Monday, August 23, 2010

First Double Yolk

Below is a selection of some of the eggs we have got off the chicken, if you look at the middle one you will notice that it is larger, could it be our first double yolk egg?
Yes it is as you can see below, sorry about the photo, not such a good idea to crack the egg in a yellow bowl, but it is my favourite mixing bowl.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Butter Cake


We got another egg yesterday, and there were another 2 in the fridge. So, decided to bake a simple butter cake, topped off with passion fruit icing, the passion fruit was sauced by the little fella from the vine in the backyard. It was enjoyed by all and has been eaten all up.

On another note, got another 2 eggs this morning.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Very Happy Chooks Indeed

Another egg was discovered this afternoon, total 2 for the day

A Warm Fresh Egg

Went to check on the food and water for the chooks and discovered that an egg had been laid, day 5, total eggs to date 5.

It was lovely and still nice and warm.

Wonder if we will get another one today....

Modifications to the Chicken Coop

There have been a couple of modifications to the chicken coop since the arrival of the chooks, hooks on either side of the door and a little bit more bracing for the door.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

The First Couple of Days 1 - 4

Thursday morning arrived home with chooks in boot, relocated them into the coop, opened the lid, left them in there to adjust to their new home
Friday heard a bit of commotion mid morning and checked out the coop - 1 chicken missing, must have laid an egg, to my surprise latter discovered 2 eggs, mother chook was not happy with me taking the eggs and came charging at me.

Friday was also the day we came up with the names for the chooks. They have already tried to escape and started digging a hole in one of the corners, chickens "we are onto you!"

Saturday painted a sign for the coop, LJ was a big help with the painting, he seems to really enjoy painting. We also went to an extra effort and sprayed with an exterior clear gloss to try and protect it as best we can from the weather.
Sunday we heard a bit more commotion this morning and have discovered 2 more eggs, total so far 4, which were enjoyed with lunch.

The Coop

We had impulse purchased a coop from a large hardware store Oz wide, it ended up to be a waste of money in my opinion, however it is still being used, thankfully. After a few discussions with family members, special mesh - snake proof was the way to go. Phoned a couple of hardware stores including the Oz wide one, then found that Tonkin Steel supplied snake and mouse proof mesh, and that it was wider and the cheapest.

The location was decided, Ben set to work saucing what materials were around the yard, a list of what was required and a couple of power tools borrowed from Guru and got started.

The above is what was achieved by the end of day 1.

The mesh

Trenching so the mesh could be buried

The easy bit of the mesh done and buried in now for the tricky bits to begin

Lending a helping hand

The end of day no. 2

The mesh complete on day 3 now onto the door


Thumbs up from the site inspector, may have to get his demolition team in to level out the inside of the coop.......

The end of day no. 3, it looked pretty good just a couple of jobs to be done, the seeming of the wire and cleaning out of the wooden coop and putting it in. Overall I think a great job has been done.

A Bit of Background

We are onto our second lot of chickens; the first 3 did not last too long. This time we thought we would go with a little bit of extra effort and try to do it right and hope that the chickens survive.


We are half way through day no. 4, so, so far so good.


Little Miss V and I collected them on Thurday morning, if I were a writer I could base an eerie novel about the poultry farm and the characters there, lucky for you guys I'm not, this is just going to be a little blog about our back yard chickens and what they get up to.