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mccnmatt

Posted on

April 23, 2014

Posted under

Animal senses, Backyard chickens, Death

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A sentimental chicken recalls the good old days

From a sentimental chicken remembers the good old days

Long ago, Andy Ninja the ISA Brown laid an egg a day, regular as clockwork. The laundry, attached to the back of the house, was her chosen spot. The eggs started appearing on the tiled floor, so we put out a straw-filled cardboard box, to stop breakages if nothing else. For Snowball the Silkie bantam to lay, everything had to be just right: clear blue skies, light yet refreshing breezes, no interruptions to routine or uproar of any kind. She is a right diva. Looking around at the picnic-perfect weather and hearing some self-satisfied cackling you might well figure that she had done the business, but you then have to find the damn things before they started to rot. If you successfully track down her hidey hole she immediately looks for a more private and profoundly inaccessible location.

But you could set your watch by Andy and her much missed sister Harley as they hopped up the back steps on their daily mission. I used to joke that the only way of making egg collection more convenient would be to put an egg carton next to the washing machine and get them to lay directly into it.

Sadly, those days are well behind us. Harley succumbed to some nasty bite or bug and, after a few months of laying soft-shelled eggs, Andy stopped producing eggs over a year ago. No amount of shellgrit or other calcium-enhancing pampering seemed to toughen those babies up. I guess it was the beginning of “the change”.

Despite her recent “transition” from egg-laying stalwart to quasi-cockerel who crows at dawn, Andy still seems to have a soft spot for the laundry.

She loiters on the steps while waiting for her breakfast to be delivered, but when she’s fed, she’s there again, trying to sneak past me while I’m filling the front-loader. She’ll settle in a corner near the sink, fluff out her feathers and hunker down in position that says “I’ve got some serious egg laying to do”. Given half a chance, she’ll roost in there at night as well. Here’s her, shut out, roosting on the next best thing: the back doorstep.

The laundry probably is a cut above the other dry and sheltered places to bunk down for the night, at least until Palm Beach, the new coop, is open to the general public. But I wonder if she goes there because she hankers after the good old days when she was Andy the regular layer, top chook in the pecking order, Andy the laundry ninja.

Posted by

mccnmatt

Posted on

March 25, 2014

Posted under

Animal pests, Brush turkeys, Death, Native animals, Plants and what I know about them, Possums, Uncategorized

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An inexpert Anglo’s guide to identifying bush foods in the garden

Step 1. Come up with a list of possibilities through the interweb or other trusted source.

Step 2. Purchase, potentially with some difficulty, from a suitable vendor of native plants.

Step 3. Bring finds home and situate them carefully in the garden, giving appropriate thought to aspect and drainage.

Step 4. Wait. If, after some time, you find a patch of thoroughly excavated soil or even a few macerated fragments of greenery where your precious purchase was previously located, congratulations! With the help of your hungry non-human assistants, you have identified an edible native plant!

Okay, it doesn’t always work that way, but I’m feeling slightly embittered since a second generation of bulbine lily has bitten the dust courtesy of the advanced culinary sensibilities of our trusty flock of brush turkeys. Thanks, guys!

The apple berry vine was, I think, cleaned up by the possums. The chocolate lily has suspiciously vanished from its new spot sheltered in the fringes of the prolific and obviously insipid tasting blue flax lily. Dormant in summer, perhaps it will pop up again next year, but after reading descriptions of its “delectable” aroma and tubers that are edible both raw and roasted, I am not optimistic. I have a strong suspicion, based solely on the fact that the regularly nibbled growing tips of the specimen outside my kitchen, that the Fraser Island creeper may also have some undocumented uses as a pot herb. Don’t try this at home, though… unless you are a brush turkey, in which case, help yourself.

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mccnmatt

Posted on

March 17, 2014

Posted under

Animal pests, Backyard chickens, Brush turkeys, Death, Microbiome, Native animals

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What lurks in brush turkey bellies?

This is my other flock, the brush turkeys. I think there are about six of them using our place as a recreation area and take-away just now. Teenagers and youngsters, I think, none of the absurdly young yet unattended chicks at the moment – the hatching season must be over.

Our fences are not so much boundary markers, more convenient perching sites and high level walkways, attractive and arboreal, a little like New York’s famous High Line. When we bought our vermin proof chicken feeder (made by Grandpa, it seems) we were warned not to train the chooks how to use it in front of cockatoos. Though individually cockies are not heavy enough to step onto the foot pedal and trigger the lifting of the feeder lid, apparently they are quite capable of learning to saunter on mob-handed and get a feed that way. It took the chooks a few weeks to get used to the clanging as the pedal went down and the feeder opened. The learning curve for the brush turkeys was pretty steep it seems. They are casual snackers at this stage.

So I’ve spent a lot of the last few weeks thinking about the contents of brush turkey guts and the parasitic load of brush turkey ordure. We lost another chick (Turbo… sniff) and I’m blaming the turkeys rather than myself. Viral and bacterial vectors, flapping and crapping all round the yard. We couldn’t leave little Shyla to join the big chickens all on our own, so we went back to the hatchery and got some older and hopefully more robust pullets. But now the veil of naivete has been drawn back and I’m expecting more deaths, despite Sulfa3, cider vinegar, natural yoghurt snacks and regular anxious visits to the bottom of the yard where the young ‘uns are segregated in their chook dome from bigger fowl. I’m not sure I can bear to lose any more, at least not yet.

So I’m going for a chemical blitz, on new chicks and the old. Still thinking through which antibiotics I should have in the cupboard for the inevitable emergency. And when I’m dosing up the chickens, I’ll also be dosing up the brush turkeys, our involuntary companion animals.

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mccnmatt

Posted on

February 24, 2014

Posted under

Backyard chickens, Death, Microbiome, Vaccination, Weeds

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Killing your babies

So, poor little Donna the Barnevelder died. Despite the medicated water and the vaccinations, the expensive rented brooder with its profligate wood shavings, the mercy dash to the Pet Barn for pharmaceuticals. She heaved her last, suddenly, huddled in RB’s hands, before even losing her last baby fluff. People wiser in the ways of poultry than we may know why. Obviously, we blame ourselves. She became RB’s favourite chick posthumously.

Now we are watching the remaining two chicks like hawks. No, that came out all wrong. What I’m trying to say is: we are watching them anxiously for signs that they might be poorly whilst, at the same time, trying to remember that infancy is a numbers game. And consoling ourselves that, for all our inadequate husbandry, at least these are not McNuggets. If only you make it through the tough early days, girls, there’s a promise of near-infinite insect prey and greenery. Hang in there! Wrangle that microbiome! The sunny uplands of maturity await.

Ok, so the news hound metaphor may be redundant, even tasteless. But there’s so much more I could say here: about the cruel elisions of a “dolphins will nudge out your baby” view of reproduction; or the fundamental unpredictability of gardens and the things that live there, fairly large and very very small; or the not entirely perfect miracle that is vaccination. But enough. Goodnight Donna, you are not just a metaphor, not at all.