Can you hear it too...?

Micky, my little Black Silkie, has this peculiar habit of stopping mid-stride and cocking her head to one side as if listening to something. She sometimes stands like that for a minute or two and I often then think that there’s something peculiar in the garden, but no matter how I look or listen, there’s never anything. Then she’ll go on her way scratching and pecking as if nothing happened. But she is rather a skittish little girl, so maybe it’s just her way of being careful.

When she was a couple of days old she almost succumbed to Fowl Pox, but I managed to pull her through, but it left her much smaller (and cuter!) than all my other chickens. And with a few extra peculiar quirks!

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The benefits of free range eggs (for the chicken) Sensitive information

My girls supply me with 4 or 5 beautiful free range eggs every day and they are quite happy supplying these. They get to roam the garden, grazing, hunting insects and having lovely sand baths in stead of spending their lives in a 8″ × 12″ wire cage (the size of an A4 sheet of paper). They get to choose when to go to bed and when to lay their eggs, following Mother Nature’s natural daylight cycle in stead of their “daylight” being on a timer and being woken up 2 o’clock in the morning and being forced to lay another egg, giving 1½ eggs a day instead of the normal 1 egg every two days. They lie in the sun, spreading their wings and soaking up the sun’s Vit. D in stead of having Vit. D pumped into them via additions to their food. They exercise regularly by chasing insects (and one another!) in stead of being cramped up in those 8″ × 12″ wire cages with not even room above their heads to stretch their legs. They get to socialise and experience family bonds, something which a battery chicken will never know. My girls are not culled when they get to the end of their egg-laying cycle, but in stead get to live a happy, healthy and fulfilled life.

It is sad what we do to our animals in order that we may eat and survive…

“I am battery hen. I live in a cage so small I cannot stretch my wings. I am forced to stand night and day on a sloping wire mesh floor that painfully cuts into my feet. The cage walls tear my feathers, forming blood blisters that never heal. The air is so full of ammonia that my lungs hurt and my eyes burn and I think I am going blind. As soon as I was born, a man grabbed me and sheared off part of my beak with a hot iron, and my little brothers were thrown into trash bags as useless, alive.

My mind is alert and my body is sensitive and I should have been richly feathered. In nature or even a farmyard I would have had sociable, cleansing dust baths with my flock mates, a need so strong that I perform ‘vacuum’ dust bathing on the wire floor of my cage. Free, I would have ranged my ancestral jungles and fields with my mates, devouring plants, earthworms, and insects from sunrise to dusk. I would have exercised my body and expressed my nature, and I would have given, and received, pleasure as a whole being. I am only a year old, but I am already a ‘spent hen.’

Humans, I wish I were dead, and soon I will be dead. Look for pieces of my wounded flesh wherever chicken pies and soups are sold."
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Read more about The Life of one Battery Hen. (Sensitive information - I cried when I read it...)

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Season's Greetings! 2015!

Camera : Canon EOS 550D

My chooks taken in my garden (Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa)

Background texture by Kim Klassen
Edited in MS PowerPoint

We have never had snow over Christmas in South Africa (not that I can remember anyway), but I’m sure if we did, my chooks would be absolutely thrilled!

May you have a wonderful festive season with friends and loved ones this year!

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Solly's dustbin chook, Mr. Brown

This is Solly’s chook, Mr. Brown, one of the dustbin chicks born a few months ago. He’s turned into a beautiful rooster, obviously of mixed blood as his feathers are like those of a Silkie. But what makes him adorable is the fact that he talks to me – whenever he sees me, he utters this whole repertoire of cackles and croaks all the while staring me straight in the eye. He’s also very tame, sitting down when I put my hand on his back and then allowing me to pick him up for a cuddle. Normally all Solly’s chicks that turn out to be roosters are destined for the pot, but I’ve asked him nicely to spare Mr. Brown. (Solly is our mechanic/handyman and he has all these chickens that wander all over our smallholding and usually end up breeding somewhere in my garden!)

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Half a beauty!

Artemis during his moult. Half his cape and half his beautiful tail feathers are gone, but it won’t be long before they are all replaced by healthy, more beautiful than ever, new feathers!

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The way of nature

Nature - it is breathtakingly beautiful, it is life, it is death. Nature brings us great joy, but it is full of sadness as well. That is the way of Nature.

The great debate is whether one should interfere with nature or not, whether to help or 'rescue' an animal in peril or not. The problem is that it is human nature to rescue things and my take on it is normally to let nature take its course. If you should find a baby bird in your garden, it is best to leave it alone as the parents know it's there and will continue feeding it. That is how it learns to fly, how it gets to know its territory and learns all it needs from its parents for survival. If you have dogs or cats, this could present a problem, so, if possible, try and get the fledgling back to its nest or at least up into a tree. It's a myth that the parents will abandon it if they 'smell human contact' on their baby, they will still keep on tending to it.

But sometimes one is presented with a situation where it is impossible not to interfere or to help, like finding an owl entangled in a barbed wire fence or finding an animal with a serious injury that requires medical attention. And living on a smallholding in the country, I am often faced with scenarios like that.

On the home-front side, it's terribly hard to watch when a hen decides it's time for her babies to make their own way in the world. But that's the way of nature. Solly's hen (above) had 8 of the most gorgeous babies and she was a really wonderful other, tending to their every need, finding them succulent insects and protecting them and keeping them warm.

But when they were the tender age of 7 weeks, she decided it was time to go back to Mr. Rooster and besides, nature was calling and she wanted to lay an egg. She started pecking and chasing them and generally being nasty until they were too scared to go near her. She then took off in search of Mr. Rooster. They clumped together, walking around the property, constantly calling for her, absolutely breaking my heart.

One of the chicks, forlornly standing at my studio door and constantly calling for mommy

They soon found solace in my garden where they kept close to me as I went about my chores. They knew me very well, as from birth I would take them snacks and seeds which they eagerly took out of my hands. They even allowed me to pick them up, trustingly sitting in my hand while I cuddled them. 

Now they are almost 4 months old, just about fully grown and quite independent, joining the rest of Solly's chickens when I feed in the mornings and afternoons and often looking for me in the house, hoping for a snack of minced meat, their favourite.

Yesterday I heard a strange, forlorn call in my garden, and not recognising it, I went outside to investigate. There was this 'unknown' bird sitting on my internet aerial, so I got the binoculars to have a better look and soon realised it was a juvenile Red-winged Starling, therefore I never recognised it's call. I have never heard a young Starling calling for its parents and it sat there for a half an hour, calling and calling, with no response from anybody, until it eventually took off to search somewhere else. So, so sad...

Many a time I have also watched as the Mynah's lead their off-spring out of the garden, taking them to another area to fend for themselves, returning alone a couple of days later. That is nature's way of protecting the food source in an area and from over-population. However, Laughing Doves do not seem to adhere to this law of nature - I have hundreds in my garden - where they breed, they feed! Smile!

 Laughing Doves early watching and waiting as I prepare the feed tables at 6am.

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Peeps

Camera : Canon EOS 550 

Taken in my studio (Tarlton, Gauteng, South Africa)

After being abandoned by his mother at far to early an age, Peeps often follows Snoodles into my studio, hops up on my desk and takes a break on the window sill or on top of my speaker on my desk.

 

Peeps was born 3 weeks after Snoodles (one of the original dustbin chicks), and was an only child. Mommy had 10 eggs, but due to weeks of heavy rain, Peeps was the only one to emerge after the designated 19 days of brooding. Mommy was absolutely wonderful with Peeps, protecting him when he was cold, finding him the tastiest morsels, showing him all the corners of the garden and teaching him the way of chickens.

Normally baby chicks stay with their Mommy for about 7-8 weeks, after which she regards them as grown-up enough to fend for themselves. Besides which, she starts longing for Mr. Rooster and getting the urge to lay eggs, so that's perfectly understandable. But Mommy started getting these urges when Peeps was a mere 4 weeks old and summarily abandoned him in search of Mr. Rooster.

Peeps wandered the garden for 3 days, desperately calling to his mother, but to no avail. She had moved on. But soon he sought the company of Snoodles who, herself, was a bit of a loner, growing up in my studio and not mixing with the other chickens much when she was out in the garden. He started following her around, coming into my studio to eat when she ate and soon became quite at home here.

But every night I tried to put him back outside to find his Mommy and besides, he had his usual little sleeping place out in the garden shed. After a few failed attempts I gave up, and he joined Snoodles in her basket at night, the two of them snuggling comfortably in one another's company.

The two of them became have now become inseparable and spend their days together, foraging in the garden and keeping out of the way of the grown-ups, who will not let a chance go by to let them know they are new-comers and better behave!

The next challenge is getting Snoodles and Peeps integrated into the flock. They're ready to leave the basket and it's time for them to move into the coop with Artemis and the rest of the girls...

 

Snoodles in the garden

 

 

Snoodles taking a turn on the speaker, looking to see who's outside

Snoodles roosting on Jacko's chair, much to his disgust - his chair is private property!

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