Welcome One and All

Hi there, and welcome to The Chicken Keeper, my name is Rob and this blog is devoted to the keeping of chickens, and the trials and tribulations that go with it.

We started keeping chickens in September 2008, the list of poultry we have at present,  one Minorca, and four Wyandotte Golden Laced .  At present we live on a 1/4 of an acre with a creek running through the back, in Waitakere City, which is part of the greater Auckland area in the North Island of New Zealand, although I’m originally  London/Irish from Hackney, and the other half  is from Waterford, in Ireland.  We are just keeping enough hens to provide eggs for the family, we also grow some herbs and vegetables.  I’ve built the coop and run from recycled materials, see DIY corner for more details.

Comments are very welcome, I hope you enjoy the site and maybe find some of it useful.             If reading is not for you then check out the pics in the Secret Layer ^.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 26,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

New Chicks on the Block

Hi there keepers, and readers, we have new chicks in the flock. Three new Wyandotte Gold Lace, we did have a Minorca too, but if fear it landed on a thorn or got stung by a Weta, unforseen dangers. As we have no rooster, we got some fertile eggs from our friendly breeder, Raewyn Norton of Waitakere Township. The hatch rate was about 50%, as we had another Minorca that didn’t make it much passed the hatching stage, maybe as our broody hen is a Wyandotte, she wasn’t paying too much attention to the ones that didn’t look like hers? The three survivors are all doing well, learning from there surrogate mother, how to find grubs in the ground, etc. I will add pics to this post soon. The new chicks on the block will boost our flock back to a reasonable number for a backyard chicken coop.

Flock Reduced

The numbers are down, our flock is less than half it’s size, due to mainly age, illness and the infamous chicken-napping of Daisy, one of our shavers. Even the three remaining birds have been reduced somewhat, by means of someone or something, slicing one of our hens combs, clean off. She’s not been herself since, becoming skitish, and timid. Summer is on it’s way, the temperatures are rising, the flies are back, already caught one of our hens with a dirty behind, habouring maggots in her feathers, warm bath sorted out the problem, making sure to get the mess off the feathers. It would be nice to get some replacements, however, I feel it would disrupt the coop. We are getting two eggs a day, which at present is enough for us, so I think we’ll wait till next season, as by then the two layers will be past their prime laying years.

40,000 Visitors

Hi keepers, thanks to all the visitors from all over the globe, too many countries to count, I have noticed in the new upgrading counter, California is leading the visitor numbers, followed closely by Auckland, NZ. Surprisingly in the UK, most visitors are from London, good to see Urban keeping is alive and well. Thanks again, I hope you continue to find the blog useful. TCK.

Big Fat Renee

Hi keepers, the end of an era, Big Fat Renee has passed away. She was a force to be reckoned with, a Light Sussex, an ironic name for such a bird, she was huge, the same as the two featured in the ‘Chicken Police’ vid below. It was very sudden and quick, she was standing in the middle of the garden, and then gone, a heart attack is all I can think happen, it was over in a matter of seconds. We think she was at least 5 years old, hard to know exactly as we got her as an adult, she was an ex show bird, we should have called her ‘Lola’ based on that. Her character will be sadly missed by us, but I don’t think the rest of the flock will miss her to much, she was very greedy, and stood over the feed so none of the others could get a look in.

Chicken Police

Hi there keepers, now alot of you may have already seen this video, but I thought I’d post it, because if you haven’t it’s great. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnQBPbW2fcQ enjoy.

Moving Chickens

Hi there keepers, it’s been a while since I posted, there has been alot going on. Our landlord moved to Australia leaving our house with a property manager. She immediately put the rent up by over 10%, (her fee), and then instructed us we had ten days to remove our chickens from the property, quoting some tenancy act.

Rubbish, we had an agreement with our landlord about our hens from the beginning nearly three yeears ago. Waiakere council allows twelve hens on an urban plot, no roosters.

So we have moved, lock stock n chicken coop. The girls found it all a bit confusing, and are settling into the new garden slowly, I had to cut their coop in half to transport it, and then realised it was far too big for them, now that there is only four left, so I just reconstructed the coop half the size. We didn’t give them their afternoon feed to make it easier to  catch them when we moved,using the food as a lure to the box, it worked just like you see in the cartoons.

Unexplained Illness

Hi keepers, had an unusual week, this week, moulting  still going on, and as I mentioned in an earlier post about moulting, it can affect the birds behaviour, they can became rather inactive, so I was that bothered when Nancy became quiet when she started to moult. I was disturbed however when we came out one morning ot find her wedged behind the coop, in a bad way. After extracting her from behind the coop, an examining her, she appeared to be having some sort of fit, a constant twitching of the head to the left, and her left eye was closed, her left leg couldn’t support her weight.

The only thing I could put it down to was some sort of stroke, brain damage? What ever it was it affected only the left side of her body, she wasn’t eating of drinking, unable to move, so on day 2 of this I finally after much deliberation, put her out of her misery, it was very hard to do. So our little flock is reduced to 4 birds now, which mainly consists of pedigree birds, three mongrel birds have died.

RIP Nancy- The Boss  Sept 2008 – April 2011.

Moulting or Molting, To-mat-oe or To-ma-toe

Moulting Manuella

Hi keepers, it’s that time of year again in New Zealand, the days are getting shorter and the air is growing cooler.  This is the trigger for the girls to start their moulting, the shedding of their feathers.  It looks worse than it is, to the unfamiliar, the hens will just start to drop feathers everywhere, the run can resemble the scene of a large pillow fight, they just get everywhere, the chickens themselves do look as if they have been in a fight,  or gone to a really bad hairdresser.

There’s not alot to done for them during this time, some say to add some nutrients to their water.  The down side to all of this is, they stop laying, all of their energy goes into growing new feathers, on the positve side, I have collected alot of the bigger tail feathers over the years and I am attempting some kind of feather art project.

So if you’re experiencing this for the first time, don’t worry,  it’s normal chicken behaviour.

Your Feedback

Hi Keepers, the most viewed post on this site is Egg Bound Treatment Works, it has also had the most responses or replies,  this came through yesterday and I wanted to share it with you all, incase you didn’t see it in the reply section, it was posted by Penny.

Penny’s Post

I have just had the same problem with one of our chickens, If she is dragging her behind, walking like a penguin & has her mouth open she is in pain, she is most probably Egg Bound. Don’t give up on her I never did.

Firstly do the warm water bath as suggested above, (Must hold. her bottom section under the warm water for at least 20 minutes.), then remove her, put on a plastic glove & oil your index finger with Vaseline or Olive oil.  Shove your finger in the vent & move it around to oil the inside of the vent as well as the outside. Dry her off as well as you can & put her in a separate cage away from the other chickens as they will just peck her & she must be kept warm & quiet so she can relax.If you can bring her inside all the better.

Then lastly go & get a Thick Towel put the towel in hot water or warm the wet towel in the microwave for a few minutes. Then wrap the towel in a plastic bag (I used two bags) It will keep the towel warm for a few hours, also will keep your towel clean. If you have a hot water bottle you could also use that wrap that in a dry towel, make sure it is not to warm as you don’t want to burn her. Put this under the chicken in the cage, she will straight away climb on top of it, (You will also notice that she will stop panting.the warmth helps to ease the pain).

 Our chicken was like this for 3 days & I had to repeat this procedure twice. I also took her down to the chicken run every morning & every night for her to stretch her legs & have some food.Also see that she has water at all times available in her cage. On the 3rd morning I looked in her cage & there it was ONE HUGE EGG!! & One happy chicken & An Even happier owner, never give up. “While their is life there is hope” Cheers Penny.

I welcome your feedback, as it helps us all learn more and in turn be better carers for your birds.