Chicken Run

​I’ve made some good progress on the new chicken run area, if the weather improves I think I could have them there by the end of the week. Only one chicken is laying now, last week the one that has been a bit hit and miss in the past went all broody again. I did the thing where I kept it locked out of the coop for most of the day, and after a few days of that she is acting regular again. I have taken to calling that one “pinky” because I put a bunch of streaks from a pink marker on her back to tell them apart. Maybe she will start laying again when they are both up in their new spot..

I finished all the wire mesh along the longest side of the enclosure, and moved the inner gate up from the vegetable garden area. Yesterday I was able to work a bit in between the rain squalls and get some wire strung up and some of the mesh rolled out in preparation for attaching it. I just have to use the wire strainer on the top and middle wires and then I can start on that. I also unwound enough wire for the extra bit at the very top of the fence, they call it a wallaby wire here, it supposedly stops wallabies from jumping over. I also need to tighten that up. The plan is still to move the existing small coop into the enclosure till I can get around to constructing a new one.  I’m also still working on recovering the wire Gripples, but haven’t needed to use any yet as I’m getting a little better at tying off the wires. On the shorter section of fence I’m putting in the metal stakes first, makes it a bit easier at the end. 

There’s a fair bit happening with all the bird life around the place, maybe something to do with it being Spring. I made a new bird feeder out the front out of a large pot plant base, and have been putting out a cup of seed occasionally for the Bronze Wing Pigeons and the Galas, but now a few Sulphur Crested Cockatoos are coming around and hogging it all.  “Our” plovers have laid four new eggs in a different spot now, after either abandoning or losing the three they had laid earlier. They have been on the nest a couple of weeks now and we hope this time it works out for them. They have had a pretty bad run so far. The ones in the neighbours paddock just up from there now have two fledglings that look almost as big as the adults, so they should be pretty safe. We also saw the Tasmanian Native Hens the other day with five chicks running around. The Australian Wood Ducks are still hanging around, along with the egrets, and we occasionally see a pair of Chestnut Ducks down by the pond. The grass out the back is starting to get a bit tall, but it’s still too wet to mow and we have rain all this week.

The Covid-19 Delta outbreak is still happening on the mainland, mainly in New South Wales but also some in Victoria. There have been another 186 deaths in the past month, all but a couple in NSW. NSW has over 52% of over 16’s fully vaccinated and 82% with at least one dose, and now the Moderna and Pfizer  vaccines are available to 12 to 16 year olds everywhere. Here in Tasmania we are still 40+ days without any cases, and out of a population of 550k, 225k fully vaccinated, 313k with at least one dose. After finishing up the program where Tasmania handled the quarantine for 1,500 or so Pacific Island workers, we have now started with one planeload of Australians returning from the UK, all fully vaccinated so very low risk. This is to free up space for refugees from Afghanistan on the mainland, mostly at the dedicated facility up in Darwin.

I read that they may have booster shots in the U.S. for the over sixty fives, the outbreak there keeps on getting worse and worse, over 95% of those dying have not been vaccinated for one reason or another. The vaccines have been freely available there for almost a year, but still people are refusing it, until they end up in hospital. Then they beg for it, but it’s too late by then. There has been over 25,000 new deaths in the U.S., 7,000 of those just in Texas in the past month.