Two dogs, seven guinea fowl and 20-odd ISA brown chickens. That’s how many animals Ray and Jenni Hill have at their property in Kialla.
The Hills have nothing but positive things to say about all their animals, which not only provide comfort and love but also, courtesy of the guinea fowl and chickens, fresh eggs.
Their two dogs, Rusty and Roly, are kelpies.
“Rusty is 12 and we got him at six weeks old,” Mrs Hill said.
“Roly is 14 and we got him three years ago. He was a rescue dog.”
As for personality, Rusty is very much a ‘feed me and love me’ type of dog, but he pulls his own weight.
“Rusty is the boss of the whole place,” Mr Hill said.
“He rounds up the chooks and puts them away. He rounds up the guinea fowl and tries to (put them away).”
He also loves water.
Roly, on the other hand, is much more placid and happier to go with the flow, with less love for water than Rusty.
Though the Goulburn Valley is home to many snakes, the Hills’ residence is probably the safest place to be because of the seven guinea fowl, a bird that comes South Africa, that reside on the property.
“One day I was walking down the backyard and I could hear the guinea fowl going right off,” Mrs Hill said.
“And when I went down to the area to look, next thing this brown snake comes full circle and a hell of a hurry. He didn't worry about me, he just kept going past me.
“I realised that the guinea fowl was in the next-door neighbour's place and it actually chased the snake out of there. So when the guinea fowl came back, he chased the snake around the backyard.”
Though the guinea fowl don’t kill or eat the snakes they come across, they make it known to any slippery intruder that they aren’t welcome.
Ray and Jenny got the guinea fowl from a place near Katandra and joke they are like watchdogs.
“If something strange happens the guinea fowls are straight on to it,” Mr Hill said.
A day’s routine for the guinea fowl sees them get up and make their usual stroll around the garden and to the front yard where Mr Hill will open up the gate and let them out for a walk.
By lunchtime they are back home ready to eat.
Food for the guinea fowl is the same grain that is fed to the chickens.
Like chickens, guinea fowl lay eggs.
According to Mr Hill, the eggs are mostly yolk and have a stronger flavour than those from chickens.
The shells are also tougher than chicken eggs, a fact the locals crows have learnt to their dismay.
“Crows will pick up the (chicken) eggs and they take them out and drop them on the bitumen road to break it … they try and break guinea fowl eggs, of course they're a lot harder,” Mr Hill said.
“So quite often I’ll find the guinea fowl eggs out on the side of the road somewhere where the crows have taken them out and dropped them.”
For anyone thinking of getting a guinea fowl, Mrs Hill recommends purchasing more than one, as they are social creatures.
“You’d go mad with the noise they make looking for somebody else,” Mrs Hill said.
As for their chickens, the 20-odd birds lay about a dozen eggs each day.
Both Rusty and Roly are naturally affectionate; however, Mrs Hill said the 20-odd chickens were also quite fond of humans.
Somewhat surprisingly this affection is shared among the animals themselves, though with some stipulations.
“They've all got certain places, like the chooks don't like guinea fowls coming into their pen. So they'll chase the guinea fowl out,” Mr Hill said.
As for the eggs the chickens produce, Ray and Jenni eat them or otherwise give them to friends or barter with them.