A Population Explosion( both wanted and unwanted)

 When we first moved to the farm we purchased an incubator and a brooder with the intention of always raising our own laying and table poultry, but slowly we put it on the back burner and a few times purchased the laying hens from a local supplier, which worked quite well for a few years.

The last two lots of hens we purchased at point of lay failed to meet our expectations miserably , laying much later than normal and  nowhere near  reaching the laying totals that our earlier birds had done, even though they were all the same breed( Isa Browns). The prices had also dramatically increased.

One of our hens had gone clucky with a few eggs under her, so we decided to let her sit and she hatched out 3 sweet chicks.

The seed was sown !, So we decided to dust off the incubator, sourced some fertile Speckled Sussex eggs from a nearby breeder and added some of our Isa Brown eggs X with a Rode Island Red rooster.

We had a go at candling the eggs( as novices, had no real idea of what we were looking for, but took pictures to learn from)

They began to hatch, what sweet  fluffy little darlings they were, I had forgotten how much that we love baby chicks.

It was also at about this time a friend offered us a free rooster from some new ones she had bred,  so meet young  Barney !

He settled in immediately with our girls and eventually we will turn our  flocks into two breeds, Barnvelders(like Barney) and Speckled Sussex. The plan is to build some new hen yards.

After 24 hours in the incubator to fluff up we transferred our babies to the brooder.

We moved the brooder onto the back verandah for ease of care, where  there is power, and we were able to help protect it from the mice and rat plague we were also dealing with. We had  purchased this brooder from overseas many years ago  and it is a brilliant set up that makes care of the birds  really easy.

There are little adjustable slides on the side that as the chicks grow you can increase their "windows" to reach the feed and water trays that are attached on the outside.They can also be attached on the inside but are messy.

The chickens grow and change rapidly day to day,

We traveled to the coast for a few days  to see our daughter and her family, Brian's brother looked after our chicks and we were  really surprised to see  the changes  in them on our return. They are so funny to watch and they are such inquisitive birds.

The chicks are now not far off moving to the next stage, where we will put them in a big cage  out on the grass with a heat lamp for the cold nights  to keep them warm.

Meanwhile Mumma hen has been doing a great job with her babies, we now let them out of their cage on the lawn of a day to scavenge and she automatically  heads back to bed each evening and we lock her in.

They will soon move up into the big hen yard with the other girls.

When we feed our cats, any left over food on the plate( and occasionally like in this video we place the plate into the brooder and the chickens go crazy over it. they love it.

NOW !!!

 

IF YOU ARE  SQUEAMISH ABOUT SEEING LIVE OR DEAD MICE, LOOK AWAY OR GO NO FURTHER.!!!!!

Here in central NSW we have been suffering from a mouse plague,  some people to a greater degree than us, but we still have WAY TOO MANY MICE.

When it all started we though that the cats were  so  cute how each night they would kill and bring inside some  mice, carefully laying them as a gift  along Brian's side of the bed,

Now the novelty has worn off a little, the numbers have  increased.

Very soon it was evident to us that we needed to purchase some more traps, but these were not to be found, all our attempts to source locally and afar failed, so when Brian's brother said they were coming for a visit from Brisbane and asked "Was there anything we wanted", we immediately  responded with "Mouse Traps"

He arrived with a box of 21 rat  traps instead of mouse traps and baits for us( which we are a bit  hesitant to use due to the pets) We thought that the rat traps would be useless but they are absolutely  brilliant.

So we run the traps, baiting them with peanut butter,any brand ,any kind , all day long about every hour until we head to bed. Sometimes we lay in bed hearing the traps snapping and get back up to do one more or even two more rounds to collect the mice.

This is our average  catch  every day. No less than 150 rotten little mice.

We have various traps of different styles place all around in our sheds and it takes up a major part of the day just routinely emptying them.

I have to admit we are a bit over it, but I am grateful that  we are enduring a smaller plague to many other farmers, there are people out there ( including some  family)  dealing with thousands upon thousands of the little rodents and are seeing their lively hood disappear before their eyes, and all this after many  years of dealing with ongoing drought conditions.. Some of the videos we have seen are horrendous .

Hopefully this will pass soon, we are thinking that as winter moves in hopefully the numbers will decrease, but so far they show no signs of slowing down.

So, until we catch up again( hopefully mouse free)  we wish everyone well,

Stay happy and safe.

Cheers

Jane and Brian.