One Year

Only one year and I'm well on my way to being a "crazy bird lady". ;-)

Would you believe on 30 May last year I got my first three baby chooks in Australia and it's sprawled into this in only a year??? LOL To be fair, I was warned how addictive poultry is! To celebrate I spam you all with more goose photos! ;-p

Some of my mob come up for a chat.

Young fellow enjoying the sunshine after a good meal.

Look ma, I'm in colour!

Having a stickybeak.

Pretty as a picture... *snap*

Who needs a rubber duckie? Real ones make bath time more fun!

A place for every feather and every feather in it's place.

Everything must be "just so".

Duck, duck, GOOSE! (I just can't help myself.)

Beautiful geese

After months of waiting eagerly, I was finally able to get my first geese the other day. A beautiful young pair of Embden and a young pair of Brown Chinese from Tim at Tribe of Honk.

This is one of the Embden, a bit muddy as it's not had a chance to visit the dam.

The little Chinese looking very elegant... the above picture also shows an Aylesbury behind it (the white splotch) and the Faverolle boy in the background.

The problem of bringing out a camera when chooks are aware that photographing them equals treats!

There is a bit of a shadow over their homecoming as when I released them from the crate, it's mate took off in a panic and made it to the dam. Since we couldn't get it off the water, we hid behind the shed thinking it'd come out and we could then shoo it toward the shed. When we peeped back out a few mins later it was gone - not in the dam, not in the field or adjoining fields. I've spent all night combing our property and yesterday and today looking everywhere, putting flyers out, knocking on doors, posting signs, newspaper etc. What a thing to loose one of your new babies less than 10 minutes after arriving home. :-( Several neighbors have flocks though so I'm hoping the quickness of it disapearing means it heard someones birds and took off to them and we'll hear from them when they find a new goose there.

Big weekend - Victorian Waterfowl Show, which my 2 Aylesbury were entered in. (Firsts in open duck and drake, Tim's were in young duck and drake, his girl taking breed.) The judge made a comment it was nice to see more people getting them out there and hopefully getting more people to take them on as awareness grew.

I fell in LOVE again. This gorgeous little call girl of Broken Birds...

I just love her pretty colouring - so soft, and her lovely dark slately points!

Then today was another auction at Euroa. I got to catch up with a number of people we'd seen at the VWA show and several I've not seen since the last Euroa auction. Everyone from VWA show was there so it was a regular BYP get together!

There were absolute heaps of Indian Games, lots of Pekins in a variety of colours with mixed results, nice number of geese, guinea fowls, OEG, Muzzies, a pair of very nice looking Pekin ducks etc. There were a few Partridge Std Dottes there but the penciling was so poor I'd warrant they were CB instead of PB if I didn't know there were so few CB lines anymore! One had lots of silver in it as well. So I passed on them. Silkies... some black ones but nothing that impressed me. Partridge likewise.

In the end I ended up buying a lavender pekin roo and his daughter

and a "lavender-something" also from John Damiano who incubated eggs for me previously.

Pretty fella!

I also got a trio of OEG bantams - roo is a golden blue duckwing like my other one and the two girls dubbed dun-pyle and golden blue duckwing but a bit course so will probably onsell.

Last but not least, a few clips of the afternoon as it faded into evening on our 'wandering' trip back home...



Last but not least - a few photos of the Wyandotte kids and Aylesbury...

Jarrah x Penny - Clutch #1, Two Bands

Jarrah x Penny, Cluctch 1, One Band

Pullet from the same clutch (foreground) and Penny (background)

Now why couldn't they stand like this at the SHOW?!?

Here's some pics from today of the little OEGb cockrel after his dubbing. He looks so different this way but he is such a gorgeous guy, I could just spend all day watching him and not get sick of it.


I know I already posted this to my regular blog, but since not everyone reads both my trip to Canberra is officially off. The roof sprouted a leak, which killed the electricity which spawned visits from the various repair people who came to the conclusion I need a new roof and new wiring which is exceedingly very expensive. *le sigh* I was really looking forward to it too!

Busy busy busy

That's what this weekend has been! Saturday morning we went out to Frankston to pick up the new breeding sheds. The biggest pannel being 8x12' and all of them very heavy! I had to drive a 3 Tonne Truck. Twas a bit cool! This was all done in the pouring rain as well! LOL The next trick will be setting them up. I need to get someone with welding skills out and that will *definitely* be a few weeks.

Today we went to Warrigul PC's young bird show. I mostly wanted to get some "in person" opinions of my OEG bantams and someone to help with my 1st dubbing. Most of my other chooks are too old for a young bird show or too young.

A few of the fellows said the cockrel was a nice young chap to start with but I needed to match him up to a different color hen, and the hens need a different colour roo. He was dubbed and didn't seem too fussed by it. I'll post a new pic of him in a few days. The OEGb pullet got a 1st card but the most interesting bit wasn't that... but that they reckon she's honey dun NOT lemon blue! (I see days of reasearch on dun ahead...)

Then Ambrose (Aylesbury drake) turned up a sore leg... all I can think is he must have hurt it in the car somehow! :-( Poor fella isn't going to be happy to be stuck in a sick-cage for a week or so! Silkie went unplaced, not surprised.

And now... *kersplotz*

Okay, now I've bagged the poor Faverolle time and again as being rather feather-brained and they're gone now but I do have to admit they're incredibly tollerant of 2 year olds hauling them all around the garden. Even when he walks away it sits in the last spot he ploinked it.

I pick a 'mah-to for you chookie. 'Ere oo go!

Mumma chookie ate a MAH-TO!!! *hysterical giggle fits*

*MU-WAH* Kissed da chookie mum!

Ohhh... neat toy!

Select your roosters ground colour, pattern colour and pattern and then the same for your hen and see what you'd get... I've been mucking around on this for way too long tonight dreaming up pretty chookies! LOL http://home.hetnet.nl/~h.meijers69/kruiskipPublish Postkiezer.html

http://www.krassesrudel.at/malenumbers.rtf Text on the effect of male numbers in a population on the COI from a webpage of a Brahma breeder in Austria.

better pics of the new kids

Sir rooster from the side and front


and the two girls

what you can't see is what animated little gorgeous critters they are. It's like watching little wind-up toys... they never stop moving!

Dandenong Poultry Clubs Show

I wasn't showing today but went down to have a lookie-loo since it's fairly close to us and it's always nice to meet more local people. Of course, being as I was arrogant enough to post on a public forum that morning that I was pretty happy just having my 'dottes, silkies and aylesbury I promptly found something too pretty not to buy. ~_~;

So I'm the proud new owner of a trio of Old English Game. The roo is sold to me as blue duckwing, the girls as lemon blues. I know nothing about OEG but they're pretty and I like them and they're close to looking like the blue cream light brown dutch bantams on my "colour one day I must create in Australia" list. LOL (The BCLB Dutch bantam can be seen http://www.dutchbantamsocietyamerica.com/files/adbscolor_files/typebluecreamlightbrownc.jpg here)

So here's the new trio in their cage.

Roo seperate

Pullet

and hen.

Now for a few of the other birds there that caught my eye...

I was happy to see a lovely Aylesbury there... one of Jacquie's babies, owned by ToH

Pilgrim Goose - Tim's as are the two brown Chinese below



Silkie - there were two of them, same owner absolutely lovely to see the SIZE on them! Gee wiz, would love to have that with my blacks! O_O

Std Partridge Dotte - a surprise to see, apparently also of the same bloodlines mine are from but the only one the guy owns, so no luck in having another local breeder!

Random game cock and hen, above and below


A pretty pair of buff orphington ducks, drake and hen

And below, a number of the muscovy there....



Another blue and white, whose markings I really liked. I still know beans about Muzzies but the colouring on her wings was such a pretty frosted blue. One of Hamish Russells I think.

Yippie! ^_^

I just came back from inspecting a bank of aviaries I was looking to purchase as breeding pens so I can have MORE chooks... LOL (Because what else do the addicted do?!?)

They were very nice, currently being used to house breeding flocks of parrots. The guy will be disassembling them over the next week or so and then we'll go pick them up. Very tickled! These will be used as night pens, with additional daytime runs to be attached but I should be able to keep a heap of chooks in them very comfortably! Yippie, yippie, yippie!!!

One handsome duck!

After all these dramas...

Eek... has it been so long since I updated? I guess mostly it's just been watching everyone grow up and been quite calm on that front! I do have new pictures of my lovely 'dottes though.

Cedar, whom I got at the Euroa auction last year.

And my Jarrah and Penny bubs... the first four are from their first clutch and the boys are "The Boys"... big, friendly, curious lugs the lot of them! Hard to get pictures of because you can't hardly get them away from you long enough! They *almost* look like handsome adult boys instead of young and gawky pipsqueeks!

One band

No band (Being naughty and looking the other way!)

And two bands

And their sister, who is even more uncooperative in getting a decent picture! You can see most of adult feathers in though.

And these two girls are from the last clutch from Jarrah, hatched only a few days before he passed away. They're still in their 'toddler' feathers of course. There are eight more of them but they've got their older siblings habits of not holding still!