Guinea fowl....NOT good mothers!

I knew that Guinea fowl were not good mothers....which is why I always try to either put the mum in a protected pen so she can hatch and stay with them, or either incubate or put the eggs under a surrogate chicken to hatch. Over the last few weeks, I had noticed that I was missing 2 guinea fowl, and they appeared yesterday, with 3 brand new babies in tow! Unable to get near any of them before I left for work, I checked on them all as soon as I got home. I found one baby nearly dead in the chicken house, and the other one had been abandoned. I bundled them both up and put them in a cage under a heat lamp and gave them food and water. The one that was nearly dead, would not do anything other than lie down, so I have been using a dropper to give it water, and I have made up a slurry of crumble and water and I have been using a dropper to try and feed it a little bit of food. It's not improving, so I don't hold out much hope. I also tried to see if I could get the last remaining baby and mother into a pen, but after being flown at by a very protective male guinea fowl who was determined to try and claw my face, and he also attacked the dogs, I gave up on that idea yesterday. Determined to try and give in another go this afternoon, I bundled up the healthy baby that I had in the cage, and put it in the pen area to try and attract the mother and baby over to it...I grabbed a half dismantled greenhouse as my barrier...yes...a funny sight I am sure, but it protected me from manic guinea fowl. Anyway, they would hang around the caged baby for a few seconds and then wander away..so while I was standing there with my half dismantled greenhouse armour, I could hear a chirping coming from behind me...and out of the long grass wanders another baby!  I was like...huh??  Then the guinea fowl started to attack it, so I bundled it up, and put the 2 orphans in the cage back with the sick one.
I then thought that I should try and find the nest in case there were any others about to hatch or or had been abandoned, I found about 12 eggs that have hatched, and only 4 babies all up that I have seen...gotta wonder how they survive out of captivity. So, I am now caring for baby guinea fowls again, and also a sick one to boot....gee, thanks mother guinea fowl.

(This is the guinea fowl that wandered out of the bush this afternoon)

 

(These are the 2 healthier guinea fowl now keeping each other company)

 

(This is the unwell little guinea...I'm really not holding out much hope, and I am surprised it has survived this long..poor little thing)

The chicken mother hen from the last guinea fowl hatch has been looking after her brood really well, she is very protective of them, and they are now all ready to start venturing out and about a little bit each day. We lost one a couple of weeks back, I think it may have been attacked by a rat overnight, but there are still 10 out of the 11 that hatched, which is pretty good odds.
(Update 25th March: The sick little guinea baby died overnight, now I'm not sure about the first one I rescued either, it doesn't seem quite right either...sigh....we'll wait and see) 
(Update 26th March: The 2nd one I was suss on has now also died, so the only one left is the one that wandered out of the bush 2 days ago. The guinea fowl are still managing to keep the single baby they still have with them alive so far...so 2 out of 12....pretty bad odds when they do it themselves)

Snakes, New Life on the farm and other stuff

Someone up there certainly likes to make my life interesting that's for sure. Damian's parents and sister came up to the farm for the weekend to see the property and for my birthday. Toni also turned up to surprise me on Saturday afternoon and stayed until Tuesday. I was having a real downer of a birthday missing the big kids until Toni turned up, it made my day immensely. I ended up having a lovely day. Damian and Toni bought me a really nice pair of western boots, they even have purple stitching!

Love them! So on Sunday we had just finished having breakfast, when out of the corner of our eye a snake was noticed slithering along the concrete in the shed. It was quite small and had a head similar to the red naped snake, but the underside of it's belly had the orange spots of a brown snake. Needless to say that snake was quickly relocated. Then a bit later on that day Damian was searching through a box of poly fittings so he could hook up the water trough, and nearly put his hand on a snake hiding at the bottom of the box, luckily this snake was not a dangerous one. Here we are trying to ascertain what we are dealing with.

We really wanted to try and identify what we were dealing with before calling a snake catcher. So we googled the snakes found around our area, and found that it was a brown tree snake.

We loaded it in to a bin with a lid with the help of a broom, and Damian took it down to the dam and put it up a tree down there.The 3 snakes we have seen in the last couple of weeks have all been down the end of the house where the snake detector seems to be a bit dodgy, so I think we will return it for a replacement. This morning I went out to check on the guinea fowl as she was due to have her babies, and I found 3 babies under her, and another 2 by lunchtime. I have relocated all the babies in to a brooder to look after them, as they will only get picked off by birds or snakes if I leave them out with the mum, and guinea fowls have a reputation as not being the best mothers.So far we have 4 cinnamon pied ones, and 1 lavender pied. I don't know where the cinnamon comes in as our adults are all pearl and lavender..I found 1 dead one under her this afternoon, it had managed to hatch, but either suffocated or was squashed by mum...I have heard 2 other eggs either cheeping or rustling, so we'll see if any more hatch over the next 24 hours.

They have all started eating and drinking, and all seem pretty healthy. These little ones will more than double the guinea fowl numbers after we lost 10 to the fox massacre last year, so hopefully it will start to build up stocks again, and hopefully lots of these are girls as we currently have 1 girl to 3 boys! Mum can have all her babies back in 6-8 weeks when they are big enough to look after themselves. I have started back at work this week after school went back, so I have been busy catching up there. Kasey is really happy with her class so far this year, and when we turned up to class on day 1, her friends had saved her a desk next to them, so she was pretty chuffed. Kasey has also asked to start earning pocket money, so I have done up a chore chart for her, and will laminate it and put it on the fridge, so she can tick off her jobs each day, and then re-use it over and over. She will earn $10 a week for completing all her jobs, and nothing if she misses jobs. This is the chart I made up for her, she has daily chores which are smaller ones, and a few larger weekly chores. We have decided to make it an all or nothing deal, otherwise she will just get slack and not want to stick to her deal, and in the real world once you start work, if you don't do your job, you don't have a job..and a good work ethic gets noticed these days.

I also received my dvd from the library that I booked, River Cottage Australia. I have watched a few of the episodes online, but this way Damian and I can sit down and watch the whole series.

I am possibly heading down to Brisbane this weekend to meet with the real estate agent to finalise renting the house out down there as the real estate market it still slow for our type of house. I am hoping to go to a basket making workshop while I am down there as that is something I have wanted to try for a few years now. And catch up with the kids and pop over to catch up with how much little Grace is growing. xx

The menagerie...........

Damian and I are in the process of applying for our gun licences. We feel it is important on the farm here to be able to put down an injured animal if needed, or shoot a fox, wild dog or wild pig if they are being a menace to other animals on the property. We went and did our safety course on the weekend which is a pre-requisite for applying for a licence. I have never shot a gun before, but managed quite ok and managed to hit the target on most occasions. We later did some practicing with some friends air rifles and managed to hone in our targeting skills quite a bit. We are planning on eventually processing our own beef, lamb and pork on the property, so a gun licence will be essential. There is a lot of cost in applying for the licence, the safe to keep any guns in, permits etc and then the cost for the firearms themselves. Just to set ourselves up with 1 gun would be in the vicinity of a couple of thousand dollars, a lot of money. It also takes quite some time to obtain a licence, which is a great thing these days.
We are also gradually increasing our animals here on the farm. I have purchased a couple of purebred Bichon Frise puppies, I hope to do some breeding down the track as a source of income. I wanted to get a dog that is good for Kasey's hayfever and allergies and also for Toni's allergies to dogs, so these would be perfect as they don't shed hair as they have a woolen coat. Diversifying is how to make the farm profitable, so looking at different options and income sources is essential.

(This is Sam, he is now 3 months old. He is full of personality and is very cheeky and loveable)

 (This is Stella, she is 5 months old. She is very tiny, elegant and refined...a real girly girl)

Stella came to me from another owner, and she hadn't been wormed, hadn't had her update vaccinations and was eating human food and cat food. Even though she is older than Sam, she is smaller than him. I have managed (with persistance and bribery) to get her eating a really good quality dry dog food and she has put on a little over 100 grams since getting her 3 weeks ago. She was also very shy and timid, but is now starting to come out of her shell a little and is more trusting of us. It makes me really cranky that people don't do the right things by their animals. At least this person had the common sense to re-home her...
I am also working on getting my heritage chicken breeds more established. Kasey wants to breed Guinea fowl for some pocket money, so we are working on getting her some grown ones of her own that she can breed with. The guinea fowl that hatched 3 weeks ago are powering along, we lost the first one born on about day 3 unfortunately, so only 2 of that batch left now, but I learnt quite a bit about the incubation process in the meantime.

(Guinea fowl keets at 3 weeks old)

I am increasing my chicken varieties all the time, and I have quite a few roosters at the moment too, so I need to get the girls to match them, so that I can keep the purebred heritage lines. It is really important to keep the heritage breeds, so I only breed these instead of cross bred chickens.

(Ancona Hen, she is a really good egg layer, a bit flighty though)

 (Ancona Rooster and Plymouth rock Hen, this little girl has just started laying. The rooster is very flighty, all the plymouth rocks are pretty laid back though)

 (Light Sussex hen - this girl is huge, a good dual purpose breed, good layer and good meat, she would weigh at least 4-5 kgs, not real keen on being handled but not a flighty bird)

 (A little pekin bantam, I got her for her broody qualities, so she can hatch eggs for me instead of using the incubator, very docile and easily handled, great kids pet)

 (The little pekin rooster - to breed more little pekin mothers, also very quiet and easily handled. Quite protective though)

 (My favourite - my gorgeous silver spangled hamburgh rooster. He is a stunning bird, and I am just waiting to find a couple of girls to start increasing this flock, he is just lovely)

(White leghorn hen - she is pretty flighty, but a good egg layer, she just got out of a dirt bath, so is pretty dirty!)

I also have a couple of girls sitting on eggs at the moment. I have the little frizzle, she is sitting on about 6 or so guinea fowl eggs. I was keeping the guinea fowl eggs in the corner nest for the guinea to nest on, but the frizzle beat her to it! She is a very determined egg sitter, and nothing will take her mind off her task.

The little araucana quickly followed suit, and she is also sitting on a couple of guinea fowl eggs.I did have her sitting on a couple of frizzle eggs but while I was away last week she escaped from her nest and sat in her old one, so I had to toss those eggs and put guinea fowl eggs under her as well. I am also wanting to get an araucana rooster to breed these. I really like the araucana's, they are great little layers, she lays green eggs, and they have a lovely temperament and love to be handled.

I also have a lovely speckled sussex rooster, he is huge and he is just starting to crow and also 2 other huge plymouth rock boys. One of the plymouth rock roosters will have to go, I don't need 2, and because they are so big they eat a LOT! They would all weigh about 4-5 kgs as well, and they look so funny when they run along, a bit gumby looking because their legs are so long and they are so big.

(One of the plymouth rock roosters with the girl the same age behind him)

 (Speckled sussex rooster, very pretty with burgundy, brown, green, white and black plumage)

These 4 seem to hang out together, but they all hatched at the same time. Even though there were 4 roosters out of the 5 eggs that hatched, there is no major fighting amongst them at the moment, we'll have to wait and see if that remains

 

This is my purebreed Australorp, I did originally have 2 of these, but I think Reggie may have dispatched of one. You can tell a purebred Australorp by their black legs and pure black eyes (no brown in them at all) They don't seem to like to be handled, but are great egg layers and make great mothers, they go broody once or twice a year.

 And then there are my guinea fowl. I only have 3 remaining adult ones left out of the 12 or so purchased (again thanks to Michael's dog Reggie) I did have a gorgeous lavender girl as well. So I am hoping to seriously add to this brood with the recent hatch and the ones that are due to hatch soon. I only have 1 adult female and 2 adult males, one adult male is the 3rd wheel at present. They can be noisy, but not too much, mainly when they are letting you know something unusual is around. Both the little white dogs have been bailed up by them, so they don't go near those big birds now. The guinea fowl do harrass the chooks though as they are very territorial, but not so bad up here on the farm, it was much worse on the smaller acreage.

And then there is my big boy - Ziggy. He is a purebred Quarter Horse. He is pretty laid back, but is a bit more on edge with no other horse around up here. I am hoping to get hold of a horse that needs a home to be a companion for him and that Kasey can learn to ride on, she is itching to learn. He is keeping in good condition bordering on fat on just the grass here, I have just started to give him 2 cups of pellets morning and night to get him coming up for rugging now that the cooler weather is closing in.

And Max and Diesel, they are still causing mischief as usual. Max is a big sooky lala, full of personality red cattle dog...

And Diesel is a very lazy blue cattle dog. He has serious front leg issues, so he has every excuse to be lazy. He is very hard to get cross at when he is naughty.

There is also 18 cows around here somewhere. We have just had the crush installed and Damian is in the process of moving the cattle yards up to where the crush and ramp is. Then I can look at getting Buttercup the Jersey cow put in to calf and start on that journey. We are not sure whether we will get a bull and breed from the other 17 brahman cross girls we have here or sell them on and concentrate on breeding with a specific breed of cattle suited specifically for good quality beef...just not sure yet. On the still to get list is:
:A donkey or 2 - just love them
:Alpacas - just love them too
:Heritage breed pigs - sussex or berkshire probably - Damian's want list
:Maybe some sheep - would only be for meat
:Maybe some angora goats - not sure on this yet, will research their temperament
:Maran chickens - want to get some for their chocolate brown eggs
:Partner chickens for the ones I already have to match up and complete breeding groups

So I am being called Mrs MacDonald and Mrs Doolittle by our friends, but that's ok. What's a farm without animals!

Look where the guinea fowl are nesting...

In my potato tower...

They're so funny...

Animal and Garden Happenings

I went to the markets on Sunday morning, to get some seedlings for the vegie garden, to do the autumn plantings. I bought lettuce, red chard, sugarloaf cabbage, mixed green lettuce, rocket and a couple of comfrey plants to put under a couple of fruit trees. Comfrey is very deep rooted, and draws up the nutrients from deep down in the soil, but don't compete with the fruit trees for nutrients, so they are perfect for under fruit trees as a type of nursery plant. So these are now all planted in the vegie garden. I have also finally planted up my mushroom patch, I bought the kit last year, and have been meaning and meaning and meaning to plant it...finally got around to it today. It will be interesting to see how well they go, when I grew the shiitake mushrooms last year, they went really well, so I am hoping these give similar results.

I also picked up a couple of chinese silkies while at the markets, they are so gorgeous.

 So these are now in the chicken tractor along with the 3 younger guinea fowl I have,

 and also with the mother hen and her 6 babies. The mother hen doesn't like it if the silkies or guinea fowl go anywhere near her babies, but they in no way have any intention of hurting the babies, she is just being very protective.

(When can we go out there Mum?)

 While we were at the market, Kasey spied a guinea pig, she has been asking for one for ages, so I relented, so we now have a little boy guinea pig named Toffee.

Kasey has been lugging him around everywhere, with her, not outside though, as the dogs would definitely think he is a rat...and that wouldn't be a good outcome. We have been having a few dog problems anyway, the dogs have been getting out during the night and visiting the neighbouring properties. Reggie has also unfortunately started killing chooks, I have lost 1 along with 5 guinea fowl, and the neighbour came to see me yesterday to tell me the dogs have been getting out during the night as she was up quite early and saw the dogs scooting just straight underneath everyone's fences, and she has lost 5 chickens over the last 2 weeks...I am not happy, it means that Reg has definitely got the taste for chook killing now, and I don't know how to get him out of it. I caught him attacking one of my chooks last week, which was lucky enough to survive, but about half an hour later he got another, who wasn't so lucky unfortunately.  I purchased an electric collar, but that is only useful if you are watching to correct the behaviour. I re ran the electric fence around the perimeter, but they still got through that, and Reggie is now jumping a 5 foot high brick fence at the front of the property. Michael is home this week, and as Reggie is his dog, I made him go down the front and do some training with him to stop him jumping the fence. I am now tying the dogs up overnight, and we are getting an electronic containment system installed on Thursday. That's money I really didn't want to spend right now, but I can't have them getting out. Max and Diesel are both fine with the chooks, and I don't want them learning from Reg to start killing them. At the moment the chooks are permanently in their pen, until I can sort out what to do. At the moment I am thinking that we are going to need to fence off the back area so the dogs can't go in so the chooks can free range up there, but it still leaves the problem with the guinea fowl, not sure if clipping their wings would work for the guinea fowl, I will need to do some research on that. That's really frustrating though, as I am holding off doing a lot of more permanent things here, as we will be relocating to the new property....but that is probably still 12 months away...but I would rather do more things like that at the new property, but I need to make sure the chooks are safe...very frustrating. The carpenter came this afternoon to install the new ironing centre in the laundry,

The electrician is coming tomorrow to wire it up, as well as install the new cooking appliances is the kitchen, as well as some extra lighting and power points needed around the place. Also been busy organising the packing for our holiday at Easter, Damian isn't home until really late Thursday night, and we are wanting to head up to the property on Friday morning, so I need to get as much done as I can before he gets home, so that is stressing me a bit, I was planning on starting last week, but I just haven't got to it. I have been spending at least my hour in the garden each day as the weather has been really nice,  that's the brilliant thing about autumn...warm days and cool nights. Anyway, early to bed tonight to catch up on some much needed rest.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Lua

Damian and Michael are both working in Newman WA in the Pilbera region at the moment. At the moment they are under cyclone warning, waiting for TC Lua to reach them. It it crossing the coast as a category 4 at the moment, and will reach them some time tonight as a category 2 -3. I am worried........

I hope the cyclone loses a lot of its punch as it moves over the coast...and that their accomodation has been well built to withstand cyclones.
I have also lost 2 guinea fowl this morning, Kasey thought she would help me and went and let the chooks out, and came back up to the house to tell me, and I said that the gate on the chook pen has to be shut as the guinea fowl can't be let out yet, but it was too late, Reggie had gone up in to the nesting area and killed one and was after all the others...2 others got out, 1 has come back and we have got it back in with the other one, but the 3rd one appears to have flown away at this stage, so now we only have 2, as reggie got the other 2 as well a few weeks back,  I am hoping that the other one comes back during the day, I have tied reggie up and locked Diesel in the pool area for the day, so I hope it comes back...the guinea fowl venture is turning in to a bit of a failure at the moment...I think next time I will just get full grown ones..

Guinea Fowl Crystal Sexing

Kasey and I did the sexing test of the guinea fowl keets today, by holding a string with a crystal over each one, to see if it went in a circular or back and forth motion. According to this test, we have 2 boys and 4 girls, so we will see how accurate this test is once they grow up a little bit more. The girls definitely seem quieter and more petite than the boys, so it will be interesting to see how this goes. The boys carry on much more when picked up, whereas the girls are happy to just be held quietly...they have grown up so much in just a couple of weeks, they would be double and in some cases triple the size they were when bought home.

Guinea Fowl

After having a few run ins with snakes here the last few months, we have been looking for ways to try and "encourage" them to not hang around here. I was wanting to get some guinea fowl here last year, and have been looking at them intermittently since early last year. Apparently they were very popular among the early pioneers as they are fairly self sufficient as far as foraging for food, and like to free range and their eggs are apparently delicious. They help keep insects and ticks under control, and sound an alarm when there is something around that is out of the normal. They are also known to circle around snakes and make a racket and their noise and carry on can drive the snakes away. They have been known to kill small snakes, and the people I picked up the baby guinea fowl from, said that theirs killed a brown snake about a metre long at the front of their property only a couple of weeks ago. While I am not wanting them to be wrangling with snakes, I would be very happy if they can help keep the snakes away from the house and chook areas. So, I picked up 6 little keets (Baby guinea fowl) yesterday, and have set them up in a brooder cage until they are big enough to go into the chicken tractor, and then I will move them to the chook pen when they are big enough. Guinea fowl are known to wander and try to find "home" if they are not kept in their roosting area for a long enough period of time, I have read that keeping them locked up  in their roosting area for 6 weeks will keep them coming home to roost each night, and considering their roosting area as their home. I hope so anyway, and we will hopefully be able to breed more to take up to the property with us, as we will definitely need more than 6 on the big property. They are also great at keeping bugs out of the vegie garden, as they are known to not scratch up your seedlings and vegies, they are just interested in the bugs on the leaves, and will just pick those off (hopefully). So, the little babies seem quite happy at the moment, and they are so funny at following each other around, where one goes, they all quickly follow....very entertaining..I have purchased 3 of the lavender, which are the normal grey ones, and 3 pearl pied, which are the browner ones pictured with the white chests.