Wild Hope Homestead

First of all, I have a few photos of our recent family holiday in Masterton. It was cold down there! We stayed at a rural property slightly in the wops, with beautiful, hilly, foresty views and some interesting animals. The chickens and peacocks were nice to look at but, boy, have you ever experienced high-pitched roosters crowing all through the night near your house? WHY?!!!!! I asked myself that many times as I woke and tried to get back to sleep throughout the hours of darkness. I had plans for those roosters. Sinister plans. I was so glad to get back to Mr Bingley and his daytime crowing, and I don’t think I’ll ever worry about whether he might bother the neighbours again.

We enjoyed looking at the wind turbines.

The base of a wind turbine is the on right.

The Desert Road is one of my favourite roads to drive along.

How can you go wrong with beautiful views like this along the drive?

There was an extremely impressive greenhouse, with no less than 25 passionfruit plants along one wall.

This hen was very pretty.

Here’s one of the partying roosters. And a peacock.

On Saturday, I went to my first poultry show. A much more pleasant chicken experience. Words cannot describe how exciting this was for me! Seeing all the different breeds, different colours, how big or small the birds are up close and how well they were bred and presented made me appreciate how much effort goes into breeding good quality purebred chickens. The only problem was, I wanted ALL the chickens! I could almost see the red lights flashing, “Danger! Danger!” However, I did not come home with any chickens, mostly because there were limited birds for sale since they were adjusting to a new show venue, and I didn’t see any Australorps for sale. I cannot say the same for crazy thoughts, though… Cue lots of photos of chickens. Sorry about the poor quality of my phone camera.

There weren’t many Australorps there. Which makes me want to breed them even more. Just waiting for fertile egg season…

Oops, I wasn’t very good at taking photos of the girls.

This blue Australorp rooster was beautiful and huge! Definitely bigger than Mr Bingley.

Another breed that took my eye was the Langshan. They are really not common here. They were one of the breeds I seriously considered when starting out but shelved because of their feathered feet and the fact that it can get so wet here. But they are so beautiful that I could easily be swayed. Australorps have Langshan in their breeding history so there are some similarities.

Langshan hen.

A champion white Wyandotte.

Silver-laced Wyandotte.

Brown Leghorns. I love their colour, but the floppy comb doesn’t really do it for me.

Salmon Faverolles rooster.

Black Silkies. If these lovely floofballs were a bit bigger…

Hamburgs: silver spangled and gold pencilled.

Sebrights: golden and silver.

There were so many Pekins. I can see why people fall for them, they are such cute little round things. So small compared to my chickens. And so many pretty colours.

There’s a pigeon under those pretty feathers! There were also pigeons and ducks at the show, but I concentrated on the chickens.

These pigeons were fascinatingly stout wee things, like the Indian Game chicken of the pigeon world.

There were so many more birds but I couldn’t take photos of them all. For anyone interested in chickens I would highly recommend going to a poultry show. It will blow your mind! And give you dangerous thoughts. Speaking of dangerous thoughts, guess what I got for my birthday? The New Zealand Poultry Standards book. Exxxcellent!!! I am so happy about this. Now I can read up about chicken qualities and set myself on the right track for future breeding. Big thanks to The Husband! All it took was for me to say, “There’s only one thing I want for my birthday this year, and this is it.” It’s a big leap from last year’s birthday present. Do you know what he gave me last year? A child restraint harness. Yup. Because nothing says “I love you, dear wifey” like a child restraint harness. Even if it is attached to a cute green owl backpack.