Illustration from American Australorp Breeders website

In my daydreams, where I live in a perfect world and have unlimited time, budget, space and most importantly, health. I breed these chickens.

Australorps are a breed of chickens which was developed in Australia and is suited to Australian conditions, particularly extremes of heat. They are a dual purpose chicken.

Colour of Australorps is predominately black, with a 'beetle green' sheen to the feathers in sunlight, but there are other colours as well, including blue. They come in standard size and bantam and their temperament is tame and shy. They're great chickens for backyard laying birds.

I have one hen in my flock which is an Australorp "Utility" meaning that she is a hybrid/crossbreed with another variety, possibly brown leghorn or Rhode Island Red. My black hen is the 'alpha' hen of my flock and her name is "Boss," accordingly.

Boss not long after we got her as a POL hen

 This is a photo of Boss not long after we got her.  In this photo, she had not yet developed a big red comb because she wasn't yet laying. She is very close to the look of a 'standard' Australorp, but she has orange eyes (most 'lorps have dark/black eyes) and there is some brown feathering on her chest, which is not very clearly visible in this photograph.

She is a sweet little thing and takes her position as boss hen very seriously. She has even pecked me once when she thought I was taking too many liberties in the hen house!

I love her personality. She is indomitable and funny, and quite the larrikin when she wants to be.

Boss being a funny chookie!

The photo at right is my favourite picture of Boss. She was caught in the act of leading her coop mates into the out of bounds driveway. If it is possible for a chook to look guilty, then this photo is it! 

Maybe one day, I will have my flock of 'lorps and by then, Boss may be just a distant memory, but in the meantime, I am happy to have this fiesty little hen in my flock and in my life.

Yesterday, Sandra and I went to the Brisbane Exhibition, more fondly known in Brisbane as "The EKKA." This is the equivalent of what people in the USA might know as a Carnival, or County Fair and it had been years since I went to the Ekka.

Sandra had never attended, so it was a first for her. I love to go and see all of the crafts and fine arts, the animals and livestock, and the rides and bright lights of "sideshow alley." Even though I don't go on any rides, or play the games in sideshow alley, I do like to have a look, sometimes. I wasn't planning to go into sideshow alley this year, because it is usually very crowded and can be noisy, but then I discovered that I needed to, in order to complete a 'trail' and receive a free gift, so we wound up going in there because I had to 'visit' three of the rides. Not that you'd get me onto any of them in a pink fit! LOL. Still, the prize was a free bottle of Dare Iced Coffee and because I love Iced Coffee I wanted to complete the trail for it.

We spent almost the whole day at the show and had lots of fun looking around. Here are some of the photos we took.

A newborn lamb in the Little Miracles New Born Corner Exhibit

If you are very lucky when visiting the New Born Corner, you may get to see a lamb being born.
We were not so lucky. The lambs are still cute, though.

A Miniature Horse

White Japanese Quail in the Poultry pavillion

A beautifully decorated cake.

Grand Champion Cake Decorating entry

Grand Champion Cake Decorating Entry

Liked this cake decorating entry!

This one was really my favourite, though!

One of the rides in Sideshow Alley

Thrills and spills on sideshow alley!

I have been reading this ebook for a while now. (I am a slow reader) and found it a very enjoyable read. The book is based in the USA but I have found much in it that is useful in an Australian setting as well.

Foreman advocates the practice of keeping a 'micro-flock' in the urban setting not just for eggs and meat, but as little garden workers which assist by digging, scratching and fertilizing garden beds, turning your compost and keeping insect pests at bay.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter which details how to use the chicken coop as a composting system and have applied some of the techniques in my own chicken run, but there is so much more in this book that is handy to know. From building coops and directed runs that channel your hens to wherever you want them in your garden at the time, to hatching and brooding your own replacement chickens it's got some great information.

The only problem I have encountered is that there is quite a lot of repetition in the book, so you'll find yourself reading the same information in two and sometimes more chapters. There are also some typographical errors (more and more common in publishing today, sadly).

All in all, its an enjoyable read, and who wouldn't love that cover?

Get City Chicks for Kindle

Today I finally made a trip to Bunnings in order to spend the gift voucher I received from Hannah for my birthday. I also had some cash that was given to me by my partner's mum so I had a fairly generous budget to spend.

I've been wanting to get into composting for a while now, and made a half-hearted beginning on a compost 'heap' in the backyard, which has really become more of a supplemental feeding station for the chooks, who delight to rip through it every day and pick out bits of it to eat. I don't mind them doing that, so much because they're turning it over at the same time, but the problem is that I don't then, have much other than straw and chicken poop for my compost and it's just not working!

So today with money and gift voucher in hand, I cruised the aisles at Bunnings and looked for a solution.

I'm actually quite surprised at what the budget stretched to!

I purchased an indoor (Bokashi) composter and two 60ltr plastic garbage cans which I will convert to use as outdoor compost bins, thus keeping the compost in and the chooks out. I also got a lovely new garden fork and a 15m hose which will be used to extend the current hose which is too short to reach up to the chicken coops and the potato beds that we have dug behind the chicken coops.

I'm very pleased with all this, and can't wait to get started on creating compost. In fact, the bokashi compost bucket has already been started as I type!

Below is some information about Bokashi composting for those who might not have heard of it before.

Wikipedia:
Bokashi composting

Bokashi is a method of intensive composting. It can use an aerobic or anaerobic inoculation to produce the compost. Once a starter culture is made, it can be used to extend the culture indefinitely, like yoghurt culture. Since the popular introduction of effective microorganisms (EM), Bokashi is commonly made with only molasses, water, EM, and wheat bran.

In home composting applications, kitchen waste is placed into a container which can be sealed with an air tight lid. These scraps are then inoculated with a Bokashi EM mix. This usually takes the form of a carrier, such as rice hulls, wheat bran or saw dust, that has been inoculated with composting micro-organisms. The EM are natural lactic acid bacteria, yeast, and phototrophic bacteria that act as a microbe community within the kitchen scraps, fermenting and accelerating breakdown of the organic matter. The user would place alternating layers of food scraps and Bokashi mix until the container is full. Liquid "compost tea" is drained once or twice a week and can be diluted 1:100 and added to plants as fertilizer, or poured directly down drains to help clean them.^[17] Once the container is full, it is left to ferment for an additional 2 weeks in the container, and then buried under 6-8 inches of soil, in ground or in a non-reactive container. After another two weeks buried under soil, the food scraps should be broken down into rich compost.

 

Inside a recently started Bokashi bin. The aerated base is just visible through the food scraps and Bokashi bran.

Today I made a special treat for my chooks which I call "chocolate for chooks" it is something that they go nuts over, even though it might not seem that appetizing to you and me.

This is about half a dozen egg shells which I baked in the oven at 120C for 30 minutes and then smashed up in a mortar and pestle. It is good for the chooks as it supplements calcium back into their diet. The small, sharp bits which would play merry hell with a human's digestive tract are actually useful in the chicken's gizzard for helping to cut up and digest food. Grit is an essential part of the diet for birds and especially for laying hens. Here is a video of the reaction when I arrived at the coop with a dish of crushed eggshell. It is guaranteed to get them into the coop without too much trouble. Well, except for big, beautiful Bertha.

Bertha's pretty but she's not too bright. She never can seem to understand why walls get between her and her food, poor darling, but with a little guidance, she finds her way. Sorry for some of the unsteady camera angles in this clip, but it is a bit complicated handling the camera, watching where the chickens are, and avoiding standing on them all at the one time. Hopefully I will improve at this lol!

I had a lovely birthday yesterday, and I would like to thank all those who commented on my last post to wish me a happy birthday. Here is how I spent the day.

It started, as most days do, with the chickens.

Then, some native parrots came to visit. These are called Pink and Grey Galahs.

They wanted to eat the seeds of those yellow flowers you see in the second photo which are called Catsear, or False Dandelion.

The bees also like those weeds.

The afternoon was spent baking a cake to have for dessert after dinner.

All in all it was a wonderful day. Relaxed, low key and peaceful. Just the way I like it!

Today is my birthday and I am 48. I can't believe that, I mean, I don't feel 48...whatever that is supposed to feel like. I guess what I mean is, I don't feel old. I really don't feel any different today than I felt when I was 28, apart from the aches and pains, of course, but in my mental attitude and what have you, I still feel young.

I still feel like I have plenty of party animal left in me. I could probably use a new hip or two, and definitely would love it if my spine and neck and shoulders would work as well as they did (which wasn't perfect, but it was better than it is now) when I was younger.

The thing is, though, I am not yet even half as old as I want to get to be. I want to live to be 100 years old. I've had that ambition since I was a child and my mother used to tell me about her grandmother who lived to 103 and I thought that was so awesome, I decided that I wanted to do it too.

And, okay this post was more about playing with emoticons than anything, but I am allowed to do that kind of thing on my birthday!