Sustain Myself

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!)

When we decided to get a dog, my biggest concern was that I love my gardens and I didn’t want them littered with little smelly landmines. I regularly kick the rugby ball around the backyard with my brother in law and didn’t want to have to give that up because of the dogs’ business.

We are slowly training Baci to go in a particular corner of the garden where nobody goes. The problem then is, what do we do with the waste? There is much conflicting information out there about dog waste in compost or worm farms. The waste can introduce a bacteria which will throw the compost system out and worms simply to not eat it quick enough (Requiring a much larger worm farm). Then, because of the excess time to break down the waste in a worm farm, you run out of room for your vegetation waste and start seeing problems with a slow down in the cycle.

So, after some researching and a few enquiries, I decided to get a Doggie Doo Digester. There are a lot of products like this on the market now and they all seem great. The idea behind this is that the digester contains water and an enzyme which breaks the waste down into liquid, then monthly, you pull the plug out of the bottom (on a long handle so you dont get goo on your hands) and it drains into the earth. Easy, clean, safe. You can get a better idea of how it works at the digester site.

Anyway, we installed ours over the weekend. I will post pics and updated info on its ongoing use as we eliminate our waste with it.