Dingoes on the back burner, and the rooster is gone..

Thanks to all who expressed their sympathy over our disappointment with the dingo pups. I'm not going to dwell on this, but I can tell you now, that we have discovered the real reason why the breeder changed his mind. He had a better offer from a wildlife park in Queensland. I can understand why he would prefer to sell two pups for $1000 instead of $400 (which is what he asked from us), but I don't understand why he didn't just tell us the truth instead of making us feel as if we weren't good enough for his dogs. I phoned him and threatened to sue for breach of promise (an idle threat - we couldn't afford to do that!), and he got really mad - ha! He yelled and swore at me, so I just hung up. Felt a lot better though!

I have been telling Ken for months that we had to get rid of our rooster. For a small Bantam, he had the loudest crow you can imagine, and we had to put him in the garage every night so he wouldn't wake up the neighbourhood at dawn. But I even got tired of hearing him crowing during the day. I asked a few neighbours if they minded, and they said no, it made them feel like they were living in the country! Well, that can get on your nerves after a while, so I put my foot down last week and said to Ken, "Matt has to go". Ken wasn't happy, as Matt was a lovely rooster to look at, and he was so cute looking after all his hens. But we took him down to the Stock Food and Grain Store in Eltham, and they said "we'll keep him until 4 pm Sunday. If nobody wants him, you'll have to come and get him". I phoned them just before 4 pm, and they said someone had taken him on Saturday. We'd said we didn't want any money - just 'free to a good home'. Ken was sad when I told him. Said he hoped Matt wasn't going to end up on someone's dinner table. I said "well if he'd been here much longer, he would have ended up on our dinner table". Ken wasn't amused. We've still got 10 hens, as well as the four new chickens, which we let out for the first time today. Here they are with Mother Hen.



Budgies can be extremely destructive little birds. Ours had chewed their perch as well as the nest box in this aviary. Ken put three new perches in there yesterday, using a different kind of wood. I think one perch wasn't enough for all of them, as they were always squabbling before, but they seem much happier now.