Love letter from Dirty Deeds to the Jan Juc hens

Last night there was much squaking in the chook shack as Gidget, Hilda, Layne, Ledger and Philly read their email from RRRs Dirty Deeds crew - if they were vain little hens before, they are shockingly excited now!

Dear Alison,

Your chooks rock and we are proud to have them as subscribers to Dirty Deeds.
I am sure that you started the avalanche of folk subscribing their tree, bees, dog,plants to the show during radiothon and for that we are truly grateful.
Our best regards,
Olive, Digga, Laurel and the DD crew


Dirty Deeds
All Things Horticultural
102.7 3RRR FM
Sundays 1-2pm

The girls are so thrilled! Thank you DD.

Chooks subscribe to radio RRR

It's that time of year again - the time those cheeky hens subscribe to RRR.

This year Hilda joined Gidget, Layne, Ledgergirl and Philly to pledge their support to 'Dirty Deeds'.

These hens rock.

And so should you.

Go on, answer the call - great community radio should be supported.

Comfort of Cookbooks

WHEN everything gets too much - news of a good friend diagnosed with a vile illness or as mundane as dark and freezing winter mornings meaning no cycle commute instead of turning to the sovereign remedies of shopping, chocolate or wine, I seek solace in my kitchen...

Anzacs fresh from my oven...

Leaf that mulch alone

All those lovely plane tree, silver birch, liquid amber, maple and oak leaves gathering around the footpaths and gutters of Geelong are calling.

Calling me before heading off to work to put a plastic rake and a bundle of garbage bags in the back of the Bombora and head down the streets populated by large, faceless corporations who have no appreciation for the wonderful mulching materials lying there, just waiting to add value to any garden or compost.

I don't rake the leaves outside houses - they belong to the residents.

But leaves piled up outside government office or brick eddifice of no beauty - hah!



There's nothing like a pile of wonderful leaves to scatter over the vegetable beds or hunker into the compost bins and shortly, hey presto! Mulch you would die for.

Those gorgeous scarlet, orange, yellow, gold, amber and sienna leaves are a gift to the eye, wonderful to scrunch through and a great benefit to the garden.

Plus they are darn fun to wade through and toss around.

Tasmania - a good egg

TASMANIA'S decision to ban new battery hen operations is a win for anyone with a heart for our hens and with respect for the animals who produce our eggs, the Weekly Times reported today.

Looking down at my girls I think of the chooks I have purchased over the years form various battery operations - hens who had been living in vile and cramped conditions for a year while they pumped out hundreds of eggs were suddenly deemed to to be worthless and sold for $2.50 each - less than the price of a cup of coffee.

Each year or so I would peddle or drive up to the local battery farm with a cardboard box and buy three or four girls.

The look in their eyes when they were gently deposited into their new pen with a lemon tree, ladder for perching, fresh straw, water and food and a fox-proof hutch was wonderful.

Within a day or so these formerly limp, thin little birds were acquiring a glossy sheen to their feathers, running about in delight as they pecked unwary insects and running towards me when I brought out their breakfast. Their eggs were and are, always delicious.

Of course, down south on the apple isle, while the move has delighted animal welfare activists, it has egg producers worried.


Caged in: Hens stacked up in a battery laying operation.The State Government announced $2.5 million in funding in Thursday's Budget to implement the ban and work to boost the number of non-cage operations.
Animals Australia campaign director Lyn White lauded the move.
"For years animal groups and the community have been calling on Australian governments to act on this obvious cruelty," she said.

Read more here...

Winter moult

Some friends are complaining their gals are losing their looks - a few feathers here, a few there and before you know it your once gloriously glamorous hens resemble chooks who have taken up cage fighting - and not on the winning team.
Don't despair.

The onset of cold weather often sends chooks into a moult and sometimes off the lay.
I try to spoil the little darlings - although they often resemble darleks when thye misbehave in the broccolli patch but that's another andafr darker story.

So try some crushd garlic corms in their water bowls and some extra comfrey in their pen to give them some pep.

I also make them up some porridge with rolled oats to get their tummies warm on colder days.

So far the five gals are producing four eggs a day which is more than enough so I canshare with friends.

Free range farmer scoops award

FREE-range egg farmer Anne Westwood has won the Australian National Energy Globe Award for sustainable farming practices.

Anne and her husband, Phil, from West Gippsland, have about 1000 chooks on their Grantville property, as well as cattle and sheep for grazing.

Read all about Anne and Phil and their free range chook farm...