Why keep chooks?

Someone asked me the other day, "Why do you keep chooks?"


A picture is worth a thousand words and this one speaks for itself.

The children feed the chooks last night's left overs for breakfast and in return the chooks provide the children with breakfast!

These eggs are an hour old.

We know what has gone into them. They are loaded with Omega3.

They have zero food miles.

My question is: Why wouldn't you keep chooks?



Bringing pullets into lay

I've had some feedback this week that some pullets I rehomed that are about 22 weeks old have not come into lay yet!



Here's Salt & Pepper settled down to lay (sorry about the photo quality but it's lovely and dark in the laying boxes).



Today's haul!

Despite a serious flood and minus temperatures overnight every single one of the girls at my place who is old enough to be laying is laying. 


If your Designer Backyarders have not come into lay and you're buying eggs at the supermarket this is an issue with a simple solution...

1. Up their protein intake.

Cat biscuits have 30% protein compared with premium laying pellets with 16% so soak a handful of cat biscuits in hot water or milk for their breakfast. 

Ask you local butcher to put the band saw dust aside for you at the end of each day then collect it once of twice a week. Feed each girl a walnut sized peice every day for a week then every second day for a week then twice a day -- when they begin to lay use it for treats only.

Meal worms are great and contain a massive 67% protein -- get freeze dried ones if you're squeemish.

2. Warm them up on the inside by increasing the oil content of their diet.

Black sunflower seeds (no matter how many you have left don't feed them these after they start laying and definitely NEVER feed them these when it's not winter).

Treat them to a few tins of sardines -- Aldi sell them for 60cents.

Together these two strategies should bring your girls into lay. And we're only 7 days away from the shortest day of the year so the sun will be on your side soon too.  Longer days will also encourage your girls to do what they do best -- provide you with breakfast!

One brown, one toffee and one green.

If you have a Designer Backyarder that is laying pretty green eggs I'd love to hear from you.

Nice weather for ducks!

You would expect the chooks to be a little excited at the prospect of a new raw straw house but it appears they are not alone.

These 3 little monkeys seem kind of thrilled too!

But then the rains came and didn't stop so work will be delayed for a week or so.



This is our road in flood.



You would think that would mean the chooks are pretty wet and miserable but soneone had other plans. Unable to get to school becasue of the water Miss P spent the day taking turned to warm and hand feed each one in front of the heater.

 

New pens

So before I can start the trial to find the best commercial layer feed on the market I need to divide the flock up into 4 separate pens.

That way I can accurately record how much they eat and how many eggs they covert that food into.

They will have to take turns free ranging -- but they do have 11m X5m in each pen.

At the end of the season I will know which feed to recommend to new mini-flock families.



This is the first of 4 new pens (I'm going to have to start holding my camera sideways to outsmart Blogger).



And this is the second pen.

Next will come the coops. 

I'm planning to build a raw straw house.  The bales will be stacked like bricks to stay strong and stable without the need for any other infrastructure.

The bales will be easy to disassemble when the floor needs cleaning.  This will also air the straw regularly so mould and parasites don't start thinking it's a cosy place to move into.

The raw straw house will provide a nice warm place for the hens to lay and brood -- although some may need to be reolcated when they are broody if the other hens in the pen insist on adding to their clutch of eggs each day.

A pitched iron roof will keep the rain out but will be light enough to move during the cleaning.

In a year or two when the raw straw bales begin to break down they will become mulch for the comfrey, tansy and lavender garden.

With the shortest day of the year fast approaching I am looking forward to having some hens go broody.