Spring = Chook Explosion

Now that Spring is here, I have to admit I have been thinking about my chook situation. Remember the 3 white ones I bought earlier this year, well I wasn't really happy with them as they were hatchery chooks and they didn't have any natural ability in the ways of the chook world. They just huddled in a corner hardly eating anything and had absolutely NO personality. In simple terms they were duds! I love to watch chooks go about their business and I commented to the bearded wonder, how I wasn't impressed with these duds and he said that he didn't like them either but was reluctant to tell me in case it hurt my feelings. So I set myself a mission to find some new ones. I saw an ad on Gumtree for a bunch of chooks for sale, so I rang Geoff and organised to come straight away to see what he had on offer. Well, he had about 100 chooks, of many different varieties and I chose 4 lovely specimens. I bought a golden legbar, a bantam araucana, a brown silkie and another pretty little bantam, so together with the origin three duds, we had 7 girls. 

Then a couple of days later, I found a hen that was being given away with a clutch of 5 babies who were a week old. I am hoping to get at least 1 hen from the little bunch of babies.

The funny thing is, now the duds have learned from the new girls who have taught them how to scavenge, peck and scratch and it's great to see. One of the white hens has begun to lay and as you can see by the green eggs, my little araucana is laying as well. 

Here's a glimpse at my very prolific garden, not bad seeing we have just finished Winter. I'm waiting for some of my produce to finish so I have room for my spring crops. 

The grass growing around the base of the raised beds is getting very long and lush. I have been harvesting it to throw into the chooks.

After having problems with Django breaking off the asparagus, we have erected a fence around it as well as 2 beds that I have just planted corn into and a bed with broad beans which are most probably going to be used as green manure as they haven't been very successful. I will give them another month to produce before they get dug in because then I will need the bed for tomatoes. 

Here, I am aiming to make a green bar for the chooks. I have some bent mesh running along the back wall of the chook yard and I have covered it with chicken wire. I have sprinkled wheat so that it will grow and the chooks can help themselves to the greenery and not be able to scratch it out. It's been drizzling for the last 2 days so I expect it won't take long to begin sprouting.

Just a glimpse at one of the beds which is full of goodies. I tend not to have a spud bed, a carrot bed etc, etc, but bung in whatever I have ready. into any little space I have. In this one I have sweet peas on the frame, potatoes, parsley, broccoli, celery and leeks.