Name day

I found a black hen really getting into a dirt bath underneath the lemon tree today. Everything was fine until I realised she had found Blondy Bears grave and was having a dirt bath on top of him. Poor Blondy Bear, he's still not getting any rest even in his death.

I've been thinking of names to name Speedy's babies. I'm so proud of her, she gave us two hens. Out of the eight babies from the other slut there are 6 roosters and 2 hens. I was thinking about keeping the name in the Arrested Development strain and naming them Lindsey and Maybe. But I'm not totally sold on that one. Any suggestions? Perhaps I'll take a photo of them and maybe you'll get inspired.

Best in show

I went to the Ekka yesterday and visited the poultry on show. At first I was excited to see all of the ducks, chickens, cocks, turkey and geese but then I got a little upset they were all in these really small pens. The roosters were going off crowing, the ducks were honking and in general it smelt like shit. I think there must have been over a 1000 birds in this pavilion. I had originally planned on taking some photos of the prize winning Muscovy but you know what. Miss Muffet is clearly the prettiest duck ever, she would have won hands down. Only I wouldn't want my ducks in a little cage on display like that.

The male Muscovy ducks that one in the 'heavy division' where clearly much bigger than Tommy and would have ripped his head off should they ever met. These drakes looked all rough and dirty with their feathers broken - like how my boys used to be. Tommy now looks so white and clean.

Duck Therapy

I met someone on Saturday who explained to me that she believed in a thing called 'Duck Therapy'. The funny thing is I hadn't even mentioned my ducks. I try to keep my ducks and my blog out of general conversation at music festivals.

So I learnt all about this "therapy" which just involves watching ducks for their calming effect. As I told her tonight I feel like the dice man, like I've been practising this all along but now it has a name. So now when I stop working and go outside and play with the animals I'm actually doing something constructive, I'm having a little 'duck therapy' time.Lady has been laying eggs and now has a nest in appears to be nesting. Her nest is in one of the bread baskets which was fallen down a little because its not used to the weight of a duck. I don't think she'll be there long as I'll take her eggs soon. I was told that duck eggs are great for cooking sponge cakes. Now if only I had an oven.

Speedy has finally ditched her kids. I'm impressed she lasted this long.

Speedy vs Brown Bitch

I let the brown bitch out of the pen with her babies this morning. It didn't last long though as Speedy attacked her. Speedy was really getting into it with her I had to separate the two of them. I ended up picking Speedy up and trying to calm her down (which didn't really work as she wasn't listening to me) and pen her in the chicken pen until I locked Brown hen and her babies up again.
I'll let brown bitch out in another few days, but not at the same time as when I let everyone else out. Perhaps then Speedy wont fight with her. I'm not even sure why they were fighting.

Tommy (said with French accent)

I'm pretty sure I saw Tommy get jealous of me feeding Old Boy. Or at least I'd like to think so.

I was feeding them some food and Old Boy always gets my attention as he stands right in front of me and generally I feed him all the best bits. After a while Tommy came over and had a little chat - I call that jealously. Old Boy shrugged it off, or couldn't' really hear it. He was too focused on the food. My camera is the studio at Malibu at the moment, so we'll just have to make do with these old shots of Tommy. I love this one, it looks like Tommy has a fake moustache on.

I just got a new computer and damn, my pictures look great. I didn't realise what such great photos I took, well I did, but the colour is amazing!

Young chick

If you can look past my crap photography this is the young chicken to watch. Its feathers are quite pretty, no Blondy Bear but we'll see. These young chicks snap at my fingers and are very game. I thought this chick was going to peck the camera.

Its cold

Miss Muffet was so wet today. She jumped out of the pool and was shaking. Sure it was raining and wet but I was worried about her. For a second I even thought about going into the house and getting a towel to dry her off but all I could just hear Papa's voice saying "Baby, she's a duck, she's meant to be wet," so I decided against it.

I think she took a bit of a pounding from Tommy and that's why she was shaking a little. I'd be very happy to see her get all new feathers as she looks so scrawny. Plus it can't help that Lady keeps eating her feathers out and eating them. I hand fed Lady yesterday as well at Miss Muffet. Miss Muffet was standing on the rock in the pen as I was handing out all of the scraps and I pick out the best things that my favourite like. Yesterday I handed a cooked mushroom to Miss Muffet and she turned her nose up at it and then I said "try it" and she did. I was pretty impressed.