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Look what we are having for breakfast

by Whaleoil on May 30, 2008

Miss WhaleoilLast weekend I built a chook house. On Friday I battled the holiday traffic to go to the Drury Pet Centre for our 4 Brown Shaver point of lay hens.

Today Miss Whaleoil was delighted to find two lovely eggs in the chook house.

 The Labour Government through Michael Cullen’s inept handiing of the economy has forced us into raising chickens not only for eggs but for the pot if they stop.

Heartless bloody socialists. Oh well at least the kids are having fun looking after the chooks.

There is a plenty of information on the web for keeping chooks at home, so long as you don’t have a rooster it is fine.

Brown ShaverThe names of the chooks are a matter of some contention. I thought Princess, Carpet, Brick and Drain were excellent names, Miss Whaleoil disagrees.

One thing is settled though, as Miss Whaleoil emphatically states, “When they stop laying then we slaughter them for the pot”. her vocabulary is somewhat enhanced for a nine year old. She has also designated me and Master Whaleoil as the axe-men.

Given that hens produce about 274 eggs per annum and we have four I think we won’t be running short of eggs anytime soon.

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  • Spanishbride

    Miss Whaleoil asked me to to tell you the names she chose for the chickens.

    Princess Leia ( layer )

    Pink beak

    Rose

    Red beak

     

    My pet names for them are Mc Nugget, drum stick, Roast and soup.

  • Cactus Kate

    I suggest a renaming ceremony closer to slaughter time to make it less traumatic:

    Helen

    Heather

    Judith

    Liane

  • WallyAnchor

    I’m a big fan of naming pets after food items Laughing

     

    Amongst some of our pets have been rabbits: Pie, Kebab (small one), and Lucky Stu (who became Unlucky Stew)

    Our chickens for some reason took the names of condiments: Salt, Pepper & Mustard. Feed them lots of greens and you’ll never want to go back to the watery yolks of shop bought eggs – even so called ‘free range’ ones.

    And they’re great for weeding the garden. Let them loose for an afternoon and they’ll make a good dent in the weed population in your garden.

    All good fun Cool

  • michaels

    Best little weed wackers you’ll ever have, but be aware, they shovel up everything, so watch for the vege patch that you will also have to get going and any flower beds. If you have no dogs around, after a couple of weeks you can let them out in the morning and they’ll go home to bed at dusk. For the occasional bit of humour give them small bits of ham, they love it and get in quite a fluster to get it. But you will find that 4 won’t keep you all in eggs sadly. I started with 4 and ended up with 20.

  • Strutta

    On the other hand, they will also eliminate a lot of the bugs in the garden. You might think about installing an electric bug zapper. The chooks will make a mad dash first thing in the morning and clean up all the corpses.

    If you have them free range, finding the eggs might be a tough job.

  • Spanishbride

    My Dad gave me some good advice re their care.

    Their free range access will be limited to an unused strip of grass down the side of our house so that we won’t end up with chick poo all over our lawn.

    We have a dog which makes things a little more complex.

    We are training her to leave them alone with a water pistol. Boy is it effective. She really hates it and it is fun shooting her with it.

    it is only the second day and already she is sitting quietly staring at them only.

    She thinks she can kill them but the cage is for HER protection. These little beggars will take her eyes out!

    One actually jumped at her through the wire as if to attack her.

  • michaels

    Well I hope your dad also told you to by some bird “mite” dust. They will end up with these even being semi free range, a dusting once a month will keep them looking good. Also, don’t forget and very important, about once a week get a small handful of gravel and put in their food. Their feed may say it has grit in it but it really isn’t enough.