Cardboard Castle

Over the weekend I helped my friend's daughter to build a castle for a school project. It had to be relatively historically accurate, so we built a concentric castle [multiple walls] with a working drawbridge.

We had a lot of fun building it out of cardboard boxes, toilet rolls, poster tubes, chocolate boxes and pop-sticks.

The builds all can be removed. There is a keep with a 'princess tower', a church, tailor, blacksmith, stables, place of arms/fighting arena, a well and of course a working catapult!

Catapult!

Church and oratory.

Keeping Chickens: Terminology

Sorry, not a very exciting post this week, but what I feel is an important one for new chicken owners.

Terminology

There is often a lot of terminology and slang thrown about with any subject, and chickens are no exception. Here is a list of some of the terminology, abbreviations, acronyms and slang that one might come across regarding chickens.

Chick - A baby chicken
Pullet - A female chicken under 1 year old
Hen - A female chicken over 1 year old
Broody - A hen who is sitting on a clutch of eggs
Cockerel - A male chicken under 1 year old
Rooster - A male chicken under 1 year old
Hooster - A female chicken who has taken on rooster traits, such as crowing, and growing a larger comb/wattles.
Chook - Australian slang for chicken

Spurs - Horn like growths on the legs of roosters.
Wattles - Red fleshy growths that hang from the throat, just below the beak. Males have larger wattles than females.
Comb - The red fleshy growth on top of a chicken's head. They vary in size and shape depending on the breed. Males have larger combs than females.
Full Beak - A chicken who has not had their top beak trimmed. This mostly happens with commercial birds, such as the Isa Browns to stop cannibalism in commercial settings.

Candling - The art of using a torch or bright light to illuminate the interior of an egg to check development of an embryo.
Bloodspot - A spot of blood sometimes found inside eggs, it doesn't indicate fertility and is not a partially formed embryo.

OEG - Old English Game, a breed of chicken
RIR - Rhode Island Red, a breed of chicken

Blue - Dark grey feathers
Lavender - Light grey feathers
Laced - The outside edge of the feathers is a different colour to the centre, when on the bird it gives a laced effect.



Having trouble understanding anything or want some other aspect of chickens explained?
This will be a post that will often be edited to incorporate more terminology. Please feel free to leave comments if you need want explained or explained further. :)

Keeping Chickens: Housing

Housing

Chicken housing is really quite important and it should be the first thing done before bringing home your feathery friends.

Coop
The coop is where the chickens sleep at night and may or may not be integrated into the chicken run. It is important that the coop is secured from predators and is weather proof. They need good ventilation, somewhere too roost and somewhere to lay eggs. Water and food access in the coop isn't necessary [unless they will be locked in the coop section for long periods of time during the day] but an option if it suits.

What the coop actually is, is really dependant on your space and how many chickens you have.

It can be as small as a chicken tractor that holds a couple of hens. A chicken tractor is a portable coop and run that can be moved around on the grass.

Chicken Tractor source

Or as large as a children's cubby house placed inside a run housing a large flock of chickens which can be securely shut at night.

Sheds or aviaries can be converted easily into secure housing and some are actually designed and sold specifically to keep poultry in.

Poultry shed source

Or if you really wanted something unique, what about a gypsy caravan?

source

The number one thing to remember is to make sure it is completely secure from predators. Foxes, cats and dogs are the most likely suspects to try to make a meal of your chickens. Floors need to be solid [concrete, wood...] or if that isn't an option have mesh laid down to stop predators digging under and in. Doors need to be able to be latched securely

Roosts
Chickens love to roost high, as high as they can get in most cases. It's a natural instinct for them to keep out the way of predators. The simplest of designs is two or three horizontal poles attached to two or three vertical posts [depending on the size needed] which is then leaned against the wall of the coop at an approximate 45 degree angle.

45 degree roosting rack source

In smaller coops-like chicken tractors this is not possible, so a horizontal pole secured on two walls works fine. Many manufactured chicken tractors will already come with roosts installed.

Horizontal roost source

When installing roosts, make sure they are higher than the nesting boxes, or the chickens will roost in the nesting boxes and soil the straw and possibly crush any eggs laid in the boxes.

Nesting boxes
Nesting boxes can really be made from anything, as long as the chicken's can fit in them. Old clean paint tins, hollowed computer monitors, wooden boxes or plastic drums.

I personally use cleaned out old 20L liquid chlorine drums I get from a local salvage yard for $2. I cut 2/3 of the bottom of the drum off with a angle grinder and voila, instant nesting box! They're easy to clean, don't break very easily and are perfect size for my chickens [or two!].

It's a good idea to give the chickens a choice of a few nesting boxes. Chickens will often end up with a favourite nesting box, and almost guaranteed it will be the favourite of ALL the chickens! Mine all like to lay in the black drum nesting box.

Run
Normally a run would be attached to a coop, but in some cases the coop may be a separate structure inside the actual run.

Runs need to also be secure from predators, whether or not the chickens have access to the run all the time. Smaller runs attached directly to the coop should either have a large mesh floor especially movable coop/run combinations like chicken tractors or have predator proof fences.

Predator proof fences can either be done by digging a trench about 30-50cm down and laying in heavy duty mesh wire or laying at least 1/2 a metre of mesh along the ground out from the bottom of the fence and securing it down. This is to deter foxes, cats and dogs from digging under it.

Smaller runs should also have a roof to stop foxes and cats scaling the fence and to also stop predatory birds from taking or harassing the chickens. It also will stop other wild birds consuming the chicken feed. Larger runs that cannot be roofed should have a coop that can be secured at night.

Free ranging
All chickens love the chance to free range in the yard, finding grubs and bugs and eating weeds [and precious plants if you aren't careful]. Even if they can only be let out for a couple of hours before dusk it will benefit them-they love to explore.

Just be aware that predators can still strike during the day-even foxes, so it isn't really advisable to let the free range if no one is home.

Weekend Omelettes

We are trying to get back on the wagon of eating healthily. Ever since Ember was born, we've often resorted to fast food or frozen meals instead of cooking our own food. It was a really bad habit to get back into, especially for our health and energy levels.

Now that I have harvest-able produce from the garden I have no excuse not to be cooking with it! I started by just adding greens to make the frozen dinners a little more substantial, filling and healthy.

Last night I had enough energy to actually cook from scratch. Lime and Chilli Squid was on the menu, made from fresh locally caught squid, chillies from a friend's garden and limes from the fruit and veg co-op.

This morning I decided to use some of the glut of eggs we have [two and a half dozen with more in the coop!] and make some omelettes.

Weekend Omelettes

For two very hungry people I used 8 eggs plus two extra egg whites [the 2 yolks I put aside for Ember to have]. It was probably a little too many for both of us, next time I think I'll try 6-7 eggs.

I added some roughly chopped greens fresh from the garden; silverbeet, spinach-beet, baby spinach, beetroot leaves, pak-choy leaves, coriander, parsley and dill.

Mix it all together and add some pepper [or preferred seasonings].

Pour half the mixture into a heated frying pan-I use a small dob of butter to stop it sticking. When it is cooked well on the bottom, fold in half, lower the heat and allow to cook for a few minutes. The inside will often be runny, so if you don't like runny egg, cook for longer. Serve.

Now I really suck at getting omelettes out the pan without turning them into a dog's breakfast in appearance. Half of mine came out ok...the other half, well...it still tasted good!

To Paul's I added 1/3 can of crush tomatoes, which made it even harder to flip and get out the pan...his looked like this!

And even Ember didn't miss out. She had a egg yolk 'omelette' which she enjoyed immensely.

Apology and a Surprise

First up I'd like to apologise for the lack of a Keeping Chickens post on Friday. Life was rather hectic that day and I only remembered about posting way too late to write a post and too dark to take photos.

Hopefully this will appease the chicken folk... :)

Three weeks ago my perpetual broody decided to sit on 21 eggs. This was after I had told Paul not to leave eggs in the coop because I have a rooster the eggs are most likely fertile. Three or so days of not collecting the eggs and bam! My broody was broody again. I decided to let her hatch the eggs because I didn't know how long she'd be sitting and didn't really want to destroy eggs with partially developed chicks in them.

Well today, I went to release the rooster from his rooster box and saw this!

Out of the 21, 7 remain and one is already well on it's way to breaking out into the big wide world!