It seems to have been a long haul of dust and red dirt this summer, but we have finally had some rain over the last 10 days and the pasture is germinating everywhere. Because it has not been too cold and we have also had some days of sun, the growth has been quite rapid, [...]
Ducks are another addition that we have wanted to make to the farm for ages, but I have been unable to find any reasonably local until now. I was extremely fortuante to get these five young adults, a pekin drake, three pekin hens and one khaki campbell duck. They are just finishing their moult and [...]
Even though I knew that is what they were bred to do, the meat chicks grew at an amazing rate that was only eclipsed by the amount of food they consumed and the amount of very stinky poop they created! I definitely would not get more than 12 in the future, given the size of [...]
Continue reading about Success and not so much Success with Meat Chicks
We have raised several batches of chicks now, but so far have not got one to the table, mostly because by the time they got to table age they have either been hens (therefore kept for eggs) or bantam roosters (not worth plucking!). Although we do currently have a grow out pen of 8 or so roosters [...]
There is no better way to start the day than watching the sunrise at 5.51 in the morning! But it was certainly warmer later in the day! We’ve got a lot more cape weed growing this year, as well as more clover, rye and barley grass. In the second paddock we actually have a lot [...]
Continue reading about Sunrise, sunshine, horses and chickens
We ended up with 11 chicks hatched from the first lot and seven from the second lot and they are all now happily growing up in a re-furbished broody box. From the second lot, none of the purchased Auracana eggs hatched, only one partially developed which was disappointing. All of the others were from our [...]
Well today is hatch day here at Eagleburra…well technically 21 days was up at 7.30pm last night, but after a power outage one night at the end of week one, plus the colder temperature only one chick (a Rhode Island Red) hatched yesterday at 4.30pm. After a very nerve wracking wait, two more chicks hatched [...]
We have two white Silkie cockerels and one grey (or maybe splash?) Silkie POL pullet. I had planned to breed them as they are a very cute breed, and the girls make excellent adoptive mothers, so I could do with a few more of them. The only thing is that they have black flesh and [...]
While up in Perth I purchased two 11 week old black Auracana pullets, two bantam Indian Game roosters (Blue and Jubilee), two POL Indian Game hens (Blue and Jubilee) and a 11 week old trio of dark Indian Game. The Auracana are for the egg layers pen (they lay a light blue-green egg), and the [...]
We also have a few Pekin Bantams that I plan to breed, some to sell as day old chicks or fertile eggs. Like the silkies, Pekins are very cute and make excellent adoptive mothers. As usual though, we have too many roosters (2) and cockerels(2) as we don’t have enough hens for them all. At [...]