FantineFav
Chirping
- Jan 25, 2022
- 31
- 131
- 79
I've thought a lot about whether or not to start a thread, but I have been following a few: blackacres, MaryJanet and ribh's d'coopage. They are so lovely to read, mainly for the inspiration, the kindness and encouragement from others, and the friendly connections that get made. Reading blackacres' thread actually spurred me to start work on a new coop and, if nothing else, it would be nice to reflect on my experiences so far and have a record of this current project. So here goes...
Some background: I grew up with chickens, we always had ISA browns since my mum loved to get ex-battery hens and give them a much better quality life. As an adult, I got my first birds when I was pregnant with my first born. We had moved out to a lovely big homestead, courtesy of my partner's job, with an old chicken run which inspired me to get into keeping chickens. I started with a beautiful bantam pair: a wheaten Pekin hen and a cross-bred rooster who was stunning to look at. And then a friend gave me seven juvenile hennies, a rare breed that I could find out almost nothing about, except that they were a type of game fowl. The night we brought them home, they straight away tried to roost in our very tall tamarisk trees instead of on the the roosts I had made for them in a dilapidated coop. We very quickly realised we were going to have to properly renovate the runs. We built three sections, giving the hennies a large enclosed area, the bantams a smaller run since they got to free-range during the day, and the main run for my planned egg-layers. The whole run complex bordered one side of a large old vegetable garden which I resurrected with great success. As the hennies approached about 12 weeks of age, I came home from work one day to discover the three cockerels all fighting each other to the death. There was actually blood splatter on the outside wall of the coop! I managed to catch all three of them and put them each in their own boxes and took them back to my friend. So I was left with the girls, as flighty as anything and always looking at me with complete disdain if they looked at me at all. They were super broody but would promptly kill any chicks they hatched.
For my egg-layers, I wanted to raise the hens from day one, and was also pretty sure I was going to catch the breeding bug, so I bought a Janoel 24 egg incubator and hatched 12 eggs from someone else's backyard flock as a practice run before buying more expensive eggs to incubate. I hatched 7 chicks and I swear two of the three cockerels were born pure nasty. Absolutely vicious. While I was in hospital with my newborn son, my friend who had given me the hennies, came around to feed our birds, dogs and cats everyday, and she is not normally intimidated by farm animals, let alone arsey roosters, but she told me she absolutely dreaded having to go near those guys. We had been home from hospital two weeks when I went out to feed everyone and those two evil boys managed to get out of the A-frame while I was over in the main run. I didn't know how I was going to get back inside to my baby boy - it was my first intense experience of separation anxiety! I crept quietly to the fence line where I could walk unseen behind the trees around to the the front of the house and the front door. It was an untenable situation and my wonderful trusty friend came over the next day and dispatched the roosters for me.
I want to fast forward a bit here - basically, I incubated several clutches, it turns out my chicken maths is truly terrible and impossible to keep under control, I've lost birds to foxes, cocciodosis and 45°c+ heatwaves despite my best efforts keeping them cool with iced water, misters and sprinklers. I've learnt plenty as to what works, what to never do again, early signs of health problems, how to dispatch roosters and dress them for eating, and so on.
Last year, work life for my partner was getting increasingly toxic, with his manager using the farmhouse as leverage to control and bully him. So I pulled the pin, found a new place for us to live on a different farm owned by a couple I've known all my life, and moved everything and everyone while 8 and a half months pregnant with my second born. We vowed we will never live again on any farm where we work unless we manage to buy our own farm one day. My partner still has the same job but his manager is a bit more reasonable now that he doesn't have the power over him he used to. During the move, I used the opportunity to get my chicken maths (temporarily) under control as our new place didn't have a fowl yard (or an old vegetable garden to resurrect). I rehomed most of my birds with good people, keeping my faverolles pair: Louis and Fantine, my buff Sussex flock: Prince Harry and the Meagans, and a few odd bantams. We have since built a new run, had a baby girl, acquired a flock of welsh harlequin/abacot ranger ducks and lost two of our three beautiful cats to snake bites. As soon as Fantine started laying in August, I collected her eggs to incubate, as well as the buffs. The Janoel is a finicky PITA and I've only managed to hatch out 6 new birds out of three different clutches, not helped at all by power blackouts every single time. I was quite sure Harry was shooting blanks as I was getting nothing from the buffs out of the first 2 clutches, and then I finally got two chicks out of the last lot I did. I'm giving him one last chance - I have two dozen eggs ready of Faverolles, buffs and marans (more about those later), I've read up on some strategies to get the janoel to behave itself, and my lovely dad has rustled up a car battery and power inverter to hook the incubator up to if the power goes out, but Murphy's Law says the power won't go out now that I have a back-up source organised. If I still have incredibly disappointing fertility with the buffs, sadly Harry will be turned into a coq au vin.
Gonna sign off for tonight and pick this up again soon.
Some background: I grew up with chickens, we always had ISA browns since my mum loved to get ex-battery hens and give them a much better quality life. As an adult, I got my first birds when I was pregnant with my first born. We had moved out to a lovely big homestead, courtesy of my partner's job, with an old chicken run which inspired me to get into keeping chickens. I started with a beautiful bantam pair: a wheaten Pekin hen and a cross-bred rooster who was stunning to look at. And then a friend gave me seven juvenile hennies, a rare breed that I could find out almost nothing about, except that they were a type of game fowl. The night we brought them home, they straight away tried to roost in our very tall tamarisk trees instead of on the the roosts I had made for them in a dilapidated coop. We very quickly realised we were going to have to properly renovate the runs. We built three sections, giving the hennies a large enclosed area, the bantams a smaller run since they got to free-range during the day, and the main run for my planned egg-layers. The whole run complex bordered one side of a large old vegetable garden which I resurrected with great success. As the hennies approached about 12 weeks of age, I came home from work one day to discover the three cockerels all fighting each other to the death. There was actually blood splatter on the outside wall of the coop! I managed to catch all three of them and put them each in their own boxes and took them back to my friend. So I was left with the girls, as flighty as anything and always looking at me with complete disdain if they looked at me at all. They were super broody but would promptly kill any chicks they hatched.
For my egg-layers, I wanted to raise the hens from day one, and was also pretty sure I was going to catch the breeding bug, so I bought a Janoel 24 egg incubator and hatched 12 eggs from someone else's backyard flock as a practice run before buying more expensive eggs to incubate. I hatched 7 chicks and I swear two of the three cockerels were born pure nasty. Absolutely vicious. While I was in hospital with my newborn son, my friend who had given me the hennies, came around to feed our birds, dogs and cats everyday, and she is not normally intimidated by farm animals, let alone arsey roosters, but she told me she absolutely dreaded having to go near those guys. We had been home from hospital two weeks when I went out to feed everyone and those two evil boys managed to get out of the A-frame while I was over in the main run. I didn't know how I was going to get back inside to my baby boy - it was my first intense experience of separation anxiety! I crept quietly to the fence line where I could walk unseen behind the trees around to the the front of the house and the front door. It was an untenable situation and my wonderful trusty friend came over the next day and dispatched the roosters for me.
I want to fast forward a bit here - basically, I incubated several clutches, it turns out my chicken maths is truly terrible and impossible to keep under control, I've lost birds to foxes, cocciodosis and 45°c+ heatwaves despite my best efforts keeping them cool with iced water, misters and sprinklers. I've learnt plenty as to what works, what to never do again, early signs of health problems, how to dispatch roosters and dress them for eating, and so on.
Last year, work life for my partner was getting increasingly toxic, with his manager using the farmhouse as leverage to control and bully him. So I pulled the pin, found a new place for us to live on a different farm owned by a couple I've known all my life, and moved everything and everyone while 8 and a half months pregnant with my second born. We vowed we will never live again on any farm where we work unless we manage to buy our own farm one day. My partner still has the same job but his manager is a bit more reasonable now that he doesn't have the power over him he used to. During the move, I used the opportunity to get my chicken maths (temporarily) under control as our new place didn't have a fowl yard (or an old vegetable garden to resurrect). I rehomed most of my birds with good people, keeping my faverolles pair: Louis and Fantine, my buff Sussex flock: Prince Harry and the Meagans, and a few odd bantams. We have since built a new run, had a baby girl, acquired a flock of welsh harlequin/abacot ranger ducks and lost two of our three beautiful cats to snake bites. As soon as Fantine started laying in August, I collected her eggs to incubate, as well as the buffs. The Janoel is a finicky PITA and I've only managed to hatch out 6 new birds out of three different clutches, not helped at all by power blackouts every single time. I was quite sure Harry was shooting blanks as I was getting nothing from the buffs out of the first 2 clutches, and then I finally got two chicks out of the last lot I did. I'm giving him one last chance - I have two dozen eggs ready of Faverolles, buffs and marans (more about those later), I've read up on some strategies to get the janoel to behave itself, and my lovely dad has rustled up a car battery and power inverter to hook the incubator up to if the power goes out, but Murphy's Law says the power won't go out now that I have a back-up source organised. If I still have incredibly disappointing fertility with the buffs, sadly Harry will be turned into a coq au vin.
Gonna sign off for tonight and pick this up again soon.
