chickens – Page 2 – Gallifrey Forest Farm

June 7: Animal Profile: Chicken

2016/06/07 Danielle 1

Not an activity post today, but it’s been a cold rainy day with no notable achievements beyond running a bunch of meetings at my day job. So instead, I’m writing about chickens. Chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) are the archetypal poultry in Australia, the bird that everyone thinks of when they think of farmyards. They’re descended from the Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus), and gentic studies have shown multiple points of origin across South-, East and South-East Asia. Due to selective breeding, both for specific traits and for simple survival ability in different environments, there is a wide variation in size […]

June 1: chicken feed

2016/06/01 Danielle 0

One of the issues that anyone with pets or livestock runs into is feeding them. Not just the expense of providing them with the best possible nutrition, but also the practicality of it. The cats, for example. We make up a raw meat mix for them, using human grade beef mince, minced ox heart, minced ox liver, calcium, gelatin, and a selection of supplements. Amusingly, it ends up being cheaper to do that than to feed them commercial cat food, although it does involve an early morning start every month or so to go to the meat market and […]

Re-use, repair, recycle

2016/04/28 Danielle 0

An unexpected vet bill a couple’ve weeks ago (furbabies are epensive when they get sick!) ate into our infrastructure funds a little, and although we do have pet insurance, it’ll take a few weeks for any of those funds to get back to us for use. In the mean time, we have ten baby guinea fowl which are almost big enough to need their own grown-up enclosure, so they can start learning where home is. Not to mention the five wyandotte chicks which are growing daily, and sharing a brooder box with the guinea fowl keets. We do […]

eating meat

2016/04/03 Danielle 1

In WA, it’s legal to kill animals for meat, providing you own the animal, and no part of the carcass (including waste, bones and offal) leaves your property. And assuming that your local council hasn’t restricted slaughter of animals in your area via local by-laws, of course – many do. You can’t legally sell the meat, though. You can eat it, or feed it to friends, family, or employees, but not to paying guests (i.e. restaurant or bed & breakfast guests). If you want to sell meat (raw or cooked), the animal providing it must be killed in a […]

flowers and fruit

2016/02/27 Danielle 0

We harvested our first apples from the orchard yesterday. A pair of tiny little King David apples – very nice, too, for what is meant to be mainly a cider apple. Nothing else is fruiting right now, except the black nightshade (NOT deadly nightshade), but the adverts and signs are up all along the Swan Valley for fresh fruit, grapes and mangos. I like this season, with the last of the summer fruit, and the last of the swimming weather, but the first few cool nights of autumn. The frangipanis are flowering, too, and the roses are all going crazy […]