Tippy Chicks

Redtop Fly Traps now on sale. The best thing since flies bred!!

2011-04-16T10:46:00.007+01:00

Do you remember that guy, Victor Kiam, from the Remington ads in the 80's? who liked Remington razors so much that he bought the company? (ok, I'm showing my age here). Well, something similar has happened over at Tippy Chicks, albeit involving a lot less money and purchasing of multi-national companies.

As you know, we have a smallholding in Tipperary where we keep chickens and pigs. Every summer we were plagued with flies in the house. I hate the smell of fly spray and don't like the thought of spraying poison all around my kitchen so I looked into a more environmentally way of controlling flies and eventually came across the Redtop fly traps. You simply fill the trap with a litre of warm water, add the bait and hang the trap away from the area you want to protect.... sounded simple enough and though I was a bit skeptical I thought I'd give them a go.

They were a revelation! In a few days I started noticing hundreds of flies in the trap and much less flies in the kitchen. After a few weeks the difference was remarkable and I could even leave the doors open in the summer without the kitchen looking a scene from a bad horror movie.

Having used the traps for a couple of years now, I noticed that it was hard to buy them in Ireland. Horrified at the thought that I wouldn't be able to buy them any more, we looked into becoming suppliers. The traps are manufactured in South Africa and we're pleased to now be selling them in Ireland.

If you keep any sort of livestock, these traps are an absolute must during the summer months. The corny slogan really is true... they're the best thing since flies bred!

They are only €15 each, including postage and will trap up to 20,000 flies. They can be bought on-line through the Tippy Chicks website or at www.redtopireland.com

It's been a long winter...

2011-04-06T17:27:00.003+01:00

...but it seems that spring is finally here (thank God!). The leaves are budding on the trees and the chickens are laying eggs like there's no tomorrow.

Last year I had lots of people looking to buy lavender araucanas (better known as 'the fluffy-headed chickens that lay the blue eggs'). I can only raise a small number of chickens every year so this year I'm selling fertile hatching eggs. Should help to increase the numbers a bit. If you want any please contact me through the website www.tippychicks.com or have a look on ebay for some last minute 'bargain' deals! (search for Lavender araucana hatching eggs on ebay.ie)

Tiny Tippy Chicks and Good Mothers

2010-05-20T10:17:00.005+01:00

It's all happening here in Tipperary at the moment. We're hatching out eggs continually so there's lot's of little chicks running around the place - from medium size, to small, to tiny. We usually use incubators for hatching out chicks, but if one of our hens goes broody we'll pop some eggs under her. The black hen in the video below is one such hen - she's just hatched out two tiny little araucana chicks out of a total of 7 eggs. Not such a great result, but she's proved herself to be an excellent Mum in the past and takes really good care of her chicks until they're big enough to fend for themselves (and even then she'll stick up for them if required!)

Undercover cockerel

2010-03-29T12:17:00.004+01:00

This small chicken, a mongrel of the chicken world, has had a tuft of feathers on it's head since it popped out of an egg. I was 99% certain it was a hen as it's brothers from the same hatch were quite obviously showing traits of being cockerels about 6 weeks ago. So, confident that it was hen, I let it live in my araucanas.

Any of of you who are one my waiting list for araucanas will be pleased to know that they started laying last week. So there I was happily collecting eggs to pop in the incubator last weekend, when I caught the afore-mentioned chicken doing what all randy cockerels like to do in the spring. Tufty headed chicken is most definitely not a hen. Of course this means that I can't incubate the araucana eggs yet, as they will most likely hatch out as white tufty-headed fellas.

Note to self: Never make any fixed plans that involve chickens.

Spring is on the way

2010-02-16T10:18:00.002Z

For me, the first sign that spring is on the way is when the chickens start laying eggs again. Over the winter they've managed to give us one or two a day, but one day last week I opened the nest box to find 10 eggs. Now that's more like it.

We've been doing a bit of work tidying up the chicken pens and have built a new house and run for our marans.

The incubator is on and in three weeks there will be a new batch of chicks popping out of the eggs. There's nothing that says SPRING like the cheep of a day old chick!

Happy New Year

2010-01-05T10:25:00.003Z

A very Happy New Year from the people and the chickens at Tippy Chicks. With the heavy frosts at night and snow during the day it can't be much fun being a chicken in this weather. Like us, I'm sure the chickens are looking forward to some warm spring days...

Santa's chicken grotto

2009-12-02T14:35:00.006Z

Seasons Greetings from Tippy Chicks! Christmas has sneaked up on us again... if you're looking for a really useful present to give this Christmas, have a look in Santa's Chicken Grotto on the Tippy Chicks Website (www.tippychicks.com) where you can buy vouchers for hens and starter packs, for delivery in the spring. Remember though, a chicken is for life, not just Christmas... but unlike dogs, a hen will provide the food for you :-)

It's Hibernation time....

2009-10-14T15:21:00.004+01:00

Zzzzzzzz...... yawn...........hmm.... quiet around here isn't it?

The days are getting shorter, the weather is getting colder, and like all sensible creatures Tippy Chicks is going into hibernation for the winter.

It's been a great year for chickens, with lots of new people now beginning to keep a few hens in their gardens for their own supply of eggs. We're delighted that our hens have gone to some very happy homes.

All our hens are sold for this year and we wont be hatching again till the new year. Our own chickens are hoping for a mild winter, as are their owners who are looking forward to a few months keeping cosy in front of a roaring fire.

Please check back with us again in the new year, when we hope to have a new supply of fluffy chicks to brighten the spring days. Until then, take care, wrap up and we'll see you soon ... Heather & Tom x

Chicken in a bin???

2009-08-13T10:09:00.002+01:00

Teenage chickens seem to develop a mind of their own. One of our maran growers insists on hopping into the feed bin every time I go to feed them. Perhaps he prefers dining alone? Yesterday I put the lid on him by accident, if I hadn't heard the loud squark he'd still be in there now (quite full and happy though, I expect).

Chicken in a basket

2009-06-25T15:19:00.003+01:00

We've had more eggs hatching out this week - a mix of mainly welsummer and cuckoo marans. Here are some of them being transfered from the incubator to the brooder.

Geese keep armed guard over chicks

2009-06-17T18:31:00.008+01:00

The chicks that you watched hatch out are now almost three weeks old and are starting to feather up nicely. I have some of them living in the goose pen, in the house that Flymo used to reside in.

The chicks are very happy to be out on grass. It's the most natural way to raise them. They've been out sunbathing this afternoon but when it gets cold they pop back into their house to keep warm under the electric hen. In a couple of weeks they wont need the extra heat any more as they'll have a full set of feathers to keep them warm.

Flymo would probably now be classed as a teenager. He's about the same size as the adult geese now and has decided he'd much rather be a goose than a human, which is quite a relief for me, his adopted Mother.

Since we moved the chicks in with the geese, the geese have been on constant chick watch. As soon as I let the geese out of their house in the morning they head straight over to the chicks and watch them all day. It's like TV for geese!

Flymo makes some friends

2009-05-29T10:23:00.008+01:00

Flymo has been living in one of our chicken houses, within the goose pen, to help the adult geese get used to his presence.

I've been letting him out with them every day for supervised visits. The gander is very good with him but the goose is a bit wary and likes to make sure Flymo keeps his distance.

Today, they're all out together and seem to be getting on well... fingers crossed!

Chick watch - 2 days old

2009-05-26T14:42:00.019+01:00

The chicks are now all fluffed up and running around like mad things. They were very well behaved for their photo shoot...

We had four different breeds of chicken in the incubator. This is a Minorca chick

This is a Marans chick

This is a lavender araucana chick

And this is a light sussex chick

Play the video to hear them cheeping!

Chick watch - Sunday pm

2009-05-24T20:50:00.002+01:00

So, just to prove me wrong, another 3 popped out today! Hope you've enjoyed watching. If you want to see the progress of the chicks please pop back in a few days.

Thanks for watching!
Heather :-)

Chick watch - Sunday am

2009-05-24T08:08:00.003+01:00

There are 5 chicks in the incubator now - all of these hatched yesterday evening and last night. I'll leave them in for a few more hours so they can dry off properly and recover some energy (it's hard work being born!).

I wouldn't expect any more to hatch out now... there's always a few that don't. But you never know, sometimes one will bust out when you least expect it.

Chick watch - Saturday pm

2009-05-23T22:04:00.002+01:00

Hi all. Hope you got to see some of them hatch today.

You may have noticed me take a few of the chicks out of the incubator today... the chicks that hatched out first were getting a bit stroppy and pecking at the new arrivals, so I moved the new arrivals to another incubator to save them any distress. Shortly I'll be taking the older chicks out of the incubator and putting them in their cosy new home...

Will be switching the lights off at 12pm, then we're back on line at 8am, hopefully a few more will hatch tomorrow.

Chick watch - Friday pm

2009-05-23T01:00:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone. Thanks for watching. Three of the little guys have hatched so far. We're expecting most of them to hatch tomorrow.

You'll see that they're very wet and crumpled up when they first hatch out. It takes about 12 hours for them to fluff up and start bombing around the place.

Switching the lights off now to give them a bit of a rest. Tune in again at 8:30... there should be a few more by then.

The adventures of Flymo the gosling

2009-05-20T17:02:00.000+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I hatched out a baby goose. He was one of 4 goose eggs that I had in the incubator but unfortunately the other three didn't make it.

So, Flymo the gosling is now technically an orphan and has been living in our porch under a heat lamp for the last couple of weeks. I tried unsucessfully to find him a little goose friend so now he seems to have presumed I'm his Mammy and he follows me everywhere. It's quite difficult to explain to a 2-week old gosling that he's a goose and I'm a human, and that generally the two species don't live together.

Yesterday I moved him outside into a pen with the adult geese. He's living in one of our customised 'strawberry design' hen houses and seems to be settling in well, despite trying to eat the painted srawberries.

I'll leave him there for a couple of weeks, in sight of the adult geese and then hopefully they'll all be happy to live together.

Hatching time is approaching....

2009-05-19T17:15:00.000+01:00

At the moment I have 3 broody hens that are about to hatch eggs, plus a load more in the incubator. They're all due to hatch from now until the weekend.

There are eggs from a few different types of pure breed hens - Marans, Minorcas, Araucanas and Light Sussex, plus a few of our own hybrid hens.

For our own supply of eggs I like to raise hens that will produce a variety of different colours of eggs. The marans lay a very dark brown egg, Minorca's lay white eggs and araucanas lay a very unusual bluey green egg.

So let's see what pops out of the incubator at the weekend...