Chickens 9 weeks old

Feisty. She has a dark brown beak. She doesn't stand still so Craig has to hold on to her to get a snap shot.

Sickie. She still has some little down feather on her neck. Lately she has been gaping and when she does that, her throat shiver as well. We went to get some poulty dust and poulty dewormer from the pet store for them. Not sure if their head shaking is caused by mites and lice but it is a suspected cause.

 Timid. She is the smallest among the three of them. And she doesn't have a brown beak or down feathers on her neck, so that is how we identify her. Timid, as her name says is always the following the crowd and whenever there's treat, like bread given to them, she will have her food snatched from her beak. Poor girl bullied by her sisters.

We are almost done with the chook pen. I have painted the exterior of the pen and Craig had finish one side of the pen's door. It will be hinged on the top and it will be a "lift-out" door. The section further away in the picture will be the chicks roaming area and on the rear end will be their nesting area. Spot the little square door which acts as the opening way.

Trust me, it's very hard work builting your own chook pen but its very satisifying as well. We are left with the one door to built, put in the wheels for mobility and stick in the perch, close it up with wire and we are all done (I think!). Hopefully you will get to see the end result in next week's post.

Chickens - 8 weeks and 2nd Big Day Out (plus Videos!)

Today we have capture the chickens roaming and post it online. You will be able to see it shortly below. It seems like the chickens are having better poo shape and color (hard and dark) after a run outside their palace. Craig is also busy with the chook pen. It's starting to take some shape but there's more work to be done.

The chickens are getting fatter as well. Right now I can identify them and hence they are called Timid, Sickie and Feisty!!

PIXAR Movie 'UP'

We went to watch the movie this morning at Hoytes Cannington. Love watching movies at hours where there's the least crowd.

I am an absolute fan of PIXAR movies and once again, PIXAR has not disappoint me at all. The movie UP is a touching, funny and meaningful additional to the great movies PIXAR had done. It tells the story of how an old man failed to realise his beloved wife's dreams when she was still alive and one day, decided to go for it. He floats his entire house on balloons and went after the promise he made to his wife who had passed away. I shall not give away too much because this movie is definately worth seeing. (In the cinemas!)

Moral of the story I had learnt is that you will find true happiness when you finally learn to let go.

To PIXAR: Well done again!

Chickens Big Day Out!

Today the chicks are 7 weeks old and we decide to let them have some fun in the garden. So we cut their wings to stop them from flying over the fences and release them into the garden. At first they seems confused with the open and stood there motionless for a couple of minutes. One decide to move and explore and the rest followed along. Soon they were enjoying themselves and happily roaming around the entire garden. The chicks get a taste of "wild food" such as leaves and millipedes.

The chicks are getting big for their palace and Craig is working hard to build them a BIGGER palace!!

Unfortunately my camera is not working well so I couldn't capture the chicks big day out in videos. But here are some pictures taken with my SLR.

Craig trying to lure the chicks with a catapilla

chicks bums!

Chicks - 6 weeks old!

Hmm, I wonder if we should stop calling them chicks now that they are more like a "teenager". The chicks are losing most of their down feathers and the box seems rather small for them now. They are eating much more and their poo is longer !!

One of the chick seems to be sick, she keeps shaking her head still and starting gapping. We have started to clean up their home every night to keep it cleaner. For some reason, they seem to like eating their own poo.

Went to city farmers tonight to get them some sulfadimidine. Hopefully this will help them to recover from the suspected pneumonia.

Perth Royal Show 2009

Another fantastic event of the year.

I have decided not to take any pictures this year because 1. its will be raining and 2. I have decided to purely enjoy myself without have to capture everything I see.

Showbags variety is rather disappointing this year, which is good for my wallet. Only bought 3 showbags and one of them is Woman's Weekly, which is rather disappointing.

First time ever, watching fireworks in the rain. Not a warm experience but still a memorable one :)

till next year's show......

Chicks - 5 weeks and still growing!

The chicks are growing bigger and bigger each day. They are not scared of us anymore, in fact, each time I put my hand into the box, they are ready to aim and attack my hand, thinking its food.

We've added a new "toy" for the chicks. It's a carrot hanging from the top, let's see what happen in a few days time. I've also introduce kiwi fruit to them. They seem to like it so far.

Over the weekend, we went down to Busselton and got them a new feeder, for when they are in the garden and also some new "adult" food. Prices are definately cheaper.

see how big it grew!

chooks getting braver and curious too! Flew out of the box to have a look.

she's thinking "What are you looking at??"

Dear Stuart Zadel

Dear Stuart Zadel,

Well done Stuart and Team! Where should I start....?

I wasn't excited at all that I have to spent my entire weekend in a ball room listening to someone speak. I have no idea what the agenda is going to be except with the promise that it will not be a "ra-ra" show. Having to get up earlier than usual had made me cranky on Sat morning. I told Craig, " If this is crap, we should leave during the 1st break", like what we did to another speaker who held his event in the Perth Exhibition Center. Massive auditorium. Absolute overboard "ra-ra" show.

I remember you asked us to tell the person beside us why we are at your event. My first and only answer was to provide moral support for Craig. I guess that statement wasn't very impressive hey! By 10.30am I was looking at my watch at least every 1minute to see what time are you going to release us for a break as I was bloody starving! When you finally open the door to release us and let us out, Craig said, " We can leave if you want" and I replied, " Nah.....let's see what he got next".

And that changes my weekend. I shan't go into the details to bore my readers to sleep. The only thing I will say is, I am glad and grateful that I have given myself a chance and given you a chance too. I had purchase 2 programs from the weekend and I have faith that it will work for me(even though I had not started on anything yet). The one thing you said during the "Pay It Forward" night tells me I am right to give you a chance. If you want more of my type of people to stay for your event, keep it personal. If ever one day, you become famous and the demand for events grow, keep it personal. There is nothing worse than spending your time in a big auditorium with thousands of people doing "ra-ra" activities every 15minutes. Keep the audience close to your heart and the audience will always be with you.

Thank you for your stories and gifts. Wish I had won the TV though as my TV is broken.

Lastly, I don't think your lovely Mum left you..... instead she is just watching you from above now. :)

Till the next time....
J

Chicks - 4 Weeks old

My goodness!!! What a big difference from 3 weeks to 4 weeks. These hot chicks are getting bigger, fatter and smellier. They are flying around in their palace and having bigger poos!! Their diet has increase a lot too.

This week Craig feed them apple. They don't seem to like it at the beginning but if you stick their chick start on the apple, they will attack it as if they had starved for days. Weird brains.....

The chicks are also starting to get their brownish feathers, right now they look like they are having a bad hair day every single day!

I noticed one of them is shaking her head very vigorously all the time, especially when she is trying to sleep. A search on Google says she could have caught a cold or its just a normal thing. After observing a few days, it does seem like she's fine. Still pretty active and noisy.

What can I say.... my babies are turning into teens now... :)

and a couple days ago I found a poo right outside the palace!!! how on earth did it get out of the box?? did the chick aim its bottom at the hole and shit????

Chicks -New "Palace"

Craig had decided to build the chicks a new "house"....a palace where they are fly about, see the outside world and have a perch to stand on. Didn't take long to do it and the end result is stunning. Now the chicks can see us and we can see them easily. Hopefully it will increase our bonds....

cutting a hole for the lamp

chicks have move into their new home

and they are happy!

Chicks- 3 weeks old

I had forget to mention in my last week's post that the chicks were 2 weeks old. This one week had been torturing for the nose. The chicks' poo stink and they (for some reason unknown) poo into their food container and drink container. Craig had been trying to make a water dispenser and failed the 1st few times. The final one seems to work fine.

The chicks seems to be getting bigger too, they are eating lots, well..... I think they enjoy stepping on their food container and throwing the food everywhere and then going hunting for it. We also notice that they do not rest for a long period. They would sit down for about 5-10secs and starting walking around again. I have never caught them sleeping this week.

chicks resting....

I suspect this could be the naughty one....

Chicks!!

We've got 3 chicks from the market today. Think its "Isa Brown" or something brown...couldn't catch what the seller was saying. The seller said the earliest time when they will start laying eggs is around Christmas time. We went to the nearest pet store and bought some chick start....hopefully 5Kg will be enough to last them for the 1st 3 weeks.

Craig setup them up in a foam box and put a light in it to provide heat for the chicks. Later when they are much bigger, we'll get them running in the garden. That means we have to make a chook pen....hmmm seems like a men's job to me. The chicks seems to like their new home, exploring every corner of it.

Hungry chicks happily pecking their food.

small fluffy things....

WA Guide Dog Open House

I had never been to such event before so this will be quite an eye opener for me.
The Guide dogs are not supported by the WA government, so any donation will be good.

There are events for the young and old throughout the entire day. We went after lunch time and were just in time for the guide dog training demostration. After which, we attended a talk conducted by one of the guide dogs trainer. There are so much that I didn't know about guide dogs.....

Obedience training demo

Lab pups....

Volunteers....

 Guess how many hotdogs did Craig has......?

Large Sunflowers

Out of all the sunflowers I had grown, this one had turned out to be growing the best...It has more than one flower bud and its still blooming....absolutely stunning!