Bananas

We just got back from picking some bananas and gave a bunch to the duckies. Speedy races the ducks to the little cockroaches that live on the bunches. Speedy is much faster than the ducks.

We have two persimmon trees which are covered in fruit at the moment. No one here is particularly fussed on them so I must go up and pick some for the ducks and chickens. I bet they'd like them. While the ducks don't like sweet food they do like fruit and natural sugar.

I have to keep a close eye on them at the moment (when do I not?) as our cucumber plants are finally fruiting. Well at least the two plants that they didn't eat a month or so ago. I'm worried that one day I'm going to look out there and it will be gone. I've had to replant the row three times. Little rascals.

Vegas AKA Fatty

While I know it's not the best photo, but this one goes out to Fatty in Melbourne the best duet partner I've ever had. Vegas and I used to sing tunes from Grease back in the Merthyr Road days. For those of you asking, I was Danny she was Sandy. Vegas is now less one kidney but I'm sure she's got double the attitude now. I hope you're feeling better Vegas.

Sleepy Saturday

I saw Katcsa sitting at our back door yesterday having a nap with one eye open and resting on one foot. She looked so cute.

I attempted to have a little photo shoot with Speedy yesterday as she is getting so big. Unfortunately it didn't work out too well as she wouldn't listen to my direction and was far too interested in eating. This is the best of them. In the background is one of The Twins, who was just returning home from going exploring.

Worm Farm

Many thanks for Larry for visiting us this week and showing us some pointers on building our worm farm. We scrapped one of our seedling areas as I was having no luck with it and opted to make a worm farm out of the stand. We've used all recycled stuff, right down to the tarps, which strangely look like the pond. We covered it up and but I couldn't take any photos as the camera ran out of power. The worms are due to arrive in the next week or so.

Speedy is starting to hang out with the chickens and make adult chicken noises, my baby is all grown up. Gone are the days when she used to like a cuddle in my jumper at night. She still sleeps with the ducks, though.

Wednesday

I went out to check on the chickens and ducks today and found most of the chickens sunning themselves. I just love watching Old Boy fall asleep, he cracks me up.

We have a two new little visitors, the gray ducks. Here they are watching me watching The twins in the "pond".

Goanna

You can't see the Goanna in this photo, mainly because I was too scared to get close. I went out about 10min ago to check on the ducks and to say hello when I saw this massive Goanna in the chicken pen on the rock. 5 of the ducks were in there, as well as a few hens sitting on eggs. I yelled out for help and ran back to the studio to get the guys to come and remove the Goanna from the pen. I didn't even want to go in to get the ducks out because I know how fast they run. It was over a metre long, it was huge. Anyway it ran out of the pen into the bush and perhaps up a tree. No one was harmed.

I saw Speedy out having a rest with the ducks this morning under a tree. I think she must be the only chicken that likes to rest in the shade.

Snake Fest 07 resumes

Can you see the snake that was hanging in the tree? We just got home from Brisbane and was walking over to the chickens and ducks (to check for snakes), when this was spotted in the tree. I'm not sure what type this was but I saw it the other night over near the pen. I think I need a snake book.

There is a burst water-pipe next door, have I mentioned that its non-stop here? First a fire, now water pipes.

Inside Duck

Katcsa has been walking inside our back door. I noticed her walk in yesterday when I left the screen door open. I shooed her out, but I took a few photos first. Perhaps this was the wrong impression to give her as she strode in quite confidently this morning while their breakfast was being prepared.

Speedy is a...

I found out today Speedy is a girl. I saw her pecking around a tree and Young Boy went up to and tried to mate with her. I'm yet to see a gay chicken so my guess is she's a girl. So that's the second time I've been wrong with the sex of my animals. I thought all along that Katcsa was a boy and Beaker was a girl. This photo was taken over New years and she is much larger than this now. Speedy will make a great mother when she ends up producing chickens as her mother
(not me, the real one) was a great hen. Very protective and often had a high number of chickens survive.

Last night the anaconda infiltrated our snake-proof fence Lucky for the chickens that we went over there and removed the snake from the pen. I had such a bad sleep as I was worried about the chickens all night. I went back over there at 1.30am and there were all sound asleep. Today we're going to go over the pen and fix up all the areas where they could get into.

Duck Pie

I've been slacking off lately on the blog, well just doing other stuff really. I've been away from the farm these last couple days and have been unable to take any photos of the babies. So here is a trip down memory lane. This is when they used to sleep inside in the banana box, which went on to become Speedy's box. I can barely get two in frame these days, let alone all six of them. They were so light and fluffy then.

Update - Wednesday

Maybe it was the rain but I saw this bat on our veranda last night. The photo is a little out of focus because I didn't want to get too close in case it flew into my hair or something. I couldn't believe there was a bat on our roof.

The ducks are well, they have been out eating my cucumber row again. Lucky I purchased yet another pack of cucumber seeds, I'll have to replant them later today.

I took this photo yesterday of the ducks returning home after exploring. I'm not sure where the other 4 ducks are, but this is of Speedy and two ducks. They were hurrying back because they knew they'd been busted or they thought I had food.

Fight club

I watched five of the ducks swim yesterday, I was a little too late in getting the camera and could only get photos of three of them swimming. Beaker is the only duck that really doesn't like swimming in the "pond", and yesterday I found out why. We ushered him into the water and he was treading water because he couldn't touch the bottom, it was so funny. I don't think he realised that he floats. Poor thing, it tired it him out pretty quickly.

When let the ducks out of the pen this morning I noticed that all three boys had been fighting. There was blood on their wings and back of neck. Its Mandy fighting with both Tommy and Beaker. Beakers got a little bit of a limp now. This is Tommy

Lazy Saturday

We let the chickens out of the pen today, while they ran off in went the ducks. The ducks love hanging out in the chicken pen. I'm not quite sure what to do about the babies tomorrow as we're going to Vibes at around 11am and wont be back until around midnight. I don't want to keep them penned all day, but I don't want to risk the fox coming to get them. Perhaps they will spend the day penned with the chickens.

We're flushing the pond today, as soon as the ducks realise this they will go over and play in the water like the photo above. Instead they are just having a sleep in the chicken pen. Speedy is in the also, but he/she is having a dirt bath.

Explorers

All is back to normal at the farm. Speedy is spending his third night out in the duck pen tonight. I went out earlier to check on them and he was on the side of the bed perched. To be honest I miss having the little chicken inside. I came home tonight from my mums and there was no one here, although Speedy is usually asleep in his box I'd normally here the occasional peck and chirp. Oh well, I chicken has got to grow up sometime.
Summer has really kicked in around here and most of the day the ducks spend underneath different mango trees but by about 3pm they become explorers. They vanish to the front of the house, the neighbours house and who knows where else. One day I expect to see them up in the bananas, I would say the water tank; but I know they'd never make it up the hill.
I saw boy-on-boy action today. Tommy was trying to get a piece of Beaker, I thought it was Beaker yet again going after one of the girls. When I went to intervene it was Tommy. I think it was more of a power thing rather than mating, but who knows.
The cucumber I planted earlier this week it starting to come up; I hope the duckies don't come in and eat it - otherwise its fence building time for me. We broke a major rule of ours today in the patch in letting Speedy come in. We let him come in so that he could catch some of the grasshoppers and other assorted bugs in the vegetables. Although he/she is not that quick in getting the grasshoppers we'd catch them for him and he'd happily eat them. Speedy is fine to come in as he doesn't eat the produce, but its not really a good example.

Speedy's ok

When I let Speedy out this morning, he was fine. I was a little worried last night and woke up around 4am because I could hear birds chirping and I thought it was Speedy. Lucky I woke up as there was a fire at our neighbours house. It's just non-stop here, so while the fire was being extinguished I was out checking on Speedy and the ducks. No snakes and Speedy was asleep.

Speedys sleep out

It is Speedys first night out in the pen tonight. Well actually that's not true, this is his third time but this time it's permanent. For me that means no more waking up to him tweeting from his banana box. He's been sleeping inside since the beginning of December so its time to cut the chord. I spent about 10min with him on sun down getting him used to the duck pen and that his box in not inside. He was so cute, he ducked under my arm as he's always done. Although its been weeks since I've picked him up at night he still knew that I'm his "mum". I've been out once tonight to check on him and he's sitting on the edge of his box. Hopefully the pen is snake-proofed as I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. I wanted to take a photo of him in his pen but I've tried taking photos of the ducks at night and all I end up doing is blinding them with the flash. Here is Katcsa when she'd fly up onto the fence at night. This is the last time I took a photo at night of the animals.

Tuesday

It's pretty quiet here here at the farm. It's so hot all the duckies (and Speedy) do is sit under the mango trees and eat bananas. When Katcsa got off her eggs this morning I took them so now she is off hanging out with the rest of them. I brought home duck scraps from the cafe again yesterday and the duckies are just so fussy. Out of the scraps they only eat bacon, scrambled eggs/omelette's, pasta, chips, risotto, sausages, egg shells, tomatoes, watermelon and rockmelon and cooked mushrooms. The rest of the stuff they just turn their nose up, lucky we have chickens who are less picky and are just happy to be eating food other than seeds.

The chickens are penned up at the moment. Ive done a head count and we lost 5 hens (and about 25 chicks) during Snake Fest 06-07. We're down to 2 brown hens, 3 black ones and 2 roosters. I think Speedy is going to sleep outside tonight for the first time. I'm a little nervous but I think he'll be fine.

Sunday

Poor Old Boy, I'm really quite worried about him. Yesterday when I was watching him hanging out with the ducks (which he never does) he lost his balance a few times. While he is crowing a lot more now, he was just standing around. I didn't think he would see the week out. Normally once we let them out of pen he runs off with the three hens and Young Boy. Perhaps it was the heat or the fact that he is old, but he wasn't his usual self. He was better today as he was off running around with the chickens.

Katcsa is still sitting on her eggs, I think tomorrow I will take them when she gets up for breakfast. I replanted the cucumbers yesterday, I wonder how long it will take for the ducks to get in there and eat them? I guess I shouldn't have fed them cucumbers when they were babies.

I was listening to Ralphie and his family on our roof this morning. Our roof must be made of alfoil as it sounded like he weighed possum or small dog size.

Katcsa

Cotcha got wind of the blog this morning and requested that I start spelling her name correctly, after all she is Hungarian. So Katcsa it is. I went outside earlier and saw all three boys (and Speedy) were out sitting in front of their house. They looked like three old men sitting on their front deck.

I was watching Old Boy this morning. Poor guy, I think he is going to die of a broken heart; first George and then Grey Bitch. It was just him sitting under the mango tree crowing to himself.

Friday

Here is Cotcha sitting on her nest. We don't have to worry about ducklings just yet as Cotcha isn't incubating the eggs as she only sits on them for a few hours in the morning.

They were all out swimming today and while I attempted to take yet more photos of them swimming however I was a little too late. Instead I got photos of them drying off. This is Mandy.

I think Cotcha and Tommy have a little thing going, or perhaps its that they are both outsiders. I will have to investigate this further.

The Grey Bitch Memorial Fence

We finally finished the snake/cane toad and rodent-proof chicken pen today. It was a HUGE task, taking us 5 sessions and over 11 hours of work. I kept cursing Grey Bitch and her death for making me do the work, but it needed doing so I'm glad it's done. The pen looks like its sponsored by Heineken as we used bottle tops instead of washers. So thanks to everyone who had a beer with us over the Christmas/New Year period!
Above is a picture of one of the random walls, it looks rather prison like but we want the chickens to feel safe again. I think it worked too as this evening I didn't even have to get them out of the mango trees they all went in of their own accord.

Now that the pens are snake-proof Speedy is going to start sleeping out in the duck pen. He is still too young to sleep with the chickens as those bitches will peck him. He is a photo I took of the both of us.

Cotcha has built another nest in the duck pen, she's so cute when she sits on eggs. I will try and get a photo tomorrow.