Since their arrival late last year our chickens have become happy little family members and get visited quite a few times a day with scraps and treats.
They are very entertaining and as soon as they hear footsteps coming up past the washing line they rush to the fence to see what you might be bringing.
Unfortunately for me the chook run is right next to my vegie garden. That is a good thing for weeding, I don’t have to clean up after myself, I just chuck the bits over the fence and they run around madly trying to get the choicest pieces.
The bad part of it is that they have developed a taste for the tomato plants which are in a raised garden bed against one part of their fence. The poor tomatoes had to be re-staked to train them further away from the hungry beaks as the chooks were jumping up and sticking their heads through the fence to snatch a tasty morsel, doing their best to both strangle themselves and destroy the plants.
I also have a cherry tomato plant growing really well on the back verandah. Really well that was, until the rosellas ran out of seed and decided that pulling the flowers off the plant would keep them amused until the next meal arrived. Grrr… At this rate I will never get a home-grown tomato again!!
Mmmmm… juicy tomato…
The rosellas want to know how far they can push you.
Not too much further! Now when everyone else sees them on the tomato the rush to head me off before I zoom out there and chase them off. They offer food in a different place whereas I would be the madwoman shouting angrily on the step!
There’s always a price to pay for having tomato sauce with your fried eggs.
If I don’t get anything off my tomato plants this season we might be having chicken soup!
I have to admire the chooks and the Rosies “me me” attitude – if they weren’t so cute and personable they wouldn’t get away with it but they are, and do
You are right, if the chooks weren’t so amusing it would be all over for them! The rosellas ertainly have the Man and the kids trained, the slightest appearance means one of them will rush out with the bag of seed and dish out handfuls where needed
I love chookies, they are so much fun, and cute to boot.
They are cute, it is like having a group of friendly old ladies living in the backyard
I have my tomatoes up on the deck, safe from possums and alpacas. Sadly my fruit trees are not so lucky. Not going to have any of my favourite peaches this year. The last two were eaten overnight. The ground beneath the tree is littered with cleaned peach pips. It seems my possums are developing gourmet tastes.
Mmmm… yum, peaches. Bloody possums, you might need to net the trees next time. At least they eat the whole lot and don’t just take a bite and drop the rest of the fruit on the ground.
I have netting but it’s so hard to put up, [and take down] I got lazy.
Next year I’m going to be much more proactive though.
I sympathize, we helped the Man’s brother net one of his trees last year and that was a trauma that doesn’t bear repeating…. Maybe a frame around it? Much easier to net a cage than a spiky tree.
I did think about a frame but all my fruit trees are still young and growing.
Someone should invent a see-through umbrella thingie. No, scrap that. Up here it’d end up in someone’s window the next time we had a northerly.
Right along with the kids trampoline from up the street!
-grin- something like that.