Good morning from Chicken Paradise. It’s raining today — not that the chickens care. They came straight out anyway!
Repotting the calamansi
Calamansi is a citrus plant with tiny fruit, only about 3–5 cm. It’s delicious as juice or on a salad. A friend brought us this one, but its pot was far too small, so it’s moving to a bigger one. The soil is just sifted dirt from around the farm, full of weed seeds, but I don’t mind. It grows into a tree, so it should be tough. I’d like it in the ground eventually, but I haven’t picked a spot.
The roots were badly tangled, so I loosened them a little. Underneath there’s one really thick root, very tree-like. Mounding a little soil around the roots is supposed to help.
Baby quail and more wood
We went back for a second load of the wood the chocolate makers gave us — it didn’t all fit in the truck the first time. Thank you to the friends who spotted the boards and let us know! We’ll use them to build new coops and a hospital for the chickens.
And look at these: three-week-old jumbo quail chicks, a gift from our neighbor. Jumbo quail grow fast and can lay and breed by six weeks old. All four are girls. They sometimes stretch out their legs and flop over — it looks alarming, but it just means they’re relaxed. Quail are often kept in small wire-floored cages, but I want ours to be happy, so they have a grass floor, plenty of food, and a little house. So far, nobody has gone inside it.
Dolly, meanwhile, is waterproof, so the rain doesn’t bother her much — though she still sheltered from it and looked a bit glum. And I finished one A-frame to support the cucumbers. Next comes the other side!
Meet Kin-chan
Kin-chan is an Old English Game Bantam and the eighth chicken I ever bought. Kin-chan had been returned to a store despite already being grown, origin unknown. The beak looks a little odd because the morning after I brought Kin-chan home, Okki-chan got angry — who are you?! — and pecked it until it split.
It healed, but I didn’t know then that a chicken’s beak heals quickly, so I panicked and rushed to the vet. The surgery cost about 50,000 yen (around $450). A very expensive lesson! Kin-chan is a feisty breed and still greets every newcomer with that funny beak. These days things with Okki-chan are fairly peaceful, and in a room full of little ones, Kin-chan struts around like the boss.
Thank you for watching Chicken Paradise! See you in the next episode.