The Chicken Run and Other Animals

In the last few months we have been expanding our little farm thanks to the vacant areas of land on our compound, and the skills of our caretaker Colimba. Kirstein and Colimba decided to start a small chicken business together so we could benefit from free organic free-range eggs, and sell the surplus to friends. Even a small supermarket we use a lot was interested in getting a tray of our eggs regularly. So Kirstein starting flying in chickens from the bush until we had seven or so, including Dommy (from Domanga), Dabby (from Dabia) and our rooster The Colonel. All of them are kienyeji (village) chickens rather than kisasa (mostly battery farm chickens), and so they produce eggs with bright yellow yolks mmmm. Colimba bought his own chickens also so that there was 50-50 ownership. He had a chicken business growing up and paid for his school fees that way, so he knew how to look after them.

Motivated by the success of our first cohort, Kirstein decided to buy fifteen day-old-chicks, and returned home instead with forty-one! I loved the stripey ones. One died since it had digestion problems and wasn't eating, so we have had forty chicks in a box under a lamp in our garage for the last couple of weeks. They are doing swimmingly. Which is great, since the rainy season brought along some sort of bacteria that has meant that ALL of the chickens outside died. Even attempts to bring them inside the coops did not stop the chicken tragedy, and Colimba told us that even his chickens back home were dying too! Five died in one week alone. Eggs prices are starting to rise in town as well, so there must be a chicken epidemic going on.

Colimba, however, has got fingers in lots of pies, not just chicken but also rabbit-pie! He bought two six month old rabbits and they have already had two litters. There were six in the first litter, but two escaped and got swiped by a bird of prey. Out of the remaining four, three are white like their father and one is grey like the mother. The grey one I have called Mkaa (charcoal in Swahili) and we let her jump about the living room for a little bit whilst Johann was napping, until Kirstein's allergies couldn't cope anymore. The recent litter are only two, and they are strange pink squirmy alien things curled up in a bed of fur that their mother pulls out to make them a nest.

We were out in the garden with Johann last week, and I looked up into a tree to see some particularly noisy yellow-fronted bulbuls chatting to each other. Instead I looked straight into the eyes of an eagle owl! It wasn't the bird of prey that had taken the rabbits however, Colimba had seen another hawk and later we saw an augur buzzard fly over.

Finally, we have been trying to get a friend for Shiloh for some time. Our MAF friends in Dar had a litter of Ridgeback/Great Dane/Alsatian puppies and we were promised one of them, but we couldn't find a way to get her from Dar to Arusha. In the end, I overheard a friend talk about going to Dar at a restaurant and I cheekily asked if he could drive her back. She is chocolate and orange coloured so Becky, our neighbour, and I have called her Jaffa. After a bit of a hairy start, she and Shiloh are besties.