Thread: My Splendid Cock

The mother's have brought their chicks down from the best boxes and so far all is good.

This little gai () must feel very safe being cared for by three mums. Amazingly enough they all seem to be getting on well... I was worried they would start fighting out of jealousy for possession of the chick.



And the more traditional single parent family is also doing well. The main danger for this tiny little black chick is that it can fit through the chicken run mesh into the domain of the ever-present dog pack. Today I'm going to re-home these two into a separate cage for a week or so until the chick has grown a bit bigger.

Oh hang on I've posted on he the wrong thread. My bad

Pretty good deal though. 1 mil for 50 sachets my amigo does 6 week rotations and flys back to lao for 2 weeks r&r hopefully I don't run out before his next trip

Originally Posted by BLD

Oh hang on I've posted on he the wrong thread. My bad

Easily done as the thread title is misleading

Entirely appropriate all things considered.


But BLD, 50 sachets in 6 weeks? That’s 10 times a week. Jeeesus. You put looper to shame.

Yeah nah

^ I hope you're not grinning like an Alsatian and putting Mendy to shame

I will give it a whirl but I'm sure loopy is still TD,s top swordsman. Plus he gets more variety than me the smooth barsteward. I attempted a bit of tampering with her indoors last night after popping one jelly but things didn't go to plan and I fell asleep while waiting for the effect woke up later in bed by myself . Seems I was sawing logs and she bailed and slept on d sofa. Still got 49 left though. Need more planning I think. Still
Loopy would probably be proud of me

Never has a thread needed rescuing so much as this...

The two new chicks are doing well since hatching a couple of weeks ago.

The black chick with the single orange mum survived the dogs twice after escaping into the big wide world though the chicken wire mesh. It's too big to fit now, so is safe.



And the yellow chick that I rescued from the dried out egg shell membrane survived and is enjoying life with it's three mums. Remarkably enough the three mother hens all seem to get along well with no squabbles. This was a good result to be honest as it ended three hens' broodiness with the addition of only one chick to the flock. Sometimes it can be very difficult to stop a hen being broody, but once back to normal they should start laying again.



Cute. I hope it's a girl so we can keep her, but I have a feeling this is a little cock.

Mendy’s little white cock, has a certain ring to it.

Mendys splendid little white coq

26 pages and about 500 paragraphs of penis innuendos.

^ And I thank you for your contributions, however small.

Originally Posted by Mendip

^ And I thank you for your contributions, however small

Oooh, Mendy is getting cocky.

Not boasting, but my cock has done it again!

This little chap/chapette hatched last night.

Three eggs, one chick. While my cock is good, it could maybe do better?

Congrats, Nelson!

Cracked it,maybe you need to get outta yer shell for a bit....

Originally Posted by david44

While my cock is good, it could maybe do better?

It might if you bring it with you when going to Bkk

I didn't think it worth reviving my 'skimmer box' thread.

But anyway, this was what I found today.



Waste not, want not.

The dead centipede sparked a frenzy in the chicken run.



But there was only one winner...



Well done Re... I mean 'Baldy'!



Happy Christmas!

Well, he is a ginger.

The three noobies are settling in nicely, and after only two days started to roost at night, albeit a very low roost.



Three more for Nelson's harem. I sometimes think I should have named this thread 'My Magnificent Cock' as 'Splendid' just doesn't do it justice.

If still tied my own flies for trout fishing I would be regularly relieving Nelson of a few of those golden cape feathers to make up some nice dry fly hackles.



My last big Songkran week job was to replace the sour soil in the chicken run with new topsoil. This is one of the worst jobs in my calendar and it's been at the back of my mind for some time.

Daily cleaning keeps the run pretty free of excrement and the worst problem is leftover food. The run becomes dusty with all the discarded fines from the chicken food and this smells to high heaven once it gets wet. So with the wet season approaching, time to sort it out.



Must be like living in Chiang Mai...



It takes more than all this disturbance to put 'Reggie' off the food. Despite the neglected and unkempt appearance, this one just never stops eating.



And then the removed soil is dumped a long way from the house. Experience has shown that after rain, this will start rotting and absolutely reek for several weeks. Yeah, sorry about that to those living in the apartments...



This job is bad enough, but when done in 36 degree heat and approaching 80% humidity it is truly appalling. By 10am I was 4 litres of water in, had skagged my knuckles and Rolex on the chicken run door frame more times than I could remember, and was well and truly knackered and pissed off. The wheel barrow handles are slightly wider than the door frame so I had to enter and exit with the barrow at a slight angle... not easy when fully laden as my knuckles will testify.



And the reason my feet were wet... pure sweat which was just pouring off me.



These were the working conditions.



I've been working like a bastard all Songkran week and the only good thing is that I reckon I've lost about 6kg already. I'm usually too knackered to eat properly in the evenings and as I seem to keep getting semi-heat stroke, I've been almost completely off the beer. I try to avoid alcohol if I'm feeling a bit dizzy after blacking out once in Sri Lanka under similar circumstances. I collapsed at a bar, hit my head on the way down, and the doc just couldn't understand why I was drinking with a heat stroke. I guess he had a point.

Anyway, thank God for the chicken run fan.



But if you keep going, all jobs come to an end eventually and by midday it was time to call an end to spoil removal.



But that's only half of the story... then it was time to replace the sour soil with new topsoil.



The chickens loved the new soil of course, but by this point I was close to collapse.



This was yesterday, and after an hour of adding he new top soil little progress had been made and it soon became apparent that this was a two day job.

It was just too much.



If you haven't experienced the true awfulness of the Isaan climate this time of year, then it's hard to explain. The stifling, baking heat is relentless, there's not a breath of air and the humidity presses down on you, draining any energy and enthusiasm for anything. When the daughter found me I was close to despair and absolutely fukked.



Soon after this picture I found myself busting for a slash, but my stupid shorts had no flies and the string around the waist was so tightly knotted that I couldn't get the damn things off.

So I just stood there and pissed into my troosers, then hosed down the lower half of my body. Yeah well, I've spent a lot of time in Scotland and have also worked with Paddy tunnellers, so I've picked up a trick or two. I probably wouldn't have acted this way had I been doing some gardening for my mum in Somerset but it doesn't seem to matter in Isaan and felt quite natural. If the gardener did notice, he was too polite to say.

We completed the front third of the chicken run and then called it a day. I showered and collapsed into the 'refreshing' 33 degree pool water. There really is no escape from the heat at the moment.



But anyway, after cooling down I was in better spirits and checked out the status of the job. A word to the wise, if ever you're replacing the soil in a chicken run, just leave the new soil in piles and the chickens will do the rest. They can't resist to scratch around and are excellent soil distributors.



Today was a new day and 7am saw the resumption of works.

And guess who I saw... Whitey and Greyey parent pigeons taking an early morning waterside stroll along the promenade!



Another incredibly lucky Ung an. It must have buried itself a couple of feet down in the top soil.



And after only three hours today, the job was a good 'un.

There is still a bit of soil left for my landscaping.



And a very happy, smell-free flock of chickens!



The entire run looked rejuvinated with the new soil.



While I was still in a chicken run mood, I checked around and found that a platform I had long ago nailed to a tree trunk was about ready to fall down because the long-dead bark around the trunk was falling away. I pulled it down and a horde of cockroaches fell away with the bark, much to the chickens delight.



The chickens are doing well at the moment, already benefiting from our glut of mangoes and now cockroach dessert.



I like to add features to the chicken run to keep the birds occupied and happy. It's like a big adventure playground for them... I have to go all the way to Sukhumvit for my adventure playground but the chickens get it right here, in Korat!

Every day.

Anyway, the new tree platform.



The only remaining issue... I want to change the chickens' food as there is currenty too much fine content which they don't eat, and this gets spread around the run over time.



I use special 'egg layers' feed, but need to investigate whether this is acvailable in pellet form. I think that would help tremendously in keeping the run clean and free of dust and odour. Years ago I added cement lips to the feeding areas in an attempt to contain the feed, but it still gets scratched all over the place.

A work in progress...

Originally Posted by Mendip

like to add features to the chicken run to keep the birds occupied and happy. It's like a big adventure playground for them... I have to go all the way to Sukhumvit for my adventure playground but the chickens get it right here, in Korat!

That's because they have a magnificent cock to play with!

Originally Posted by david44

I'm sure an ologist can afjord a labourer?

Yes, of course, I am my own worst enemy at times, but...

Maybe it was the way I was brought up... I've always hated to pay someone to do a job that I can do myself, although now that I'm in my mid-50s I need to back off a bit. But it's not as easy as that. If I could find someone with more than two working brain cells around here I would happily pay them to help out, pay double if they can actually do something useful, but after nearly two decades all I have is a list of people never to use again.

The gardener is busy, and had I employed someone to change out the soil in the chicken run I know with absolute certainty that first, the chickens would have escaped and been killed by the dogs. Then the dogs would have been let out with the risk of being killed on the road. There's two things you cannot stop a Thai from doing... leaving gates open and dropping litter.

And then, after removing a small fraction of the bad soil, it would have been covered by a veneer of top soil. So, I would be left with a more difficult job to do, and with most of the the top soil used up.

Been there, done that, many many many times.

Which is why I do it meself, with the help of the gardener.

I often smile wryly to myself when I hear yet again that a Westerner is not allowed to work here for fear of taking a job from a Thai. So long as I avoid drinking Lao Khao first thing, picking my nose and spreading litter everywhere, how can I possibly be stepping on the toes of any of the local Thai's around here?

I've heard you are 57. Time to work smarter, not harder. That's how I roll.