Grow Your Own Vegetable GardenKeeping LivestockKeeping Chickens
Although Grow Your Own Vegetable Garden is specifically aimed at growing vegetables, fruit and berries at home, we also keep bantam chickens, full size 'meat birds' and Wessex Saddleback Pigs. We thought you might like to see a little bit about them as they are an integral part of our gardens. Follow this years chick hatching here
We have two roosters, Junior as shown above, and Cornelius, his father. All our egg chickens (known as chooks in Australia) are Bantams, or small sized breeds, about half the size of a normal full grown chicken, like a leghorn or Rhode Island Red. This makes them just that little bit easier to keep as they eat less and take up less room. Cornelius lives in a coop with 3 hens. We bred them in February 2008. We also have 6 Rhode Island Red Bantam hens, one of which was broody (ready to sit and hatch eggs) so she sat on some of the eggs from Cornelius and his hens. Three weeks later she hatched the chicks you see below.
Of the seven chicks that were hatched, we kept Junior and 3 hens. One fawn coloured and two "salt and pepper" coloured that you see here. So how do they fit into the Vegetable Garden? Well, as romantic as the notion is, of having chickens free ranging through your vegetable garden beds, it really isn't practical in the height of the growing season. Chickens, in their search for tasty insects, readily scratch seedlings out of the soil and will devour others. Once established, we allow our birds, those that live closest to the vegetable garden beds, to free range. However, in the lower seasons, the chooks are excellent at lightly tilling the soil, keeping pests under control and are a great help scrounging around the bottom of the fruit trees. They also provide us with a small amount of manure and are great at devouring weeds we pull from the garden. PLUS we get fresh eggs, often far more than we can eat. They do however, seem to take a likeing to exactly the vegetable you want to harvest... Want to follow this years chicks?It's early Spring here and one of our hens has gone broody early, so we'll be raising another clutch of chicks. If you'd like to follow the sitting, egg test, hatching and development of our new chicks, join the Members' group and get access to all the other Vegetable Garden, Fruit tree and Berry information as well.After a false start.......
Well after a false start, our first broody hen got off the nest halfway through the incubation, so within days another younger hen went broody and successfully sat the full three weeks. This is the first young chick only 15 mins out of the egg and the second is already tackling it's shell. 
Now three weeks on, we had 5 chicks hatch successfully in one brood and 3 in another a few days later. 2010 UpdateThe following is an update on the livestock on our small holding in 2010. We've added full size 'meat birds' and Wessex Saddleback Pigs, bringing pigs onto the property required an upgrade to our fencing, so we put aside two areas for the chickens as well.Chickens in 2010
This is Hugh and one of the two girls we inherited with him. Hugh was an unwanted 'meat bird' from a neighbour who originally got them from a chicken farm. Bred for rapid growth and sheer size, these guys are enormous at over 4 kilos each!
Wessex Saddleback Pigs
Meet our two newest residents, our Wessex Saddleback Pigs. These two boys are 7 weeks old and unlike their sister who will joining them in a week, are much larger than normal for their age.
This is Rosie. Rosie had a bit of a rough start to life being trodden on by her mum. Off to the vet, she had a minor wound stitched up and is now as right as rain. In the following photo, you can see her next to her brothers and sisters. Believe it or not, Rosie is not the runt of the litter, she was actually born normal weight, the others being more than double normal weight.
February 2011And here is Rosie at 6 months old! That's a 50l tub she's sitting in. She's developed a liking for cooling off in the drinking water trough and will happily flop over for a belly scratch when the mood takes her. Now, about the size of a Labrador, Rosie and her brothers are much heavier and stronger and can easily knock you off balance. This is usually only a problem if they're over excited at feeding time and for the most part are sedate, inquisitive and enjoy a good scratch.Despite starting off so much smaller than her brothers, she has caught up in size and is quite adept at stealing food from them when they're not looking.
The pigs have put on tremendous growth over the year (they turned one in August). Little Rosie has caught up with her brothers and after a short holiday back at the breeders farm with her new Boarfriend, is expecting her first litter in around 2-3 months. March 2011
Meet our latest arrivals, two ducklings hatched in the last week. One hatched from a Pekin duck egg, we believe to be a pure bred, the second, surprised us by hatching at the same time. Why a surprise? Because the egg was a Muscovy egg that should have required an additional week of incubation, so perhaps this little one is a cross? These make you realise just how amazing nature is. The eggs were surplus from the market stall that hadn't sold AND had been refridgerated. This hen sat on 5 eggs, no mean feat for a Bantam chicken hen. About the same number are being sat on by another hen and are due to hatch in a couple of days. Imagine the surprise of the hen when she stood up to see two ducklings staring back at her!
April 2011The following photo's show the rapid growth that the ducklings undergo. Taken at only 3 weeks of age, they have put on enormous growth and are changing from their duckling down to full feathers. These photo's are of their first outing in the big wide world.
Fully grown Pekin ducks
Spring 2011
Meet Roger, our new East Friesian Ram. He's approximately 3 weeks old here (and is only 5 weeks now).
Roger will remain in his flock until about 6 months old before he comes to join Eunis and Lucille who came to the property last week. The girls are maiden ewes, both pregnant and expecting their lambs in the next few months.
Once lambed, both girls will be milked for cheesemaking.
Check out our newest, unexpected arrival here
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