Sustain Myself

I have a genuine reason for not posting in a while this time. I had a motorbike accident in the beginning of June which has left me with a pretty badly damaged arm. Anyhoo, onto the important stuff…

As you may or may not have read, our chook Roxanna was pretty badly attacked by a dog back in May. Since that happened, neither of our chooks have laid. We started wondering if they would ever lay again considering the apparent trauma that both of them suffered. Well, last week, not only did Roxanne start to escape the run again but we found about a dozen eggs behind a tree in their enclosure. Not sure if both of them are laying or just one but it’s great to see. We were actually buying eggs for a while there!!

So, I think I can say now that Roxanne has made a full recovery.

I am also going to add in this post that my brother in law, Mark is a keen permaculturist from Asquith in Sydney and has been threatening making a few posts on here and hasn’t yet so I hope he does soon as he has a lot to contribute.

Read this post here, I love it.

We are going to ramp up our veggie garden over the coming weeks so I’ll make sure to keep this updated with our progress.

As usual, its been a while since I have posted, but the weekend’s events have motivated me to get this post out there…

About 5 weeks ago, we found our lovely girl, Rosanna, dead in the back yard. The victim of what would appear to be a fairly vicious attack. We knew immediately that Baci was not the perpetrator, she has never shown any aggression to the chooks and the damage to Rosanna was just far too extensive to have been from Baci. For the record, Baci chased the chooks around in a playing way, if Baci had killed Rosanna, it would have been an accident (broken neck maybe) from her being too heavy handed (mouthed?) but there would be no missing body parts (like there were).

About 3 – 4 weeks ago, we bought another chook and named her Roxanne (please don’t put on the red light) and after some initial fisty cuffs with Pamela, they soon settled into a regular routine and relaxed friendship.

Yesterday morning, Bec elbowed me in bed at around 7:45am, she was up feeding our new 3 week old daughter Phoebe (one of the reasons for no new posts) and said that there was a bad noise coming from the chooks and could I go and check them. I found my next door neighbours two Jack Russel terriers attacking Roxanne. They had her by the neck and there were feathers everywhere. One of the dogs ran back through the fence (still unsure where – I thought the fence was fine) and the other I picked up (somewhat roughly, I must add) and put (somewhat roughly, I must add) back over the fence. I went back to tend to Roxanne, who I thought was already dead. She was on her side and I noticed her foot move. When I went to her, she shuffled over to be on her feet and pushed herself as far into the corner as she could to get away from me. This was heart breaking, she was screaming and doing everything she could to get away even though she could barely stand.

I picked her up and put her in the hay in her coup and closed the lid. I knew she was not going to make it. There were puncture marks on her neck and there were so many feathers missing. I just wanted her to be comfy. I came back to check her a few hours later and she had seemed to pick up a little bit, she was very wobbly on her feet, she kept falling against the side of the coup and she was so scared of me. I put some food and water in there as I was still unsure of how she’d be. Last night I went back down to check her and she’s still standing up (while Pamela lay, asleep.) Her legs are either damaged or just weak, she can obviously not lie down. I made sure she was comfy and went to bed. I was sure she wouldn’t last the night.

This morning, I went down before bed. She’s still there, standing up. She seems less frightened of me, but still quite unsure. I gave her a pat and made sure she had food and went to work. Bec phoned me a few hours ago to say that she took some mandarin down for her (peeled and sliced, I might add) and that she ate some!! She also said that she ventured out of the coup a little bit, even though she was super wobbly, there were no falls.

So, she might just make it. I am super happy. I hate anything bad happening to any animals, but I especially hate vicious attacks. Its one thing to be killed instantly, its another all together to be mauled and die slowly (my greatest fear with Rosanna was that the death was slow.) Roxanne never appeared to be in pain, only in distress. If she was in pain, I think I would have had to look into euthanising her. But, at this stage, she seems like she will recover.

I spoke to me neighbour last night. She was mortified. She started crying and I felt bad about it. Strange how that happens. Anyway, I’ll be contacting the owner (she’s a renter) and will get the fence fixed. The worst part about this is that the chooks are usually in an entirely unaccessible, super sturdy ‘run’ in our backyard, but Roxanne had taken to roosting on the side of the run and would sometimes hop down on the wrong side of the fence. If she’d gone on the right side, the dogs would have had no chance in getting to either of the chooks.

Anyway, a sad story to bring me out of bloggers recluse. It may still end well though.

EDIT 01/06/2010:
Came out to check my girls this morning and saw both of them walking around and pecking the ground!! So fantastic, she’s still very wobbly on her feet and I’m worried she’ll get cold cause she’s missing a lot of feathers, but she looks good and she’s eating!

At last, after months of convincing, years of unit dwelling and a decade since my last chooks, I am please to introduce the Pecker Sisters, Pamela and Rosanna:

They are two Isa Brown chickens around 18 weeks old and are beautiful. They are so soft and already very friendly (apparently the breed is known for being more relaxed). Abbey loves them to death and is constantly asking to go and see the ‘Chitcha’. The dog also loves them but in a very different way, initially they were terrified of her but now they just ignore her and I think she doesn’t like it.

They are living in the coup I made (Casa de Chooks) and have also got a big ‘run’ down the back of the yard that I leave them to explore during the day.

As you can see, their run is completely fenced off, so they are happy and safe in there. They retire to their crib at dusk so I go and lock them in there and then let them out again in the morning (they’d probably be safe over night, but I am worried about cats or war-hungry possums getting to them).

Now, anybody that can tell me what popular 80’s big band had two hit songs that these chooks were named after, gets an egg. (We haven’t had one yet, but when we do – its all yours).

Well, my amazingly cool chook coup is now complete (bar a small addon that needs to be planned a bit more.

(No, the dog is not part of it)

I know she doesn’t look like much, but this is the greatest thing I have ever built. I’m not great with wood work, so I am extremely happy with the outcome.

This end opens to allow the chooks to roam free (which they will do during the day). The coup is also bottomless and I still need to add wheels to it at one end so I can wheel it from place to place.

The roof is slopped to one side to allow for easy water run off, which will soon be collected in a gutter and used to keep the chookies’ water container filled. This is the part that still needs planning, I haven’t worked out how to do it yet.

The nesting ‘box’ is actually just a long bedding piece to allow for the 2 chooks to have a bit more room and will be filled with hay. Its also removable for cleaning.

The whole coup uses stainless and galvanised metal bits to prevent rusting and the coup is also painted in a few coats of weather shield (by far the most expensive part at around $40).

It didn’t come in much cheaper than buying one, but I did it myself and I am seriously happy with the results.

If anybody is interested, I could draw up the plans in Google Sketchup and provide a list of the tools I used.

Next step: Find some chooks! (I can source some Isla Browns from

RentAChook, but if anybody else knows of where to get some other varieties in Sydney, I’d love to know!)

What you are looking at in this picture is a sub-week old Australian Yellow Leaf Lettuce. Planted on the 9th of February and left in last weeks rain (that was an error on my behalf but it doesn’t seem to have upset it).

This is one of two lettuce seedlings to have sprouted. Its so exciting. I want to eat it now, but I don’t think that’s too wise. Its in a seeding tray with another 3 lettuces, a Chilli and an Asparagus. In my eagerness to start growing my own food, I did not notice that the asparagus wont produce squat for over 2 years… Oh well.

I also have a little ‘Green House’ that I bought from bunnings with the same plants in it. I was seeing which one they preferred but it seems they like open air more.

Please take no notice of my labels. My daughter thought it’d be a hoot to draw all over them after I had finished writing them (I’m not even sure if they are in the right slots – that was her next trick).

Btw, the seedlings are sitting on my beautiful DIY, Luxury-spec chook coop which sports a Polyurethane roof and gutter (which fills the chooks’ water). When its finished and ready for a population, I’ll take some snaps and show you how I made it (cause, there will no doubt be people wanting to copy it).

A lot has been going on in my garden recently and as it all surrounds my efforts of making myself more sustainable, I thought I would update you all on it.

I never used to consider myself a green thumb until I got my own garden. I used to enjoy the idea of gardening but couldn’t see myself really taking it seriously. Now, I love every moment I can get in my garden, I love my compost, my worm farms, my citrus tree’s, my lawn and everything else out there. It’s something that a lot of people take for granted but its all so beautiful.

My Compost

Initially I had just a single Tumbleweed compost bin, I wrote about my initial composting experiences in a post back in October 2008. Well, that bin got full very quickly once I started putting my lawn clippings in and if I wanted it to break down, I had to stop adding to it.

The compost in there is looking great but because the bin is in a shady spot, its not happening quite as quickly as it could if it had full sun. So, because it was full and because I continued to get about 150L of grass clippings every 4 weeks from my lawns, I went and bought a second ‘cheapie’ 240L compost bin from Bunnings (for only $40! Bargain!). This is taking a little bit of our food waste, but mainly the grass clippings which I am turning every few days.

I am also reading Tim Marshall’s “Composting: The ultimate guide to recycling your garden” to help me make my compost as best I can.

My Worms

My worms. I love my worms. These little blighters are so fantastic. We feed them all sorts of stuff, they just keep on chewing and reproducing and giving in return nothing but fantastic nutrient-rich castings. What amazing little creatures they are. When I first started my worm farm, I got a little discouraged as it seemed like the worms were staying down below the food and not coming up very often. I think its because they weren’t too strong in numbers (although, I did introduce 2000 of them). These days they are covering the food in there, they never stop! We are putting more and more in at a time (over-feeding can be very bad for a worm farm) and they continually keep up with the demand. I am going to grab a few and pop them in each of my compost bins to help with the breakdown process.

Because of our worms and compost bins, we don’t throw out anything organic. They are all working a bit much at the moment, so once the chook’s arrive, they can have a breather. I am reading David Murphy’s “Organic Growing with worms” to better educate myself on these little fella’s.

My Plants

Our garden here was beautifully landscaped when we bought the place. Lots of palms, ferns, a pond, teirs, steps, paths, everything. We loved it, but now I am starting to think that while all these plants are beautiful, they don’t produce anything except shade and privacy. So I need to start introducing food producing species’ to our garden. The whole garden is hooked up to a drip irrigation system too, but I don’t like turning it on as its still on town water. Need to wait for my water tanks (post on that coming soon). So far, we have a Cumquat tree, its beautiful except my bloody naughty dog pulled the biggest branch off it last night (with the most mature cumquat on it too) – so cranky!

But how can you get angry at her?

We also have a nice little lemon tree that I got for my birthday last year. Its been planted in full sun on our fence so it will eventually provide yummy lemons as well as some privacy (not that Harold and his wife are intruding…). See the 2nd pic in this post for the lemon tree.

We also have some potted herbs that we brought from our unit. They now get very little wind and a lot more sun so they are growing extremely fast. We have mint, parsley, Shallots and Chives.

Anyway, that’s my garden. I am getting my water tanks soon and will need to plumb in my down pipes etc, will post about that soon. Also, I have built a chook coop and will write how I did it soon.

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOPHIE! She is my sister and turns 23 (give or take a decade or so) today. Go and check out her blog at herheartmyhands.com NOW!

About 4 weeks ago I put the last grass clippings into my compost and have been patiently waiting for the day that its ready to use. We have also been stuffing the worm farm over this period as you cannot add more to the compost bin or it will never compost, you need to have a ‘cutoff’ period. Unfortunately, the worms are now backlogged and that’s not a good thing. Worms should not be over fed as it can produce pests and mould, bad smells and the like. Our worms have been eating very well and I don’t think they will have a problem getting through this excess food.

But, now we have a problem. We simply cannot get through our vegetable waste any quicker. The compost is waiting to break down, so it cant go there and now the worms are full so it can’t go there. Enter the chooks!

Chickens are a mans best friend (well, besides Baci) and it surprises me that more people don’t keep them. Chickens are very self sustaining. They require very little assistance from you and will in return provide fresh eggs, chicken poop (which is fantastic fertilizer) and a way to get rid of your vege scraps. Chickens eat crap loads and will very happily take over when the compost and worm farm are full. They can even keep bugs and other critters away from your Vege patch.

Rent a chook is a great way to ‘ease’ into chicken keeping. You ‘rent’ the chooks for 10 weeks and if you dont like them then you give them back and get a refund minus fee’s and delivery charges. I have kept chooks before and I know that I’ll be keeping them but for folks who do not know what they’re doing, then what better way is there to try before you buy?

There is a lot of valuable information on the Rent a chook site and its worth reading. I think most families with the space should keep chooks. Its easy and extremely beneficial to yourselves and the environment.

I cant wait!