Layers, POLs & disappearing eggs.

Who needs tv when you have chickens.

My original chickens were chosen for 2 characteristics: they were good layers & they were calm, friendly birds.This is true.  They are lovely girls & egg production was fantastic when they started laying.

Then summer arrived.  All summer my Barred Rocks went broody.  Constantly.  Over & over. They hogged the nesting boxes.  They got feisty about being disturbed.  The Australorps, who were only laying every 2nd or 3rd day, could barely get near a nest & invariably had to share.  Egg production dropped.  Food consumption did not. I resigned myself.  Then the molting started & no~one @ all was laying. *sigh*

So having planned all along to stagger my flock somewhat, & having built the Seaside Mansion for Spoilt Chooks, I toddled back to Beautiful Chickens, where the chickens really are beautiful, to get some more POLs.

I brought them home & put them in the new coop ~ much to my big girls dismay.  Chooks are much smarter than most people give them credit for & they knew this coop was theirs ~ so why were there strangers in it?  When I added my big girls they were very much of a mind to make a point.  Here's the thing: ever since my girls have been providing 2~3 eggs a day.  No~one has gone broody & my molter is acting perkier than she has for some time!

The new girls are still some way of laying, judging by their combs. That will shake things up again.  Laying gives you status in the hen world, even if you aren't so high up the totem pole. I'm eyeing my Rocks with a jaded eye.  They are winter layers.  Hopefully they will make up for their summer shenanigans!

The Seaside Mansion.

Chickens~ the gateway drug to farming.

We are subtropical.  That means it's not that it never gets cold here but that what we mean by cold & what someone in , say Alaska, means by cold are not the same thing @ all.  Weather is something to consider when building a chicken coop. 

 For all sorts of reasons our new coop had to be slap bang in the middle of our garden & entertainment area so there were certain considerations because of that.  It couldn't look like your average Aussie chicken shed of crate palings, chicken wire & corrugated iron. No.  Just, no. OK?

Anyway, in all honesty I know very little about chickens.  They lay eggs.  I eat eggs.  So I joined a forum & I read a lot of stuff about chickens & coops & if we didn't already have 4 girls laying up a storm I might have seriously reconsidered chicken adventuring because so many things can go wrong with chickens & all of it is completely gross! However chickens we had & I knew the coop we had wasn't adequate for the 4 girls we had, let alone the 8 extra I was intent on acquiring so I started looking ~ & I do mean looking.  I am a visual learner.  I looked @ pictures of coops.  If I liked how it looked I read about it. It will sound mad unless you too are a very visual learner.

I saw lots & lots of very lovely coops.  Some people are just incredibly imaginative & artistic but the bottom line is chickens still have to live in the thing & what was best for the chickens?  I kept returning to the concept of a Wood's Coop Design.  

To be quite frank the science of a Wood's design escapes me entirely but I understood the concept.  We didn't have enough space for a 12 X 8 coop but that was the basic idea we began working with. What we ended up with is a 4.8 square open to the nor'east, roosts along the back wall, nesting boxes out the back & because The Man & I are both gardeners first & foremost a lot of garden around it. We do have doors to hang for extreme weather conditions but so far we haven't needed them, even in wind & rain.  The air in the coop isn't moving so my girls are staying warm & dry while still getting plenty of fresh air.  I should also point out the only predators we have are hawks.

 Needless to say having arranged to meet my supplier & choose birds the weather became unco~operative & we were scrambling to finish the coop in time for the arrival of new birds. On a whim, because a neighbour had sandbags he was trying to offload, I added a sandpit under the coop.  It has been very popular!  As have the 3 large stumps stationed to get the best of the view & sea breezes.  Yes, I know... My husband refers to this as The Seaside Mansion for Spoilt Chooks.

The Visible Soul.

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul ~ Jean Cocteau

I am, unashamedly, a cat lover.  I like cats because they are unique & quirky, creatures of comfort, & always sublimely beautiful.  Ours are lovers.  They know how to give affection but more that that, they are empathetic.

For 13 years we had the most glorious Siamese cross, cream with ginger points, blue crossed eyes, a kink @ the end of his tail, a raucous voice & a wicked sense of humour.  He was a family cat, incredibly grateful to be taken into our home & loved to bits by everyone in it.  He was a stray & when I got him he was black with fleas, unkempt, uncared for, hungry & every day he got loved upon & fed special tid~bits he was grateful.   I adored him.  My Libby & I sort of snuck him in & all the men folks arrived home to a fait accompli ~ though only The Man, a dog man when he met me, was less than impressed.  So far as everyone else was concerned he was here to stay, & stay he did, accompanying the boys on their fishing expeditions & lavishing affection on the girls but he'd had a rough start & by 13 he was an old, old man riddled with cancer.   I was devastated.  I was the one who had to make the call @ the vets & cuddle  him to the end telling him what a good boy he'd always been.

I came home to the alpha male kitten my middle son had brought home & basically left in my care, unneutered, barely weaned, bombastic & demanding & not my cat.  Issi had other ideas.  He always did know his own mind. He climbed up my leg.  I ignored him completely.  He slunk up my chest & laid his head over my heart & began to purr.  Of course I melted. He shared my grief unreservedly & from that moment on he was fiercely protective of me.  I was his person & he let everyone know it.  I have never been loved like that in my life & losing him, suddenly, unexpectedly, to a blood clot broke my heart.

This time it was the man who said: You need to get another cat.  In fact, get two!  So we did.
We have rescues.  They make the best home souls.  Ours are bonded brothers, Ragdoll Xs, polar opposites, an intelligent, nervy introvert & an extroverted exhibitionist. The extrovert was a neurotic mess for months, crying any time I was out of his sight but they know how to love ~ & isn't that what a home is about?  Being able to relax completely, secure in being loved?  

The rain is coming across the bay in great heavy scuds but both cats are tucked up within sight, serenely snuggled against the cold & damp, displaying the visible soul of our home as only a cat can.