My Robin is nesting!

Since My Cape Robin-chat (Cossypha caffra) moved into my garden a couple of years ago, I've watched him and his wife rear many a brood, but never managed to get a shot of the nest and eggs. Last month (August) I watched as they made their nest in my bathroom court-yard amongst the ferns and managed to get a nice pic of this perfect little home!

But before they could occupy this neat little space, the Karoo Thrush started snooping around, obviously having seen the activity of nest-building, and Robbie and his wife gave up the idea of laying eggs here.

At the moment there's a war raging in my garden. It started when the Karoo thrush decided to evict Robbie from inside my house and claim the space as her own and for months Robbie never came near the house. Luckily he has returned, often spending time in my lounge and dining room and for a moment there I thought they might choose the thatch roof over my plasma TV to make a nest, but that hasn't happened yet. But out in the garden, the minute the Thrush sees the Robbie, the chase is on, and when Robbie spots the Thrush, his tail stands straight up in the air!

Then, over the past two days, I watched as the female Robin kept on going in and out of one of the Restio plants in my garden, so this morning I decided to investigate and see if they were making a new nest.

And 'lo and behold, there was the fruits of their labour, two beautiful spotted eggs! When I approached, Mrs. Robbie hurriedly left the nest, giving me a couple of minutes to get this one photograph and she was back the minute I turned my back. Hopefully the Thrush is not aware of their little hiding place. It's only about 12 inches off the ground and very private and obscured, but it always amazes me the funny places the Robin chooses to nest.

When I looked back, Robbie was sitting close-by, keeping an eye on me and making sure his wife could return in safety. I managed to get in a quick capture.

The nest is usually built solely by the female in about 1-14 days, gathering a clump of material together before shuffling its body into it to form a cup. It is usually made out of bark fragments, twigs, dry grass, fern fronds, rootlets, dead leaves, moss and seed pods and lined with finer fibres, such as hair, rootlets and plant inflorescences. Egg-laying season is from about June-January, peaking around October-November. It lays 2-3 eggs, which are incubated solely by the female for about 14-19 days.

The female broods the chicks throughout the night and intermittently through the day, for the first 5-11 days of their lives. They are fed by both parents, eventually leaving the nest at about 14-18 days old, remaining dependent on their parents for about 5-7 weeks more. During this period the adults are particularly viglant about protecting their young, sometimes attacking snake such as the boomslang (Dispholidus typus) and Cape cobra (Naja nivea) - luckily none of those around here.

So over the next few weeks I'll be keeping a close eye and hope to catch a glimpse of the babies when they leave the nest.

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Monday amid the chaos

A found bird's nest in my collection

in the waning shadow of a weekend :: amid the chaos of a new week beginning :: this nest reminds me of wonders to come . for that I am ever thankful

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What kind of person are you?

Apparently, the way you like your eggs can say a lot about you! Here are a few examples :

My question is, what kind of person are you if you liked your eggs all of the above ways?

Let me know what kind of person YOU are!


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It's Friday!

I crept out of bed early with the sound of the roosters crowing to one another - 4am - put on the kettle, made my coffee and came to the computer. By the time hubby surfaced around 6.30am, I had already updated a couple of blogs, up-loaded some artwork to RedBubble, let the chooks out, fed Solly's chickens and filled all the bird feeders in the garden. Time for another cup of coffee.

It's the end of the week and the weekend is lying ahead as an extra bonus, the hours are mine to do with as I please. No need to rush and open the doors for business, no staff coming in, just two lovely days of spending time with my chooks or whatever else takes my fancy.

But today ended up being busier than usual, with a constant stream of customers and eventually, when I did manage to join Chrissie in the garden, she informed me that Missy had been sitting in one place all morning. Very worried, I approached her to see what was the matter and was greeted by her screeching like a banshee! She fluffed herself in a threatening manner and I immediately knew what the 'problem' was - when I picked her up, I saw what all the melee was about - she was sitting on a couple of eggs. She had obviously been gathering them for some time and now she was broody and ready to stay with them till the little darlings hatched...

I remove all the eggs that my chooks lay - I've got nine roaming the garden, causing havoc, and I really can't afford to have any more. Missy obviously got sick and tired of me removing her eggs out of the nest boxes in the chicken coop and decided to do the sneaky thing and find a safe spot in the garden!

Missy looking on in disgust as I remove her eggs

And I have no idea how 6 eggs escaped our attention what with Chrissie regularly cleaning up and me watering the garden every couple of days. But the girls can be very innovative when it comes to hiding their eggs!

We spent another couple of minutes searching to see if there were any more stray eggs we might have missed and that sparked a major clean-up of areas trampled flat by the girls - it is just beyond and above me as to why they would like to sit ON TOP of the plants in stead of next to or under them... .

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A whole new enterprise?

Eggs have been called “the cement that holds the castle of cuisine together.” 

Eggs, eggs, eggs…..I get six to eight eggs a day from my hens and after months of having had them for breakfast three times a week, prepared them in salads, I even BAKED something! I’ve painted them, pricked holes in them, used the shells in various ways, feed them to my girls, given them away and now I’m running out of ideas now. Also, frankly, I virtually cannot face another egg at the moment!

Egg-stuffed Potato

Scrambled eggs

Omelette

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Breakfast being served!

Kiep 

Hettie

Micky

So the only solution is to start a farm stall and sell them – maybe I should plant some strawberries to sell as well….? And maybe some arts and crafts or a couple of paintings…. or a coffee shop specialising in breakfasts.... this could actually turn into a whole new enterprise! lol!

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The benefits of free range eggs (for the chicken) Sensitive information

My girls supply me with 4 or 5 beautiful free range eggs every day and they are quite happy supplying these. They get to roam the garden, grazing, hunting insects and having lovely sand baths in stead of spending their lives in a 8″ × 12″ wire cage (the size of an A4 sheet of paper). They get to choose when to go to bed and when to lay their eggs, following Mother Nature’s natural daylight cycle in stead of their “daylight” being on a timer and being woken up 2 o’clock in the morning and being forced to lay another egg, giving 1½ eggs a day instead of the normal 1 egg every two days. They lie in the sun, spreading their wings and soaking up the sun’s Vit. D in stead of having Vit. D pumped into them via additions to their food. They exercise regularly by chasing insects (and one another!) in stead of being cramped up in those 8″ × 12″ wire cages with not even room above their heads to stretch their legs. They get to socialise and experience family bonds, something which a battery chicken will never know. My girls are not culled when they get to the end of their egg-laying cycle, but in stead get to live a happy, healthy and fulfilled life.

It is sad what we do to our animals in order that we may eat and survive…

“I am battery hen. I live in a cage so small I cannot stretch my wings. I am forced to stand night and day on a sloping wire mesh floor that painfully cuts into my feet. The cage walls tear my feathers, forming blood blisters that never heal. The air is so full of ammonia that my lungs hurt and my eyes burn and I think I am going blind. As soon as I was born, a man grabbed me and sheared off part of my beak with a hot iron, and my little brothers were thrown into trash bags as useless, alive.

My mind is alert and my body is sensitive and I should have been richly feathered. In nature or even a farmyard I would have had sociable, cleansing dust baths with my flock mates, a need so strong that I perform ‘vacuum’ dust bathing on the wire floor of my cage. Free, I would have ranged my ancestral jungles and fields with my mates, devouring plants, earthworms, and insects from sunrise to dusk. I would have exercised my body and expressed my nature, and I would have given, and received, pleasure as a whole being. I am only a year old, but I am already a ‘spent hen.’

Humans, I wish I were dead, and soon I will be dead. Look for pieces of my wounded flesh wherever chicken pies and soups are sold."
Info

Read more about The Life of one Battery Hen. (Sensitive information - I cried when I read it...)

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Setting your intention for a simple day

A leisurely breakfast of boiled eggs, which I get daily from my chooks, tea and toast and I'm ready for the day. Taking time in preparing a meal, no matter how simple, is one of the great pleasures I enjoy every morning.

I normally rise at around 4am and, with a steaming cup of coffee in hand, check my e-mail, connect with all my blogs I read and spend some time on FaceBook, catching up with family and friends. Around 6am it's time to open for my chooks and let them into the garden, fill all the bird feeders and do a quick survey of the garden to see if there's anything special that needs being done. These times are for summer, in winter it happens a bit later! At about 7am, a hot bath and getting ready for the day. Breakfast follows at around 9am, after which I'm ready to tackle all the necessary tasks that fills one's day.

Spending quality time with yourself goes a long way to increasing peace and harmony. There are many ways one can achieve this. Sketching and painting is an important part of spending time with myself, as is gardening, tending to my animals and spending some time in nature. We have enough everyday pressures of tending to a business, shopping, picking up kids from school and looking after a family, so it's important to look after yourself first in order that you can give your best to the rest of the world. Set your intention early in the day and life will be much simpler.

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Eggs with a conscience

From beasts we scorn as soulless,
In forest, field and den,
The cry goes up to witness
The soullessness of men.
~M. Frida Hartley





Free-range eggs are laid by happy hens that roam freely around outdoors in the day and snuggle up in their barn at night. Hens that are fed a vegetarian diet of grains and pulses with no animal by-products or fishmeal. Happy hens who are free to chase bugs, graze on the grass and have regular sand baths to rid themselves of lice and fleas.


The benefits of free-range eggs are numerous, like the fact that these eggs are rich in omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E. Omega-3 fatty acids are not naturally produced by the human body so it's essential for us to include them as a part of a balanced diet. Vitamin E is an important antioxidant that also protects the omega-3 fats. But for me the biggest benefit of free-range eggs is the fact that they are produced under natural, non-cruel conditions.



Battery cage hens - Pic from "Say no to battery chickens and eggs"


In the battery cage system (the dominant form of egg farming in the world), the hens are confined in cages with a sloping floor so that their eggs roll away in order to prevent faecal contamination of the eggs.


The cages are normally stacked on top of each other in houses with no access to natural
light. The houses use various automated conveyor belt systems to bring the hens food, capture their waste and take away their eggs.


Because of the cramped conditions (sometimes less than an A4 sheet of paper per hen – for life!), alternative farming methods for eggs have increased in popularity. These include barn, free-range and organic (also free range, but with the additional requirement of organically produced feed).


“Freedom to behave naturally” (one of the 5 freedoms that all animals should receive according to the Farm Animal Welfare Council in the UK) is one of the greatest welfare concerns for the world’s egg laying chickens.


Research has shown that hens have a strong preference for laying their eggs in a nest and are highly motivated to perform nesting behaviour. Hens also show a strong preference for a littered floor both for pecking and scratching and for dust-bathing, and a preference to perch, especially at night.


Battery caging prevents all of this as the hens are kept in barren cages without perches or litter, and are so confined for most of their lives that they cannot even flap their wings. I have bought battery cage chickens that have come to the end of their egg-laying life and upon releasing them in the hen house, they couldn't even walk! Their leg muscles had wasted away and it took me weeks of pampering before they started moving around. These chickens were also unusually aggressive with no social skills whatsoever, pecking one another and fighting constantly. I eventually had to separate them from the rest of the chickens into their very own hen house, but they never acquired any form of 'natural' chicken behaviour and just existed to the end of their days, fighting, squabbling and generally looking miserable...


The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?" 
~Jeremy Bentham



Free-range eggs from my hens - I get between 6 a day


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