Happy Chickens for Fiji Food & Climate Emergency!

We love our view as we enjoy an early breakfast of eggs, with the roosters crowing. The eggs are fresh rejects from the hatchery due to defects: too small or too large, irregular shape, too dirty, or cracked.  Morning brings a new day, and we never can predict what will unfold.  For sure though, there will be plenty of chores and our workhorse--our beat-up twincab truck--will be helping.  Many times it is heading downhill with chicks for local farmers and returning with supplemental feed.  Our Happy Chickens are bred to withstand the tropics and to be free-roaming to enjoy a mix of vegetation and insects. They can bask in the sun or duck under the shade.  They have been house-trained from an early age, so they know where to sleep and where to lay, and the hens often gather on the roosts during the day to avoid the attention of the roosters!  But rarely a rouge hen will lay her eggs in the bush, and will emerge with a clutch of chicks following behind- which we immediately catch to keep them safe from the abundant hawks, mongooses, and even from our cats and puppies! The hen can then be placed with her brood into a mobile rearing pen, where she will care for them and keep them warm at night; or if the hatch coincides with a hatch from the hatchery, we simply put the chicks into the brood box with their cousins, warmed by a light and covered at night (cold season is starting here). 

A few months back, some rouge neighbor hens moved into the property to take advantage of the abundant feed, and they began roosting in the trees.  Some of our own hens and a big naked neck rooster soon became renegades and joined them! The outcome is below.       

From Grammy Kim's blog, which starts with but then expands far beyond chicken news! 

Akka, number one son, loaded me up with photos and stories. First off: Chicken Control

Once again, a whole lot of hens and a few roosters wandered into our front yard and found sleeping spaces for themselves in the trees. Once again, Akka and son Keith (“Kiki”) started the nighttime chicken capture.

It got tiresome.

So Akka made a trap by re-purposing a mobile rearing pen.  And then it gets the desired visitor.

The cage is just one of the mobile rearing pens propped up with a stick.

Then it gets the long dislodge-the-prop rope.

The funny thing is that Akka propped the cage up one evening. The next morning he found that two hens had trapped themselves inside – sprung it themselves – and several other chickens were standing around, trying to get in for the food. Akka says it is really lucky that the hens were fully inside. They would have been badly injured if the cage had fallen on them.

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Truck news. If any of you remember photos of our old truck, it did not look this good.

The back end still looks bad, but the front end looks shiny and fresh. This is because JUNIA HIT A COW ONE NIGHT while I was in Canada. Busted the radiator and I don’t know what-alll – but anyway, he and Austin split the cost.

How the heck did Junia end up hitting a cow?

Me – I’m night-blind, I’d expect it of me (which is why I don’t drive at night anymore unless I absolutely have to) – but Junia?! Well, there is a good explanation. He was driving along, not very fast, when a kid on the side of the road pointed a strong torch right into his eyes. The kid was trying to warn the driver about the cow.

After the collision, Junia told the kid he should have shone the light on the COW – and the kid kind of got it. But anyhow, anybody with a blinding light in their eyes can be forgiven for not seeing a cow in front of them. And I was really happy with the improvement to the car.

Neither Akka nor Junia were really satisfied though – and that is why I am writing now. This is how the truck looks today.

Do you see the difference? I wouldn’t – didn’t.

Akka and Junia went halfsies on the $75 chrome “badge”

Nothing I would have ever spent money on…. and the truck did not have this before the accident… but apparently having the right bling makes a significant difference in this neighborhood. Ha ha.

My new daughter-in-law is from the equatorial islands nation of Kiribati where Austin has been doing coral research and helping with livelihoods training via Corals for Conservation.  She is really diving right in to life here with chickens.

Tekaeti’s Quilt

Because the new batting is so thick, I could not do the quilting with the machine, so I had to do the quilting by hand. Took me quite a while – and the weather has gotten cool. Anyway, I finally put the last stitches in earlier this week.

This is what Tekaeti wanted. A sea of satin with a hibiscus, a sun, and two birds. The sea, sun and bird are from the Kiribati flag. I had a small flag and I put it flying from a boat going out of frame.

The morning after I gave it to Tekaeti, she told me she kept waking up all night to hug her quilt. What a happy reaction.

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Wishing each and every one of our Happy Chicken supporters a Happy Week. 

As you know, our hatchery donates many chicks to villagers, so they have an alternative to overfishing the reef.

P.S. The cow was apparently not badly injured, as the car was going slow, and it simply ran off!

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