No Place for a Rooster

Hi Keepers I’m appealing to locals who live in a rural Auckland setting. We have a beautiful Gold Lace Rooster, that we must find a good home for. The local city council by-laws, say we can’t keep roosters in a urban area, which is fair enough, I’m getting fed up of being woken at sunrise [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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

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 [...]