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.