E-VAC-uation!

In my friend’s house, there lived a little mouse.  (I house-sit for a friend who owns a beautiful little home called Bergen).  The little critter could never be caught, so he continued to torment me by using the kitchen cupboard (under the sink) as his personal urinal – amongst other things!  I had tried setting mouse traps for him, but it appears he had accomplices in the form of huge Sugar ants that would happily remove the cheese or other bait in little segments without setting off the trap.  Sneaky little fellow!

‘Relocated’ probably looks like this!

One day, I decided to give the ‘mouse cupboard’ it’s routine clean.  I was gaily sucking up all the unwanted rodent excrement when the vacuum cleaner started making that sound it makes when paper or something gets stuck in the pipe.  As I peered into the cupboard I had a little chuckle seeing that little brat stuck in the end of my vacuum cleaner’s pipe.  He was caught quite high up on the neck.  An adrenaline rush surged through me (and no doubt the mouse too!) as I thought it might suck him up completely or perhaps cause his eyeballs to pop from his head!  Oh boy!  I couldn’t let him get away, so I left him attached to the vacuum cleaner as I ran to fetch an old jar.  I popped the pipe (mouse still attached) into the jar, got the lid ready and then turned off the vacuum cleaner.  I thought he might die of a heart attack if anything, but as critters go, he survived!  So, should you be looking for this mouse, you will find him relocated on the old Knysna road, probably living it up in some poor sucker’s house! 🙂

Great Excitement!

They’re cute, they’re fluffy and they are two days old!
…that was seven weeks ago!

Pom Poms!

It was a wonderful, excitement-filled day at Grace Like Rain when  200 new chicks arrived!
They are Lohman chickens, originally from Germany, but these little hens have come all the way from the Western Cape.

They bring with them the hope of ushering in a new era of productivity, fresh blood and blessing for Grace Like Rain.  What makes them special is that we know they are ALL hens from day one and they have been innoculated which makes them stronger.  They just need an issue of machine guns and goggles to ward off any predators! 😉

Beady Little Eyes

Even at five weeks old, when all 200 chicks look at you all at once (from their enclosure), it looks like millions of beady little granadilla pips staring back at you! …very cute…and sometimes creepy!

The chicks had their very own personal bodyguard while up at the farmer’s house. Glocky is his name and as we all know, it’s always a good thing to have ‘watchmen on the walls’!

Watchman At The Gate

Glocky is SO facinated with chickens.  He cannot help himself, he gets so excited that his entire body trembles.  He doesn’t hear a word spoken to him in this ‘trance state’ unless it is shouted at him!

Rudy and Elise Glock (the farmers) have been adapting the Piranha sleeping hut to enable the ‘little chicks’ to join the adult chickens… which they did today!

“Hello Gorgeous!”

The rooster who used to reside in this container with his hens is quite intrigued with the new chicks. Perhaps he knows already that they are all hens! 😉

I think we should call the new team ‘The Golden Girls’ (or Chicks)

…but let’s hear from the readers …what do you suggest?

Oh Bother!

I remember Rudy mentioning a good few months ago that he and Elise had found a hole dug under the Team Piranha run’s fence during the night.

We considered which wild creature would choose to do that rather than jumping the fence… “A badger? …no, it can’t be!” We dismissed the idea quickly in the hope that we were wrong about it. The stories we’d heard of badgers being bitten by a snake  (they are somewhat immune to snake venom!) or even shot and surviving the ordeal seemingly with little more than a headache, would make him a serious predator to contend with.

Honey badger

As time passed, this primarily nocturnal predator found its way into the outer chicken run where the young chicks roosted.  One morning, to Rudy’s surprise, he found most of the chicks freely running around outside the run – and then he discovered a giant hole under the fence. On further investigation he found that a couple of chicks had been bitten to death and there were several missing …including one of Gideon’s offspring!

It seems our worst fear had come to make our acquaintance … as it very often does in life!  This one came in the form of a Honey badger. He continued to raid the run at night, despite our best efforts to fill his holes with giant stones, etc.  Rudy had placed a huge rock in one of the first holes and filled it up with soil and smaller stones, all of which the badger had effortlessly removed the next night …he was a problem!  He even killed a beautiful hen and seven of her eleven little chicks.

Rudy was ready to give up…everyone had had enough of this predator and nothing could be done to stop it.  Although the honey badger has few natural enemies, we all had visions of ending this ferocious badger’s life in some way or another but, truth be told, I don’t think we could have done it when the time came!

In desperation, Rudy left Stroopie (his mother’s dog) in the run for a night or two.  This seemed to keep the badger away for a while, but Stroopie wasn’t happy about the arrangement.  Rudy then decided to move all the smaller chicks and ‘teenagers’ into the main run with the Eggceptionals.  A little overcrowding was better than dead!  After that, the badger returned to the other runs but hasn’t managed to penetrate the sleeping huts.

The thing is, Nature Conservation won’t relocate them (they’re found are all over Wilderness), they have the toughest skin ever and an attitude to match!  Even catching them could prove to be difficult …they can break / bite through most things.  Besides all that, you have to find them first, and being mostly nocturnal makes them difficult to find!  No wonder the South African Defense Force decided to name one of their armoured personnel carriers after it …some of you may recall the ‘Ratel’ which is the Afrikaans name for a badger.

“Don’t mess with me!”

I found myself praying and asking God to move this badger to ‘greener pastures’ where He has provided a better source of food as that seemed to be the best solution!
…so I have come to the conclusion that when you are being badgered, it’s best to pray about it! 😉

HOW TO RUIN A PERFECTLY GOOD PAIR OF PIERRE CARDIN SHOES!

One rainy day I arrived home from working in George. I parked the car outside our flat to off-load some boxes, etc. Startled by a very distressed call from a chicken, I decided to go and investigate.

On the other side of a fenced off enclosure I could see a hen fighting to get away from something. Without thinking any further, I grabbed my hiking stick and made my way through an obstacle course of water, compost, branches and mud to the back, outside of this enclosure. Slipping and sliding, trying to keep my balance, I struggled along an extremely steep embankment where the ground seemed to just fall away. It must have looked very animated! 🙂
I approached the hen just as she gave a long exhausted cry as though it were to be her last! Adrenaline pumping through my veins, I found myself shouting and making strange but intimidating sounds to scare off the stripy-tailed creature – that turned out to be a genet!

The hen was petrified even of me at that moment. I managed to grab hold of her and found that her foot was bleeding and clumps of feathers had been removed on her under-carriage! Poor thing!
To top it all, her 9 chicks were hiding. Some were in the thick bush behind the enclosure and three were at the flat under the leaves of a low-lying plant. We feared the worst, but another two returned home at dusk calling for their mother. Unfortunately the remaining four never returned. A sad moment for all.

So when the drama was over and I looked at my shoes, I found that they were scratched, torn, wet and full of mud! All in the name of saving a chicken and keeping myself from sliding down the hill by attaching myself to the fence with one hand and holding a hiking stick in the other.

It just goes to show that one needs to be properly clad and ready for action at any time … just like in God’s army! So do not be caught by surprise, be prepared! 🙂

A WORKING HOLIDAY

I had the privilege of meeting one of my ‘blog followers’ in November 2013, right here on the chicken farm. Andy also happens to be Rudy Glock’s brother. 🙂 He and his daughter were visiting from Austria. Karina spent her time with family, shopping and visiting our beautiful beaches.

Andy however, with great enthusiasm, spent his holiday helping Rudy on the farm. One morning I heard some strange sounds coming from the garage which borders our flat. It sounded like this “wooooo! aah, wooooo! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” …my curiosity found me peeping through the flat window and watching Rudy and Andy (like 2 naughty gnomes) popping various vegetables into a wood chipper and giggling with glee as the shredded pieces came flying out the other end! Andy had given Rudy an awesome gift which proved to take the hassle out of chopping loads of vegetables for the chickens. Of course it also saved valuable time! Thanks Andy! We miss seeing you in your little blue overall walking around the farm 😉 Fresh ideas and brotherly love go a long way.

Andy and Rudy with their ‘new toy’)

Time flies when you’re having fun! …so any more volunteers to come for a working holiday?

Merry Christmas!

Let’s put Christ back into Christmas (and leave the chicken off the menu! 😉

A ‘Parting Gift’

I’m sure you all fondly remember Mama Kloek Kloek and old Gideon.  They both had beautiful ‘caps’ on their heads!  It seems this isn’t a very common gene in the chickens here but I do know one thing for sure, it comes from the gorgeous birds of Team Traudl!

Just look what Gideon (& Mama Kloek Kloek) left for us in the form of eggs…

Young ‘Giddy’ strutting his stuff!

This little gorgeous (looks like a Gillian at this stage!) has the colouring of Gideon and the excessive head feathers of Mama Kloek Kloek!  Remember a while back I wrote a piece on Mama Kloek Kloek’s

Chicks – she was given 26 extra from the incubator making a total of 32!  These chicks are now the size of this little ‘Giddy’ or ‘Elvis’ as my husband likes to call him (the hairdo!).

Oh, and more good news… there appears to be a second chick with a cap of feathers in the last batch! 😉  God is Good!

Meet Fugly

‘Fugly’ is the offspring of a low-ranking hen in Team Traudl.  What makes this really interesting is that out of randomly selected eggs to go under the broody hens, Fugly ended up under her biological mother and is almost identical to her!

Before you ask… Fugly is short for ‘freaking (or another unmentionable word) ugly’.  Fugly’s mom & her chicks were separated from the other chickens but somehow some of the hens found her and pecked one of her chicks to death, leaving Fugly badly injured with a missing eye.  Despite the odds, Traudl (Rudy’s mom) decided Fugly was best left with her mom.  With the odds of survival stacked against this little chick, Traudl (Rudy’s mom) decided Fugly was best left with her mom.

Rudy’s Princess (Fugly)

What followed was nothing short of miraculous… after many many months remaining somewhat of the ‘runt of the litter’, Fugly eventually grew to almost full size.  (Her two sisters reached adulthood in approximately a quarter of the time it has taken her!)  She is a true survivor!  Fugly and her mom now freely wander around Grace Like Rain but never really re-integrated with the other hens again.  They spend most of their time in the area around Team Eggceptional with an old rooster called Sakkie.  He was displaced by ‘Raging Red’, but that’s a story for another day 😉

One-eyed Fugly even knows how to get our attention for food or anything else she wants. 😉 She knows the feeding times and seed room well and just tags along. One has to admire her tenacity 😉  She looks at you with her good eye and you cannot resist giving her a handout.  She has now become known as ‘Rudy’s Princess’.  It just goes to show that there is a place for everyone in this world.  Each creature has a special God-given position to fulfill and the means to achieve it.

 

‘Boggom-bende’ – part two

Meanwhile, outside our flat Rudy saw half the baboon troop casually relaxing at the poolside (now a fish pond) outside our flat … I mean all they needed were a couple of cocktails and sunglasses!  I’m concerned to leave my car door open…perhaps they will be taking my ‘Kalahari Ferrari’ for a spin soon!

These Boggom-bende also sent out a ‘search and destroy’ party to a friend’s place recently.  I kid you not when I tell you they hung on security lights and pulled them out of the wall…all in the name of ‘fun’!  They opened spices and played with them, stripped thatch out of a roof (a lot!), trashed bins, broke glasses and tried to drink pool ph chemicals!  They even chewed through some nets on a snooker table to get to the colourful balls…which we later found in the bush!  It sounds very much like a bunch of naughty teenage kids…maybe they need some discipline!  …oh for a hidden camera! 😉

I have heard of various stories to ‘get rid of’ baboons, like painting the leader white and releasing him.  His troop then don’t recognize him and keep running away from him until eventually, by default, they move out of the area.  This sounds rather amusing especially as I have never yet met an individual that attempted this method.

Another one, which I find rather appealing, is to get hold of a paintball gun and shoot them with coloured paints!  This is a rather expensive method especially if you’re not a good shot 😉  It must be quite painful though and at least give the furry brats second thoughts when they’re up to mischief!

The kids listening to stories of ‘the good ol’ days’!

My husband and I saw a young baboon walking around carrying a bucket, handle in the mouth, that he had stolen somewhere. We also found a hat in the bush at the entrance to our friend’s property – Bergen.  I had visions of some ‘slim Jan’ sitting with a pipe in his mouth and a hat on his head, telling his grandchildren about the ‘good ol’ days’ when they still ate awesome free-range eggs and juicy berries, which their kids carried around in buckets!

‘Boggom-Bende’ – part one

They are fast, very strong, way too clever for their own good and extremely destructive!  No, they are not government, they are the ‘Boggom-bende’!  Like I’ve said before: “never a dull moment!”

Boggom-Bende Trashing!

Our latest predator, or rather ‘band of thieves’, turns out to be a problem troop of baboons.  (I have nicknamed them the ‘boggom-bende’ …’boggom’ being the sound of a baboon’s call and ‘bende’ being the Afrikaans name for thieves).

Rudy and Elise now harvest approximately 10 dozen eggs a day.  This is the product of both the Eggceptional Team and the young Piranha hens.  The baboons got into the runs a total of 9 times in September taking a minimum of 40 eggs per raid!  Sometimes they come several times in a day!

They jump on the net covering the run until they break it or find a weakness.  If a door to the laying hut gets in their way, they just rip it loose, leaving the bolted locks in tact on the door frame and the door broken!  Should they be held back by the net in an attempt to escape, they just force a hole in it…and it’s a strong net!

I actually think these guys should be working for the defence force or something.  They manage to slip into one chicken run and eat all the eggs while someone is working in the other run bordering it!  They are like stealth fighters – ‘flying under the radar’ and as silent and effective as a sniper.  I’m sure that with their physical strength they would give Arnold Schwarzeneger a serious run for his money.

Piranha Laying Hut

The laying huts in the Piranha run have locked doors with little openings at the bottom (approximately 20cm square).  These allow the hens to go in and out to lay their eggs.  We have seen a huge male baboon leaving the chicken run.  On inspection we found that all the eggs had been eaten and some laying boxes destroyed!
At first we thought that the big guy bribed a little one to go in and collect the booty.  It might have sounded something like this:

“Hey kid, here’s what I want you to do…”

“Hey kid, listen carefully.  I will allow you to go in and get me some eggs.  If you don’t break any, I won’t give you a hiding and I may even let you have one!”  But we were mistaken since we saw only the large baboon scramble over the roof after his commotion inside the hut!  That probably means the little guy said, “You can take your offer and stick it where the sun don’t shine, Mr!”  😉

We have been very fortunate that the ‘Boggom-bende’ haven’t ever injured or killed any chickens…even when taking all the eggs from a sitting broody hen.  Praise the Lord!  🙂