Gardening Tips

Chicks have hatched in homemade incubator

Nov 22nd, 2009 by GardeningVet

After a long and anxious wait (16 days for the king/button quail and 21 days for the normal chicken eggs), they’ve arrived.

All up, the hatch was a great success. Of the 14 king quail eggs that I set, 10 hatched. They are zippy little things – and take no time at all to hatch when ready. The chicken eggs on the other hand, seem to take forever from pipping stage (when the chick first makes that crack in the shell with its beak) to actual hatching out.

They are so cute!

baby king quail (button) hatching

Here are the chicks in their brooder (14 hatched out of a possible 20)

Fluffy chicks in brooder

Posted in Chickens, Homemade Incubator | No Comments »

Wooden wishing well

Nov 12th, 2009 by GardeningVet

I’ve always dreamt of having a wishing well in the backyard. My backyard wooden paling fence was getting pulled down to give way to a new colourbond fence so when the fencing people came to remove the old fence, I told them to save me a few panels. The old fence was made of hardwood (not the new treated pine stuff) so it would be safe to use as a wishing well.

I had this old plastic tub which used to store some sort of liquid – it was cut in half and I used to use it as a pond but I thought I would work the wishing well around it. I denailed all the palings, then used this plan, made a few modifications, and this is the result…

Wishing well from wooden fence palings

My daughter wanted a bucket in it to ‘draw’ water – so I also built the crank with a handle. Because I used hardwood planting stakes as the handle I didn’t want to have to dig splinters out each time I used the crank, so I cut up a piece of polypipe and wrapped it around the handle. I’m very pleased with the result.

Homemade wooden wishing well

Now all I need to do is to fill the plastic tub up and add some plants and fish.

Tags: Wishing well

Posted in Landscaping ideas | No Comments »

New Chicken Coop

Nov 2nd, 2009 by GardeningVet

After deciding the the permanent chicken tractor was too bulky to move and the fact that I would like another garden bed to put my vegetables in, I took the permanent tractor apart and re-used the wood and ply to construct another more permanent chicken coop. I knew I wanted it raised off the ground to allow the chickens some shade under the coop and also to put the feed and water under it away from the weather. I found a pallet and started work on the 4 walls.