This is a 7 day old chick.
Summer seemed to arrive today.
The heat made the chicks tired.
To help deal with the heat we gave them some watermelon.
They waited for Alice to try it first...
She then gave them the signal to enjoy!
Pippa rolled small pieces of watermelon in chick crumble which caused a stampede.
Chick crumble is a great staple food for young chicks. It does contain antibiotics though so it is important to prevent laying chooks from having access to it if you plan to eat the eggs.
They all cheeped as they ate, letting the late comers know they were missing out on something special.
The noise brought Simon across who paced the summer house door. This is the first glimpse he has had of his babies. They carried on without showing much interest.
This was when Alice stopped, standing tall and perfectly still. The chicks copied her in an instant but the problem wasn't Simon...
Today I promised Henny-Penny, so here she is…
The queen of the garden. It's not a great photo but it was such a hot day she didn't venture out past the deep shadows of the macadamia tree.
Henny-Penny eats first, gets the best dust bathing position and perches on the best roost.
She hangs around the backdoor in the morning to get the best leftovers.
Henny-Penny has lived in 3 states and for a while she lived with my brother but now she's back with us. I took her from Brisbane to Tullermarine airport in a dog crate (along with 5 other chooks).
A child at the airport peered into the crate and said, "It's a chicken". The child's mother pulled her away and saying, "Don't be so silly".
Henny-Penny hatches and raises chicks but the eggs aren’t hers – we cook with hers because they haven't been fertile for years.
If I had known when she was a pullet that she would be still laying nearly every day when she was 8 years old I would have bred more chicks from her.
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