rid of
the Wandering Willy which gives me much pleasure. Our 9 year old
neighbour Olivia sits up on the fence and enjoys watching them, and her big
brother Jack just came over to tell me he had managed to throw the basket ball
into the chicken farm by mistake! Anne is enjoying ensuring they are safely in
bed at night letting them out in the morning. All in all they are a
entertaining and positive addition to the household - albeit not necessarily a
cheap, pun intended, investment. Now they better get laying!"</i><br />
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Ah, you just need a bit of patience ... once those eggs start coming you'll feel that years of eggs will make up for the initial expenditure.<br />
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<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-25253790571692344872015-05-15T16:58:00.000+12:002015-05-15T16:58:35.783+12:00Chicken fencing, or, Get out of my garden! A crazy pattern has begun to emerge in our backyard. When I go away for a few days, my chickens escape! If my husband's at home I get an angry phonecall: "You have got to sort out the chickens' fencing!" I grieve my latest batch of seedlings, which has been ransacked. I long for my emerging radish seeds, scratched to bits in my hens' foraging forays.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin1_gbfNqniF1VWknwFcEY2wkfj2g4FzbTDOcFdSXCp-ZRApDCHQWh3W0272tLaq1tM0RiybK10DBE48B3Pb_yLqhf_xMm3q5Wr2MAI2hqpHcj38Yflvr9_kArNZmx3kcoyrjnvsE2h652/s1600/IMG_5732.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin1_gbfNqniF1VWknwFcEY2wkfj2g4FzbTDOcFdSXCp-ZRApDCHQWh3W0272tLaq1tM0RiybK10DBE48B3Pb_yLqhf_xMm3q5Wr2MAI2hqpHcj38Yflvr9_kArNZmx3kcoyrjnvsE2h652/s320/IMG_5732.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Munched lettuce</td></tr>
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I suppose they miss the daily supplements of greens I chuck them when I'm there, because when I'm at home they stay put. Whatever the reason, the lure of our lush vegetable garden becomes too much for them in my absence, and they squeeze out of their pen through gaps they wouldn't consider breaching when I'm at home.<br />
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I know several people who have given up on chickens because they were sick of having their silverbeet reduced to stalks and their doormat become a poo platter. What every urban chicken-keeper needs, of course, is to embrace their chickens within a Good Fence.<br />
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<h3>
Home-made solutions</h3>
I'm open to suggestions, because obviously I haven't got it completely sorted. Here is what I use. The posts are a combination of bamboo, long slim pruned branches and extra-tall electric fence pigtail posts. I tie garden mesh to them. It works quite well to start with, but sags with time.<br />
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Here is my neighbour's set up, but she too has escapee problems (it's not a very high fence):<br />
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Commercial options</h3>
I've spotted some commercial offerings that tempt me greatly. One is the <a href="http://www.chooks.co.nz/p/397/omlet-chicken-fencing" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Omlet chicken fencing from chooks.co.nz</a>, which at 1.25 m is a better height than the standard garden mesh at 900 mm - 1 m high.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.chooks.co.nz/p/397/omlet-chicken-fencing" rel="nofollow" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img alt="Picture of Omlet Chicken Fencing" src="http://www.chooks.co.nz/content/images/thumbs/0001087_omlet-chicken-fencing_300.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Omlet chicken fencing</td></tr>
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There's also the Chickin-out fencing available <a href="http://www.lifestyleproducts.net.nz/chicken-fencing/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>. It's only 850 mm high, but because it's got metal spikes on top, apparently even flighty breeds don't fly over it. This squares with my experience of them needing to have a little sit on top of a fence they are attempting to cross.<br />
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Move it</h3>
To me it's important that fencing can be easily moved. This is so your birds can regularly have fresh ground and don't have to forage too much in their own poo. It may seem like they don't <i>have</i> to forage if they have pellets constantly available in a feeder - but they do, they're chickens and it is quite simply what they do.<br />
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(One way to avoid having to move the pen is to constantly put large amount of straw, weeds, leaves etc into it, so it's a minimum of about 15 cm deep. This is sometimes called the straw yard or deep litter method. It creates an on-site compost that keeps the muck less yucky.)<br />
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<h3>
Free range</h3>
I know my hens would be much happier free-ranging. However, with a smallish urban section and a commitment to growing most of our own vegetables, that just isn't an option. I believe that our eggs are still more welfare-friendly source than probably any commercially produced egg.Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com339tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-47922577986348574832015-03-29T12:15:00.000+13:002015-03-29T12:15:21.411+13:00A little operation on a messy chicken bottomMy favourite brown shaver hen lays the most enormous eggs. A couple of weeks ago she spent far too long in the nest box. By mid-afternoon I got around to investigating, and found her still in there, sitting on a foul mixture of diarrhoea and egg yolk and white. <div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reader, meet One-Wattle*, who had a troubled rear end.</td></tr>
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At times like this, bravery is required. One must be intrepid and shoulder responsibility, even if one wants to run away from it because she has no idea what to do or what she might find.</div>
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I turned her upside down and saw a little white thing poking out of her bottom. This looked like the soft, empty shell of an egg - and indeed I'd been finding a lot of broken eggs in the nest box, and collecting eggs with very pale, fragile shells. I now understood they were hers, and that she was having trouble forming shells for her big, regular eggs. </div>
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Also poking out was a bit of her innards - she'd been straining so hard to get rid of that irritating shell that she'd very slightly turned herself inside out, and the inside bit was a gleaming, bright red.</div>
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I began to pull out the egg shell, and noticed that this turned her inside out even more. Having given birth, I know the value of slow pushing. Give the body a bit more time, and it yields. So I just pulled a bit more slowly and gently.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The eggshell I removed</td></tr>
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Out came the flaccid, soft, empty eggshell. Instantly the hen's bottom returned to normal, the bright pink inside-out bit returning to where it belonged, and all visible bits of the cloaca entrance returning to a normal pale pink. She must have felt hugely relieved. </div>
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I popped her back into the cleaned-up nest box to recover. Half an hour later she was completely back to normal, running with her pals. A successful nursing mission!</div>
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I haven't had to to a lot of chicken nursing, having kept my birds fairly healthy, but you can read about another instance <a href="http://www.peacefulgreenday.com/2012/11/this-blogger-turns-chicken-nurse.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> (part 1) and <a href="http://www.peacefulgreenday.com/2012/11/a-decorated-casket.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a> (the more tragic part 2).</div>
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*I call her One-Wattle, because only one of them developed into anything when she hit puberty. It's a particularly pendulous wattle, as if to make up for the other runty one.<div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One-Wattle's eggs are in the back row.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHwZS2SFKj_17XdNT1PVvczi6U7tNbIdZkUsArUUuzR2zIWuv9HKBCTgftfqrNnHiBQqh2pMOlaUzfYX3YYIKNWxpZ3J-3V9L1f9NPSs1jGo1VtX2LpKEGDu68z-CNNZvbGPOT413WpTsE/s1600/IMG_5650.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHwZS2SFKj_17XdNT1PVvczi6U7tNbIdZkUsArUUuzR2zIWuv9HKBCTgftfqrNnHiBQqh2pMOlaUzfYX3YYIKNWxpZ3J-3V9L1f9NPSs1jGo1VtX2LpKEGDu68z-CNNZvbGPOT413WpTsE/s1600/IMG_5650.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A giant One-Wattle egg. It looks like a double-yolker,<br />but always contains one yolk and excess egg white.</td></tr>
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Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-15524626909078989422015-03-04T13:50:00.001+13:002015-03-04T13:50:17.392+13:00Chicken treats: sunflower seeds and green vegetable bugsOne of the greatest things about having chickens is watching them eating your unwanted waste products and being delighted about it. Cockroaches, snails... now there is even a bright side to finding pests.<br />
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At the moment our sunflowers are stunning, and the honeybees and bumblebees are feasting. Soon the flower heads will wilt and dry out, and I'll hang the heads over the chicken run. The seeds will drop out, and the chickens will gobble them with glee.<br />
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Not all sunflowers have useful seeds, though. Our neighbours have grown 'Lion's Mane' sunflowers this year, and the seeds look normal, but they are just empty shells! I wish I could tell you which cultivars are suitable. Ours have self seeded for years, so I no longer know what they're called.<br />
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I'd feel fairly confident though, with <a href="http://www.koanga.org.nz/shop/flowers/sunflower-tarahumara/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">these seeds</a> from Koanga gardens (out of stock at the time of writing, but I think they will have more for early spring), or the Giant Russian sunflower from anywhere.<br />
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I've thought about growing them so they naturally hang over the chicken run, and this year I planted some for that purpose. Sadly my fencing wasn't secure enough, and the chickens escaped and destroyed the seedlings.<br />
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Another treat that's in season at the moment is green vegetable bugs, also called shield bugs or, in our house, stink bugs, because they squirt out a stinky substance onto your hands when you capture them. Having accidentally bitten into one years ago, I can testify that they taste as bad as they smell. Why, then, do chickens love them so much? I have no idea.<br />
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Our three hens get very excited when we are to have beans for dinner. This requires one of us to go near our runner beans, home of the stink bugs. They know that soon we'll be delivering lots of little green packages of stunk-up goodness to their greedy beaks.<br />
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Their squawky demands spur me on to collect every green stink bug I can find. This is also good for the garden, because there are far fewer bugs around than there would be otherwise. It does take a bit of time, though.<br />
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For those new to stink bug capturing, I recommend putting one hand underneath whatever the bug's on - say a tomato - and gently tapping or shaking the tomato. The stink bug survival mechanism is to drop to the ground, and your hand will intercept it.<br />
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Gardening note: Scarlet runners attract stink bugs like mad, which is a good reason not to grow them. We've grown mainly Cobra runners this year, and they are similarly prolific and even more delicious than the scarlet runners - plus the bugs don't seem to like them. However, a few scarlet runners have popped up also (they're perennial), and have become a stink bug hang-out zone, and as usual they've spread to our tomatoes and are sucking the goodness out of them. But not as much as they would be if we had no chickens egging us on to deliver them the goods.<br />
<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-81561700013690109982015-02-23T13:59:00.001+13:002015-02-23T13:59:56.054+13:00How the smartness of chickens helps us ask them what they wantRecently the Humane Society of the United States posted a video on their Facebook page showing hens (white leghorns, by the look of them) doing very clever things. Pecking a button of one colour but not another; walking a figure eight among yellow cones, but walking around the edge of the blue ones. You can see this very neat 4 minute video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qLs2K4UXXk" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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This is called 'operant conditioning': training an animal to perform a task for a reward. Chickens are good at it, and it's one way scientists "ask" chickens what's important to them. It's been used to find out how much they want nest boxes to lay in, perches to roost on and litter to peck and scratch in.<br />
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Here's how it might work:<br />
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1. Teach a chicken to peck a key to get a food reward.<br />
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2. Deprive the bird of food for a short while, and note that the hungrier the chicken is, the more pecks it will do to get the food. We can play about a bit to ask the chicken how hard it is willing to work for the food. After how many pecks do you give up when you've had constant access to food? How many when you haven't eaten for a few hours?<br />
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3. Teach it to peck a key to receive a different reward - a resource we suspect might be important to it, and probably one that commercially farmed hens don't get. Remember we're animal welfare scientists and keen on showing farmers what their birds need for good welfare.<br />
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4. Now the chicken knows how to peck for more than one thing, and we can think of the pecks as money. How many dollars will it spend to get food when it hasn't eaten for four hours, compared to how many to get the other resource we suspect is important to it?<br />
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5. If the chicken will peck as many times to get access to the other resource as it will for food when it's very hungry, you can be fairly convinced that it wants the resource very much.<br />
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Using this approach, scientists have figured out that space, litter and nest boxes are important to chickens.<br />
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Sometimes the investigators use a different currency: for example, making the chicken push against a stiff door or squeeze through a small space, instead of pecking. Pecking is of course inextricably linked with food, and also with straw or mulch (the ancestral part of a chicken's brain having not yet clicked that all it really needs is access to a feeder, and that flicking up bits of plant matter to find the insects underneath is no longer vital for survival).<br />
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Pecking to get a private place to lay an egg, however, doesn't make as much sense. Chickens do squeeze through uncomfortably small gaps when they're desperate to get to something, though, so at times that is the best currency to base the experiment around. When you're asking an animal a question, you need to speak its own language as much as possible.<br />
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The answer to the nest box experiment was this: to get to a nest box before they laid, hens would push against a heavy door. They would only push against the same weight to get to food afer they'd been food-deprived for 4 hours.* That is a motivated chicken!<br />
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*Reference: Cooper JJ & Appleby MC 2003. Animal Welfare, 12, 39-52.<br />
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<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-35848312341760388332015-02-08T16:36:00.000+13:002015-02-08T16:36:29.982+13:00A surprise broody brown shaver<div style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.3199996948242px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
I've had a broody brown shaver, for the first time ever! This is a breed that has generally had broodiness bred out of it - it is a commercial egg-laying breed, and the artificial incubators do the nesting, thank you very much. Yet sometimes nature crows very loudly, and you get a throwback.</div>
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It was very easy to snap her out of it. I blocked her from the nest box for a day by putting in a bucket with a brick in it (she would have pushed away the bucket alone - it needed the weight of the brick. These clucky hens are very persistent! She did plenty of clucking, too). She went back to normal after that one day.</div>
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Note her fluffed-up feathers and angry demeanour. She did NOT like her toasty nest box being interfered with by me.</div>
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There is a comprehensive post on this blog about broodiness <a href="http://www.keepingchickensnz.com/2014/10/dealing-with-broody-hen.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-86378794501668998062015-01-26T15:56:00.000+13:002015-01-26T15:56:08.398+13:00The slippery slope of hen keepingThis video will make you laugh! It's about the slippery slope of falling in love with chickens.<br />
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The greatest hazard is not what you'd expect.... <a href="http://icelandic%20poppy/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The hazards of backyard hens</a> (2 min 35 sec).<br />
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<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-27654090944641812212015-01-15T20:20:00.000+13:002015-01-15T20:20:17.754+13:00Shade and water for chickens in summerLike you and me, in the current summer heat my chickens are loving the shade. Much as they love sunny spots to dust bathe in for much of the year, leafy trees become incredibly important when the temperature soars.<br />
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So, when you're siting your chicken run, do think about shade in summer. Giving chickens access to trees growing in front of a north-facing fence or building is ideal. The sun is overhead about now, so the trees provide plenty of shade. But in winter, when the sun is low, it will slant under the trees to provide warmth. Plus it will dry out the ground and lessen the mud problem that chicken runs often develop in winter.<br />
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If trees aren't an option, consider a shade sail, a sheet of plywood or anything else you can muster up. Anything but direct sun, please!<br />
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Drinking water is absolutely vital, too, and like us chickens drink a lot more when the weather is hot. They really can't survive without water: it's important to make this clear to chicken-minders when you go on holiday.<br />
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I like a hanging drinker with a bulge that stops falling in the water. If it's hanging it can't be knocked over, and if it's positioned high enough it won't have straw or dirt kicked into it. Try to keep it out of direct sun so it stays cool.<br />
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My favourite water tip is to add just a dash of cider vinegar to the water. I only started doing this about a year ago, just with the cheap supermarket DYC version, and quickly realised that it almost completely stopped the water going green in the heat. Wonderful! The vinegar is also said to do good things for chickens' digestive health. I haven't noticed any difference, but then they were healthy to start with. (Except the one that died, oops - that was post-vinegar.)<br />
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Hopefully the care you give your birds is rewarding you in the form of many eggs! These long summer days are great for egg production, and the egg section of our fridge is overflowing. Quiche time, I think.<br />
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Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-72005857310709737412015-01-13T16:26:00.000+13:002015-01-13T16:26:04.293+13:00The dead chicken that keeps on givingProof that chickens keep on giving even after death. This ravishing chest-high peony poppy is growing on the burial mound of my old black Orpington. There's a healthy young passionfruit vine snaking its way up behind it, too.<br />
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<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-7823471822035893792014-12-08T13:12:00.000+13:002015-03-06T08:51:50.016+13:00Keeping a clean nest boxThere are many things I could say about a nest box, but the major point is that they should be clean of droppings! Because chickens know the importance of not pooing in your own nest, it should be them keeping their nests clean, not you picking up droppings every morning.<br />
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However, so often it doesn't work that way. There are things that can be done, however: it's a matter of good management rather than good luck.<br />
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Recently I got a message from a friend who's had her hens for a year or so now. She'd had two hens die and number three was now showing the same symptoms. Not laying, diarrhoea, and eventually a swollen abdomen and death. Number three was at the diarrhoea stage.<br />
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I went to her house. I'm not a specialist in chicken illnesses, but I've learnt a little bit about them. Mainly I look for ways to keep birds healthy, and what aspects of chicken's environment might need tweaking in order to meet their basic needs.<br />
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At a glance the bird still looked in pretty good nick. Her comb was red and erect and she moved almost normally. The vent looked fine, I thought, apart from the soiled feathers. ("A chicken's bottom looks like a mouth," says my Anna, aged 8, amazed.)<br />
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The poo was very suspect.<br />
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But then I discovered something really worrying: the state of the nest boxes! The hens were sleeping in two of the nest boxes every night, and this was what had accumulated as a result. I suspect some nasty micro-organisms were thriving in this poo mattress, then getting inside the hens and making them very sick.<br />
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I know nest box sleeping is quite common, and some people manage it by regularly clearing the box. However, it is so much healthier for birds to roost on a perch. There's less chance of mites or lice infesting the nest box and their feathers, and although a perch may seem less cosy to us, up there they can keep themselves warm better by fluffing up all their feathers to trap air in an insulating fashion. Plus, of course, they don't have nightly contact with their own faeces, which has got to be a good thing.<br />
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For them to choose the nest box rather than a perch means the perch must be adequately positioned, shaped and sized. I'll write more about this in another post, but one important factor is that the perch must be higher than the nest box. It is their instinct to choose the highest point.<br />
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What happened to my friend's sick hen? She gave the nest boxes a major clean out, and blocked off all but one of them semi-permanently (she only has two hens left, so they only need a single nest box between them.) The open nest box was generously lined with barley straw, and blocked off towards<br />
the end of the day. After it got dark she made sure her birds were positioned on the perch, and unblocked the nest box ready for laying time the next morning. Once it's dark chickens can't see well enough to move themselves off a perch and into a nest box.<br />
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She also gave the perches an overhaul so they were more easily accessed and comfortable for her hens. So many coops have inadequate perches!<br />
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Happily, the sick hen got better, and started laying again! No more nasty poo mattresses for her girls.<br />
<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-78345341346430201012014-12-01T12:51:00.001+13:002014-12-01T12:51:12.907+13:00Chickens AND a healthy lawnWho said that chickens ruin your lawn?<br />
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Well, they can ruin it. But check out my friend's lawn - the grass in the chicken run is obviously healthier than the mown part. Her secret is having a big enough area for them to roam around and forage without decimating the grass. Our section has too little lawn and too much garden for that.<br />
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I also like the approach of the permaculture blogger at <a href="http://ecothriftylife.wordpress.com/">ecothriftylife.wordpress.com</a> - he has a chicken tractor which he moves very regularly around the lawn, so they mow and fertilise it for him.<br />
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Do you successfully keep your chickens on a healthy lawn?Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-33659829026374032672014-11-26T12:54:00.002+13:002014-11-26T13:05:47.365+13:00Rat control, cheap and simpleEveryone hates rats. When you keep chickens, they seem to turn up more often, so you need to know how to control rats safely and cheaply. This post will tell you how.<br />
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Recently I had the pleasure of visiting the most gorgeous lifestyle block owned by a clever and resourceful couple. They are doing forest restoration and pest control in an adjacent patch of beautiful kahikatea forest.<br />
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I noticed that they were using the cleverest and cheapest little bait station for rats that I've ever seen. They told me they'd invented them and that they work really, really well.<br />
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Firstly, you need a tunnel, because rats love going through tunnels and to keep non-target creatures away from the bait. Here they have just used icecream containers with rat-sized holes cut in two opposite sides. Note that the holes (doorways) are cut slightly above ground level to keep out puddles when it rains.<br />
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Note they've pinned down the icecream container with bent wire.<br />
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Home-made wooden tunnels, and plastic piping work well as tunnels too. Place tunnels next to fencelines, buildings or something else if possible - rats are more likely to choose these than tunnels on open ground.<br />
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Slightly to the side of the tunnel is poison bait on a nail. The nail is simply driven up through the middle of the bottom of the icecream container. Then, to keep the bait dry above any puddles that do get in, they have used a small bit of narrow plastic tubing over the nail (I think a small hunk of rubber would work well too). The bait goes over top of that.<br />
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Bait often comes with a hole in it for this purpose, so the rats have to keep coming back to nibble it. With loose baits the rats take the whole bait away and hoard it. Once I bought bait without a hole in it and tried to force it onto a nail, and it just crumbled away - it was such a waste of money.<br />
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<b>What kind of bait?</b><br />
A common type is made by <a href="http://www.pestoff.co.nz/" target="_blank">Pestoff</a>. Rats love it (presumably because of the smell and flavour) and it contains the poison brodifacoum, an anti-coagulant. One ravenous nibble of it is deadly to rats. However if cats or dogs eat poisoned rats, they can get secondary poisoning. They won't die the first time - they'd have to eat a lot of them - and the vet can administer something to counteract it.<br />
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Alternatively you can use <a href="http://www.pestgo.co.nz/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=2" target="_blank">Ditrac</a> or <a href="http://www.nopests.co.nz/?product=contrac-rodent-bait-8kg" target="_blank">Contrac</a> bait, which doesn't have the secondary poisoning effect.<br />
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The bait is available from places like RD1, Farmlands and Bunnings. Prices can be lower online, however. I've been pleased with the service from <a href="http://www.philproof.co.nz/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this</a> online bait and trap shop.<br />
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<b>What about traps?</b><br />
Traps are good too. They pose no toxicity problem and you get the satisfaction of a rat corpse. The most successful type seems to be the Victor trap, baited with peanut butter. Traps, too, should be in tunnels.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-NmpOTikW-2nMIrDi386V8QbiESqUUe9XQp1eMpWe07yZmyMFPwoTZ5JE2BhDiO_NJJCmfFDjscyrq1TJWHtLe4VK22XdVpuIbqxMZnnOlMO8Nrqj0ObtWxgF095f69QavGB-AjvlwyIY/s1600/kahik+forest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-NmpOTikW-2nMIrDi386V8QbiESqUUe9XQp1eMpWe07yZmyMFPwoTZ5JE2BhDiO_NJJCmfFDjscyrq1TJWHtLe4VK22XdVpuIbqxMZnnOlMO8Nrqj0ObtWxgF095f69QavGB-AjvlwyIY/s1600/kahik+forest.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Why everyone should kill rats</b><br />
Aside from spreading disease and scaring chickens (have you heard the alarm call that chooks make when they see rats?), rats are bad news for nesting birds. One of this country's top bird scientists once told me that 75% of all nesting attempts of NZ forest birds end in predation, mostly by rats. They are sneaky, silent killers that are quietly decimating our wildlife.<br />
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The way I see it, we brought the rodents here, so it's our responsibility to sort this problem out!<br />
<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-30461355923476835862014-11-19T10:58:00.000+13:002014-11-20T10:33:13.606+13:00HenPower helping the elderly - a heartwarming story<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">HenPower is an amazing project in the UK. The project helps the elderly combat loneliness via keeping chickens in their rest homes or pensioner villages. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfcbPTtDwQKX7pFslt2ESq3RuHGmnu02ysTPSkcgxzR5TQ9YdHtzh3tTf4aQYMJgDJEmObt50C-4c6KuM7mkk278CROrxwnL9RmD5Gwbj4Tg2yLC9CLFA0luzyOJsEl8hwEV7FhM3SftMR/s1600/SUM_Hen-Project-04_3090493b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="HenPower project" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfcbPTtDwQKX7pFslt2ESq3RuHGmnu02ysTPSkcgxzR5TQ9YdHtzh3tTf4aQYMJgDJEmObt50C-4c6KuM7mkk278CROrxwnL9RmD5Gwbj4Tg2yLC9CLFA0luzyOJsEl8hwEV7FhM3SftMR/s1600/SUM_Hen-Project-04_3090493b.jpg" height="199" title="HenPower project" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A photo from the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/11198410/Chickens-helping-the-elderly-tackle-loneliness.html" target="_blank">Telegraph article on HenPower.</a></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">There's an article about it <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/11198410/Chickens-helping-the-elderly-tackle-loneliness.html" target="_blank">here</a>, with</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;"> quotes like "‘My life has been a lot fuller since we’ve had these hens,’ he says. ‘I think I’d be lost without them.’ The chicken-keeping tasks lead to social interactions, a point of interest, and a sense of purpose and fulfilment. In turn, there are reduced amounts of antipsychotic drugs in rest homes and all sorts of other good outcomes.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">It's getting quite big, too - last year they were awarded £164,000 of lottery money to extend the project. Go Hens!</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">There's also a lovely seven minute video on the project called Hen Men <a href="http://vimeo.com/104084628" target="_blank">here</a>. In it, one man hasn't seen his family since 1980 and didn't talk to his neighbours until the project began. Now the local chaps get together over their chooks. (If only I could interpret the other 70% of what the men say - the accents are strong! Which is quite fun in itself - my son was gobsmacked.)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">It would be fantastic if something like this could get going in New Zealand. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">Wouldn't it be a lovely thing for the old people to show visiting grandchildren? </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">I can even imagine local kindergartens going on field trips to see the chickens and collect the morning's eggs, and the residents being delighted by seeing the children.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">Some of the children would probably start wanting their own hens at home... what </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;">a wonderful ripple effect it could have. HenPower indeed.</span>Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9176715162325524582.post-27506234558730561712014-11-13T10:19:00.001+13:002014-11-13T10:19:50.789+13:00A compost heap in the run to delight my chickensChickens are absolutely a foraging species, and when they are heads are down, tails up, they are happy! In the wild they spend most of their time pecking and scratching as they forage. Today penned-up backyard chickens are exactly the same - even if the feeder's full, they want to forage. And forage they should.<br />
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Two or three weeks ago I finally got around to making mine their own compost heap in the chicken run. Hopefully one day it will start to compost properly and provide worms for my birds to find. However, from the first day of my making this heap, they've spent a lot of time in it.<br />
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<b>Why they love their compost heap</b><br />
- They eat some of the green stuff when it's fresh<br />- They like turning it over in the <i>hope</i> of finding something<br />- After the first night, any heap of vegetation has the effect of attracting tiny little creatures underneath it that the chickens love to gobble down. For this to happen, it's just a matter of creating a critical mass of vegetable matter.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b>What I put in it</b></span><br />
It's mainly full of weeds. Ah, there are so many of them at this time of year. Leaves, weeds and whatever else you gather will work. I also throw unwanted leafy bits of vegetables in there - carrot, radish and parsnip tops, for example, and lettuce that has bolted.<br />
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I try not to add very long grass or vine-like stuff. If they swallow very long blades of grass it can block their digestive systems, and vines just make a tangled mess that it is hard for them to turn over. A gone-to-seed broccoli plant goes in there, but I pull it out a day or two later when all that's left is long, stiff stalks because they've eaten all the leaves.<br />
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<b>What about rats?</b><br />
We always leave out rat poison in tunnels, and our cat's a reasonable hunter, but I still worry about attracting rats. Therefore I'm not adding kitchen scraps (apart from things like lettuce) unless I know they'll be gobbled straight away.<br />
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<b>Maintaining critical mass: it needs a border</b><br />
As all chicken keepers know, piles/heaps don't last long under strong scratchy chicken feet - they get dispersed very fast! Therefore they need a border that the chickens can climb over, but that keeps the contents contained.<br />
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Half our heap is surrounded by fences, and the half they get in and out of has small tree stumps and old bricks as a border about 30 cm high. That way they can kick at the vegetation as much as they want and it still stays pile-shaped. The vegetation needs to be held in a heap in order for the insects to accumulate and nature to do its decomposition magic.<br />
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<b>Maintenance</b><br />
I can't see this needing much work over time, except:<br />
- sometimes turning it over with a pitchfork or similar, so that the little creatures right underneath are exposed and to add air to the heap.<br />
- if the contents start to spill over the border, I'll make it bigger. I could move the border out or build the border higher with something like rocks. (I probably won't build it higher or my sneakiest chicken would realise that it brings her closer to the top of the fence and she can jump over to eat our vegetables.)<br />
- I might need to add straw or dead leaves as 'brown matter' if it gets a bit slimy and stinky.<br />
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Have you experimented with compost heaps in this way?<br />
<br />Keeping Chickens NZ - Andrea Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17725823871897929037noreply@blogger.com0