A comparison

The green egg from the Araucana on the right and a normal Wyandotte egg on the left.

Green eggs......

Ever wondered where the term green eggs and ham came from? I figured it was from some dodgy off eggs but maybe these special eggs were from the Araucana chicken.

From wiki:

"History: The Araucana originally comes from the Arauca Provence of Northern Chile, from before the time of the Spanish conquest, and are a mix of two breeds – the Collonca (a blue egg laying, rumples, clean –faced chicken) and the Quetros (a pinkish-brown egg layer with tail and ear tufts). Nowdays Araucana come as ‘rumpless’ or ‘rumped’. Rumpless do not have the last spinal vertebrae, an uropygium (parson’s nose) or tail feathers, while the rumped varieties have a normal tail. In America only the rumpless birds are recognised as Araucana, but here in Australia, as in the United Kingdom, both rumped and rumpless are recognised. The large ear tufts of the Quetros survive as a trait of Araucana, but usually they are not nearly as extravagant in size as the original."

We're lucky to have an Araucana of our own. Her name is Falcon and she is my favorite of all the hens. She's got a rock star hairdo and just today she laid her first ever egg. A light shade of green. I'll get some photos later of the egg. She was fairly nervous around us to begin with but now comes p to me inquisitively. I like that she looks like a wild bird, and she acts like one too when she's defending the coop from pigeons and bush turkeys. So here is miss Falcon. Mostly black with red feathers on her chest and some speckled feathers on her head.

This is taking some organising

Most who know me would say that my organisational skills are not the best, but my problem solving skills are pretty great. It seems that this chicken adventure i am on takes some organising. Firstly theres me trying to organise into one trip picking up 6 birds from 3 different locations in a set time frame. That was with the second set of chooks recently picked up and task completed pretty well. This next lot didn't take organising getting them, just what to do when they got here. Realising that the pullets need their own coop made me very glad we kept our original coop from our old place. It is a very handy old piece of junk. So when I got my new pullets (young hens) home yesterday, it was only then that I realised that I couldn't just throw them in with the adults. especially since they need their own food. So today I made sure everything was right for them in their little abode. New water and feed containers and food. All done. And then realising that they need to be kept in their coop for at least a week. how boring for them but i guess thats the life of most backyard chooks.

So names undecided as yet, but our new additions are miss silver sussex,

miss buff sussex

and miss silver grey dorking.

I am considering name them Buffy (Buff), Willow (Dorking) and Faith (silver sussex). seems fitting since we already have a cordelia who is a bit of a bossy boots over Audrey. I think i should rename some of the Others and give some of the blacks a name too.

In case it hasn't been said here are the current names:

Plymouth: Starfall
Wyandotte: Flame
Araucana: Falcon
Orp 1: Jaffa
Orp 2: ??
light sussex 1: Audrey
light sussex 2: Cordelia
3 blacks: ????

Chicken Saga- an update

Lets go back 2 1/2 months. Unfortunately while my family was away, my 3 remaining isa x's got loose from their enclosure. 2, like the other one not mentioned, met their fate at the playful predatory nature of one Oberon Borzoi. He is a hunter afterall. One hen never came back and i hope she made it to another new home. Thankfully Miss Midnight, A beautiful bantam black langshan was fine but lonely and took up residence with some family members. she never got used to the isa x flock and is much happier living with chooks her own size now.

So once we moved to our new home and it was safe to have chickens again we started our new flock. Our first lot were 3 australorp x's and 2 plymouth rocks. one did not look well from the moment we got her and recently succumbed to a tick.

About 2 weeks later we added 2 light sussex and 2 buff orpingtons (from one owner), 1 Araucana and one gold laced wyandotte. Quite a mixed bunch. We almost lost one of the buffs twice in 2 weeks, but she is on the mend now.

plymouth rock (Starfall) the leader

Buffy, the buff.

Flame, the wyandotte:

Falcon my Araucana


and one of our light sussex

Today we have 3 more chickens arriving. A silver sussex, a buff sussex, and a silver grey dorking. And not to mention one of our sussex is currently sitting on 15 eggs, so at current count we will have 13 chickens by this afternoon and in 15 days we have a bunch of little chickies, but more on that later.

Its been a long time...

And as such, a lot has happened. We recently moved to a wonderful home. over an acre meaning my dogs no longer escape the yard. oh yeah and we got a new borzoi, but more on him later. We now have a house that feels like a home. It has a heart, it feels good. As much as my old home was technically nice, it was polished and white, it came to me to be known as the house without a soul. I appreciate that many would be lucky to have such a home but i'd be happier with an old smaller house. So we moved out with some drama, but have now arrived just 4 minutes away at our new home. I wake up everyday loving what we have here. enough space for the dogs and plenty of room for the chickens. We now have 10 chickens. Will discuss that later also. Lots of developments on that front also. We also took the plunge of moving the office out of the home which has been brilliant. I will definitely keep this blog updated now. I feel i hit a big slump a while back when i was feeling a bit down. things are on the up and up now, let feel positive that we will continue to feel the positive energy and ride that wave for a long time to come.

One chicken isn't the same as the next.

Seems its not as simple as getting chickens, put them in a coop and collect the eggs. within a week of putting them in their enclosure and despite clipping their wings, chook 1 (Startle) had escaped. We found her tapping on the laundry door and on opening it she hopped on in and scurried desperately around the house. What did this silly bird want. I let her wander and she mostly followed me about. I eventually took her back to the coop. Not long after there was a knock on the door. Silly Startle had knocked on the neighbours door, and my lovely neighbour delivered her back to us. Hubby put her back in the coop where she finally in a panic laid an egg. So the story continues as every 3 days we expect poor Startle to lose the plot as she freaks out about laying yet another egg. Cant blame her much, she lays rather large eggs. Problem is the silly thing taught the other 3 how to escape.

So thats 2 laying eggs and about 2 weeks later we now have a 3rd laying eggs.

Add to that, about a week ago i discovered that all four had lice, and it was not a small infestation. I guess thats what you get from having 2nd hand chooks with little history.

So anyway the chickens got a bit of a rep for being roamers. So much so that one kind neighbour turned up at our front door with a chook. Turned out it wasn't ours, but was lovely of him to return it. We raised the fences and had no escapes since. These chickens sure are entertaining. I was never one to think of chickens having much personality but they are proving me wrong.

First came the chickens, then came the egg.

So the ladies arrived at our home about 2 weeks ago. They weren't laying which i was told, but you always wonder will they lay. Did the seller tell me a furbie? Are they really under 12 months old. I guess you just never know whether you're being told the whole truth. Atleast one is debeaked so now i'm wondering if what i was told was the truth. But it doesn't matter. No matter where they came from especially if they came from somewhere not so nice, they have a good home now. And this week we got our first and our second eggs from them. Its such a thrill to get that first egg. The ladies are well and truly getting used to me bringing them their scraps. It's especially cold today and as it gets colder i'm sure egg laying wont be a regular thing but atleast i know they can do it.

My dog, because he's awesome

For those who know me even a little, you'll probably know my dog. And this blog without mention of him would be silly. His name is Oberon and he is my third 'child'. He is very well known in our town and he is a very happy, sociable dog. He is a borzoi. A somewhat rarer breed in Australia. He loves our kids, though he does play a bit rough with them. Recently my almost 5 yr old came home with some art. In the picture she had to say what makes her smile. Her answer: My dog chasing me. He often likes to treat her as a hurdle and sometimes doesn't clear her. oops. Still he loves them and they love him. He loves rough play from the adults, something i wasn't expecting from a borzoi, but glad he is like that. He is full of confidence.


Oberon was bought as a pet as we had no intention of showing. I started to become interested in showing and Oberon started to really show that he met the standard. We started showing him when he was 14 months old. He is doing well and we have our first Chamionship Breed Specialty in one week. Really looking forward to it.

I love my dog, I am the crazy dog lady. :)

The theory behind 2nd year, battery or rescue chickens.

Now we all know cage eggs are a bad idea and free range is optimal but you might be interested to know a little more about egg production.

A basic understanding will tell you that generally for every hen that hatches theres a rooster also. How many homes actually want roosters. Not many thats for sure and in many places you're allowed to own a few laying hens but certainly not roosters. I mean seriously who'd want them? They crow at very unreasonably hours as an unpredictable alarm clock, they can sometimes be a little grumpy and they certainly don't lay eggs.

So there are very few homes for roosters. Roosters hatched in breeding facilities are killed with one of two methods (carbon dioxide gassing or quick maceration).

Quick maceration ensures the chick is killed within a second and is considered more humane than gassing with high concentrations of carbon dioxide. Gassing results in gasping and head shaking and, depending on the mixture of gases used, it may take up to two minutes for the chick to die.

One of the reasons I am a vegetarian is because I don't believe killing animals is necessary to sustain life. If this is a part of why you are considering vegetarianism then you can see the issue with eating eggs. So what can you do?

While commercial egg production continues there are ways in a backyard coop to be more ethical. To remove ourselves from the cycle of rooster killing we can buy 2nd hand, ex-battery or rescue hens.

2nd year or 2nd hand hens are often advertised for sale in the trading post or online. Hens generally have a good 2-3 yrs of laying and the frequency of laying decreases every year. So, many small producers will sell their chickens when they are 1yr old as egg laying decreases. Many families also bought hens as pets for their kids and found the novelty wore off. 2nd year hens are generally about $10 each.

Ex-battery hens are hens that are being rehomed from battery farm facilities. They often need rehabilitation due to their previous living conditions. Most have few feathers left. Homesforhens.net is a wonderful website that arranges adoption of ex-battery hens. Without rescue these hens would have been slaughtered.

Rescue hens Like other animals, sometimes people can no longer care for or have their chickens and many rescue organisations look after them until they find a new home.

We have had our 2nd year chooks for less than a week. They aren't laying yet, like many at this time of year, but they are a delight.

ethical eating, some things to think about.

Because of a special friend I have recently been confronted with the reality that being vegetarian, while a good step ethically, environmentally and for the body, it is not enough for myself. Its akin to eating no meat except chicken, its still unethical. as an ovo lacto vegetarian the cows still suffer and baby roosters are still killed because they're not economically viable.

So very recently we built a coop and took on some 2nd year chickens, so that we may be that little more ethical. I'll explain the chickens in a post to come.

I am cutting dairy out of my diet and my family is replacing their dairy with an organic dairy producer who allow their male calves to live. I'll write more on this too.

It can be a difficult thing to make the transition, and the first step is awareness/education. For those who are considering a move to vegetarian or vegan living, I hope that the information I provide will be helpful to you. To anyone who puts up anti veg sentiments or accuses myself of being judgemental, I do not give judgement i give facts. Scientific fact backs up that being veg is a better choice environmentally, ethically and for the body. It is up to each individual what they choose to do. Its not up to me to judge.