Baby chick set up

Since we last blogged, we have acquired another 6 baby chicks (Orpingtons this time) so our total is up to 12 baby chicks (21 chickens all up...). Since we have a few more, our set up has changed, so I thought I would share it with you as it seems to be working really well.

Before getting baby chicks, we did a fair bit of internet reading and came across ADozenGirlz The Chicken Chick. Her blog covers a wide range of chook keeping and has been a very valuable read. It was on her recommendation that we put down a few puppy training pads (or incontinence pads) before our layers of paper towels which is what the chicks live on for the first few weeks. So far, so good! They seem to be doing the trick really well, and we have layered the paper towels so that we only need to take off the top layer every day (unless it gets really dirty).

We bought a heat lamp from Mitre10 and Mindy's (our housemate) father rigged it up for us. If he hadn't done that for us then we would have bought a fitting and a lamp from the bird barn (pet part) which they use for baby chicks but also reptiles. Thanks for saving us nearly $100! :)

We bought a water feeder from the bird barn as it isn't safe having bowls of water in with new chicks as they can easily drown. We have 2 feeders in there- a bird one and a home made upside down planter on a plate- this will hopefully stop the chicks from scratching and pooing in their food!
The screen keeps it secure, but we still keep the cat well away from this whole area just in case!

So here it is in its glory:

Baby chicks enjoying a dust bath

Will keep you posted as the chicks grow!

We had a plan...

We got a set of bantams fairly soon after moving house. We've always wanted chickens, and luckily our new housemate did too!
Bantams are great- relatively friendly, cute as a button and easy to keep. Out of 5 bantams, only one of them currently lays eggs though... Its the wrong season, of course, but what we really want are some hens to lay us some beautiful free range eggs.
Bantams are apparently really good mothers and get broody really quickly. Same with a hen we were given too. But as luck had it, none of them have had the inclination so far.

So what did we do? Well, we got some fertile eggs anyway. Luck would have it that Kel's brother's hen was broody, so we gave them to him and his wee hen sat on them for 21 days.
The time arrived, and so did one chick, but no more. And then that chick died.
Sad times indeed.

Instead of wondering what to do next, we took the plunge and bought 6 three day old chicks off Trademe. (off a great breeder based in Helensville) Hopefully they will be all hens and will be our good layers, but we wont know for a while yet!

Having chickens has been a good learning curve- even more so with the babies. Its so lovely having them in our back garden, eating all our wandering jew, talking away to themselves.

We'll update their progress soon

Free ranging it

I (Em) have been trying to write this post for nearly 2 weeks now. It's not that I don't want to talk about free range animals and products, it's not that I don't believe whole heartedly in the practise and promotion either. We've been free range egg, chicken and bacon consumers for a number of years now and absolutely believe in it. Buying free range was the first change we ever made although at the time there wasn't the range of free range products that you can get now.

Winter tends to have a habit of sucking the passion right outta me, so instead of harping on about why we believe in free range chickens, pork etc, please tell me whether you believe in free range and what it, if anything, means to you.

I'll start to make this easier: We buy free range items that gare guarranteed cruelty free. Namely eggs and bacon. We love the SPCA's Blue tick scheme which audits participating farms making sure that they are up to standard.