moving lines

We’ve been thinking about getting a couple of extra chickens for a while. Our chicken hatching plans came to nothing a few months ago so we’ve been trying to get hens at the point of lay stage  from Alice Springs.

I’ve just had some unexpected time  in Alice  so I got serious about a hen hunt. On my first night in Alice Trevor had rung with the news that our bantam hen was missing. She wasn’t in any of her normal hidey holes, and between us we said that she had to be dead – once she was out of the run the dogs would make short work of her. But I was still holding out hope that she had found a new secret space where she was sitting out one of her broody states.

The next morning Trevor rang to say that he had found Miss B in the front yard – dead but not eaten.  I was unexpectedly teary – she was a weird bird but a character who had endeared herself to us.  She was right down at the bottom of the pecking order and hung out by herself all the time waiting for scraps left over by the other two chickens. We would feed her on the side with titbits to make sure she wasn’t too left out, but it was a lonely life I would think. She slept separately to the other two but on the night before she went missing Trevor said that he saw her cuddled up to the other two on the roost.  I think she was planning her escape and this was her goodbye to the other two.  In tracking how she got out Trevor found scratch marks under the run gate. There is a little gap there and she must have squeezed herself under it to get out. It must have been quite a chase that went on when the dogs discovered her.  She didn’t have a mark on her and I suspect that she either died of fright and stress or that one of the dogs shook her to death.  A total surprise though that two part dingo dogs didn’t proceed to eat her.

So back to the hen hunt which now took on another dimension. Our supplier of fertile eggs (and consequently the hens that lay them) was out of town, the pet shop had had some but had sold out, Laucke Mills (the source of many wonderful things for farmers and homesteaders) had had hundreds of chicks but had sold out really quickly.

It’s true that chickens are the new “hot” pet.

Isa Browns in moult

Anyway I saw a sign at Laucke’s from a person selling Sussex Whites,  Barnvelders and Australorps all at point of lay. A phone call and I’m on my way to check out the chickens.  To cut a long story short I headed back to Yuendumu with two beautiful Australorps.

They are big birds, even for 16 weeks old, which is just as well as the Isa Browns are none too pleased. There isn’t anything really seriously aggro, and the Isas did allow the Australorps to roost with them last night, but there are clear demarcation lines being set of what they can do and where they can do it.  We are keeping an eye on it all to make sure that the Australorps do get some fun time as well. Plus putting out separate water feeders and feed trays to make sure there isn’t a hogging of the food and water by the Isas.

Daphne and Orphelia trying to work out how they got to Yuendumu

The Australorps seem rather befuddled by it all and of course are still trying to work out how they ended up in Yuendumu with two cranky brown hens as compared to be surrounded by other Australorps, Sussex Whites and Barnvelders.  The Isas are just coming out of moult and are still looking very tatty. Against the Australorps, now named Daphne and Orphelia, they look very dowdy. But they are still cheery with us, and flit around us and between our legs and supervise us when we are working in the run.They are quite charming, even though they have a nasty reputation when it comes to their being mixed with other breeds.

The Australorps seem quite surprised to have people around in the run not realising of course that they have entered into an arid permaculture setup where they will have a range of jobs helping us to garden. We’ll break it to them slowly.

Isas doing compost work