New chicks

We got 1200 new chicks on Monday. The farmer did us the honour and let us unpack them. He said: "I figured you might want to do it!" We were all very excited. The chicks hatched just the night before, so they were really, really tiny. We had to be very careful around them, making sure we wouldn't accidentally step on them. The shed where they are kept for the first three weeks is temperature controlled and needs to be kept very clean to avoid diseases from spreading. The temperature needs to be kept pretty high and stable too. 

Refilling the feeders

Woolshed kung fu

The shit stays but the eggs move on!

So we’ve moved on from shoveling compost and wood chips to chicken shit and cotton seeds! What a varied work we have here. I did not expect cotton seeds feel so soft and comfy in large quantities. You just want to dive into the pile and lay there forever! Cotton seeds are used to feed the cows which brings me to the new job we completed recently. We grabbed a truck and drove all the way out to the paddock, picked up empty “bathing bowls” (they could easily be used as a small outdoor pool) and brought them over to the cotton shed. The farmer drove up to us and loaded the cotton seeds into our trailer with the tractor. You should be able to see it in the videos posted below. We then proceeded out to the paddock to drop each swimming pool 20-30m width apart and filled them with cotton seeds, of course we had to shovel it all in. The cows got really curious, I suppose they knew they were getting food, so we got really close up with them. I did not realise they are so shy. I tried to touch them but they just run away from you. Their calves are so cute, they look fake. You’d almost think they’re dolls J

I must not forget about Why-Man. Obviously he was not man enough to do most of the shoveling. He prefers to watch or do the bare minimum! I think he only cares about driving the car and looking important...

For the past few days we had to clean out the shed from chicken shit and really leave it spotless. We are getting 1200 new chicks on Sunday / Monday  and the shed needs to be almost sterile, so that they don’t catch any diseases. The farmer was very happy with our job and said it is the cleanest it has ever been. None of the other volunteers have done it so well. Praise for me and the other girl but NOT for the Why-Man. We asked him to clean the roof with a blower so that we could clean the floor inside. Guess what? He did not do it. He must have thought 20 mins of his time is too much and besides, the job must have been too difficult to undertake! It was a waste of time to wait for him to do it. In the end we had to explain to him why we wanted him to do it! Aaarrrgggghhh! Because the farmer said so! Instead of the roof he was wiping down the cobwebs with a pan and broom. That must have been really difficult. Not sure if that was even required to be done.

wood shavings

putting down wood shavings for new 1200 chicks coming in

Sampson smiling

Delilah must have slept on an egg..

Pub night

OK, so I had a hangover on Saturday! We worked really hard on Friday shoveling chicken shit all day. I have managed to shovel wood chips, compost and chicken shit. I think I deserve a beer for that. We went to the pub with the farmer’s son. It was great to see him getting out of the work mode and be a young person like us. J We’d love to see him in the “real world”. The local pub was pretty much the size of an average apartment and it is supposed to empty up by 10pm when everyone goes home. I guess if we stayed longer we would have been the only ones left! After returning home from the pub he joined us for another few at our place. Good fun! The only problem was getting up early the next morning.

Today is Sunday and it is supposed to be a no stress day but I’ve had the worst farm day ever. I officially ran over my first chicken and witnessed others trying to eat the poor thing that was stuck under the wheel. So sad.. I already had a feeling something was going to happen and it did. I am really sorry. Poor chicken! I also had to kill another one in the evening. It was alive but looked like paralysed and not able to move its legs. The joint decision was to kill it, unfortunately. Otherwise she would be eaten alive by others. I tried to break its neck according to instructions but I just couldn’t. It was too hard. Of course Why-Man did not offer his help either and when I asked he said he’d prefer not to and walked away! As I was physically not able to kill the chicken the English girl just decided to drive over the chicken and kill it like that. Guess what, it did not die! In the end I think it did but it was very traumatic for both of us.

Sunday 16km walks have become a tradition at this stage and will keep up our exercising routine.  Not saying anything about the small portion of chips I had in town +apple crumble and chocolate for dinner....

On our way back we noticed a herd of cows following us. I wonder do they just follow humans when they see them or was it the bright pink shorts that got their attention? I mean they were not following us on the road but just beside the road. There is a large field out there and each time they see us, they all gather up from across the field, just stand in front of us and stare at us as if they are waiting for further instructions.

By the way, Sampson managed to knock me over while playing with Delilah. Sampson is one of the white dogs’ that guards the chicken with his sister, and while they were playing I got involved too and subsequently got knocked over. It was a hard enough hit that I landed on my stomach. Sampson just stopped in front of me and looked at me and probably wondered what had just happened. He is so adorable and sometimes cheeky when playing around. He likes to grab the chicken and drag them around in his mouth. He is only playing with them but it is better if he does not get used to it!

That's whathappens when you play with a dog the size of a horse!

How to kill a chicken

Why-Man

I have decided to dedicate a whole post to the why-man since he is so important part of our lives now.

Great day with why-man today. First of all, we were asked to go an help out with the chicken feeders. Apparently, the machine that would refill the feeders was not working, so we had to grab buckets and drive out to the station to help out. We got a different car this time. The good thing about it is you can get a ride in the back of the car and enjoy a bit of a joyride and sun. I was going to drive since I had not used that specific car before. New experience and all! The why-man however insisted that he could drive. Helllooooooo!? He is here for the second day and starts arguing with me and telling me that I drove just two days ago. He did not even know where to go! He literally stood in front of the door when I was already in the driver’s seat repeating my name with a specific tone. Wtf! Be a man and let the woman drive! I was not going to give in either way.

There were four of us filling the feeders and as we were told by an expert, we moved 5-6 tonnes of grain using buckets. That was a great workout for the arms and shoulders. Good fun though. The farmer’s son said he would have to charge us for the gym workout we got out of it! Too bad I don’t have any pictures of the machine yet. Will try to get one some other time.

In the first half of the day we were shovelling and moving compost to the flower beds, morning until lunch time. The wife said it would be easier than doing same thing with woodchips. Guess if she was right. NO! She was completely wrong. Compost weighs way more than woodchips.

I must complain more about the why-man. He needs to question everything and propose “better farming solutions” considering he is here for two days and the farmer has done this all his life. I am sure why-man is always right. He seems to have a unique mindset for sure!

Oh,did I mention we let him drive the jeep when collecting the eggs? He was totally not able and when he became slightly able he started speeding which was completely unsafe and stupid. He really needed to show off his testosterone. I actually could not believe how bad he was haha.

Nothing else exciting happening. Looking forward to more stories to arise J

Weekend is supposed to be for relaxing

Last weekend was anything but relaxing! Firstly, Saturday is a cleaning day, so definitely no relaxing going on then! In general we have to be up at 8am every single morning. Check all four stations (we used to have three but now we have four with the new chooks that still need training) each morning. Do our cleaning chores, have lunch, collect the eggs in the afternoon from each station. That takes around a couple of hours. Then it is already 5pm and around 5.45 we’d usually have to go to the new station to supervise the chooks getting on the bus for the night. They are getting better each day but it is very annoying that we start our working day at 8 and finish around 6.15-6.30pm. That’s 10 hours in total. And this is the weeeeekend!!! Last Saturday we finished around 8.30 pm because the farmer was sick, the wife was at some book club event all day, the dogs needed to be fed at the stations and nests opened on the buses, so the wife asked us to do it. It was somewhat scary considering it was completely dark outside and we could not use any lights near the stations. We always have to turn off the headlights when approaching the stations. We are allowed to use red headlights though. We wouldn’t want all the chicken to get confused and come out of the bus towards the light in the middle of the night! The funny part was feeding the dogs. We are ok feeding to the two young cute white ones (Sampson & Delilah) but there are two more that are old and look pretty scary. They are the same breed but they never come close to us and always keep their distance. We were scared shitless when we saw the reflection of two red eyes looking at us!! Both of us sitting on the ranger and keeping close to each other and trying to use the red light as much as possible to get the dog food into the bowls and leg it. Luckily the dogs didn’t come near us but it was pretty damn creepy!

Sundays are usually pretty relaxed so we decided to take a walk into Merriwa town. It is 8km away, total 16km walk along the road. The town itself is so small. We had a coffee and a cake in the local bakery, got a few things in the supermarket and then just walked back. The town was so small that every single person probably looked at us wondering where the hell we had come from. There were rarely any cars passing us on the road on the way into Merriwa. I can imagine them wondering what two girls were doing walking on an empty road in the middle of nowhere!

Of course, we had to pick up the eggs after arriving back from our long-ish walk... finished up with work at around 6.15pm again. Very tired!

We met a cute little turtle on the road and kindly helped it across. Definitely did not expect to see one on the road around here!

Did I ever mention I have now killed two chickens in total? Not pleasant but needs to be done. Poor souls often suffer because of the others who spot the weak one and then proceed to peck on it until it gets eaten to death. What a horrible way to die. I’ve got a photo taken on my phone of an instruction how to kill a chicken. Awful but may come handy when need to know the theory and put it into practice.

A new guy arrive yesterday and I would like to call him Why-Man. Every single time when we say something, there is a question WHY asked straight afterwards. I have given up explaining self-explanatory things and just referred to "because the farmer says so. If you want to know more, ask him".

And it looks like everything we do is not reasonable enough to him and he would like to change everything. Did I mention he is French? He seems to have an I-know-everything attitude. It must be something to do with the fact that two girls are teaching him and he cannot imagine taking instructions from us.

I am starting to get peed off already but it is better to keep calm. It might just be the first impression we are getting off him.

I must note I have managed to perfectly reverse a trailer into its required position.. Even the the guy was impressed since he made a comment that all girls he has ever met cannot drive a car.

I am intending to upload a couple of videos of my daily jobs at some stage.

The red one is the Ranger

Day trip to Merriwa (16km walk)

We had already walked 6km. What a fab achievement!

Police station that looks like a church?

Found a friend on the road on the way back..

We had a Thelma and Louise day yesterday.  The English girl and I were told there was no water left in the tanks at the stations where the chicken live. That meant we had to get the jeep and get the trailer and drive all the way out to the stations, fill the empty tanks with water and do it all twice. We had never done this before but decided to give it a go. I tell you it was some experience. After a while of attempting to attach the trailer we finally managed to get going. The problems started at the first “hill”. The Troopy was not strong enough to pull it up on top of the hill. We both just looked at each other thinking how the hell we were going to get out of the situation. I suggested to let the troopy slowly fall back to the bottom of the hill and then try to go up hill again. We also realised we were only using 2WD drive which is why we got into difficulties. After trying to move backwards with the trailer behind us we realised it was NOT going straight but turning. Panic again! After a few minutes of calming down we attempted to move up the hill and it worked! Ah, the relief when we got up the hill :)

Obviously, next time we are smarter and will change to 4WD immediately when pulling a full water tank!

What really surprises me is that the farmer doesn’t really care how or what we are doing. He assumes we will be fine by ourselves and will radio him if we need assistance. He is putting a lot of trust and belief in us.

We felt so good after we managed to drag two of the trailers out to the stations and refill the empty ones for the chicken. We were sooooo proud of ourselves that we were able to actually do a man’s job and not screw up! The worst part of course is returning empty tanks back to the farm. The reason is because both of us are not able to reverse the trailer!! I gave my best attempts and managed to get both trailers into their required positions. It took probably half an hour but I did it. Never felt better about myself in completing such a complex task for a woman! Even the kangaroos wandered over to check what the hell we were doing. They must have been proud of us too.

Here are some pics to prove our manly day out in the field :)

Oh yes and I also chopped wood for a while in the morning. Haven’t done that for at least ten years.

mmmm, pizzaa