24 July 2008

Eggs from the backyard



This is Lulubelle, she is a really big girl and she looks angry, but she's the sweetest and most gentle of all our chooks. Lulubelle is a barred Plymouth Rock.

Today I was going to write about keeping chickens in the backyard but I've just read a post I did in May last year on this same topic and there is not a lot I want to change. So instead of writing the same information in a different way, I've copied that old post and I'll add a few bits and pieces.

Chickens are a chaotic jumble of gentleness, cannibalism, stupidity and raw cunning so it was not surprising that the first pet I bought for my children were chooks. My kids grew up looking after chickens. They fed and watered them, carried them around, collected their eggs, played with them and helped buried them when they died. My sons are two of the most gentle people you’d ever meet. The chooks and I made them like that.



Here, from left, are Bernadette (Barnevelder), Heather (Faverolles) and Martha (buff Orpington). They are puffed up because they're cold.

The first thing you need to consider if you want to keep chooks is where you’d keep them. You’ll need a coop or chook dome for them to sleep in, some nesting boxes, a roost – this is where they’ll perch while they sleep and some room for them to roam during the day. It’s much easier to have a cement floor in the coop because you need to be able to collect the manure to use on your garden and to hose out the coop each week. Smelly chickens will have your neighbours complaining and after a few days of rain you’ll be pulling your hair out if you decide against putting down a cement floor. The hen house will need to be surrounded by a tallish fence with a gate that can be closed every night and whenever you need the hens out of the way, like when you mow the lawn. Many areas of Australia are infested with foxes and wild dogs or dingoes. If you buy some chickens you must care for them well and make sure they’ll be safe, even when you’re not a home.

Chook house designs here, here, here, here and here.

You’ll need shredded paper or straw for the nests, a feeder and a water container – we use a bucket. You could scatter the hen’s food each day and have them forage for it. Unlike other animals, hens don’t over eat so it’s much easier (for you) to have a feeder that you can fill up that will feed them for a week or so. A large plastic chicken feeder will cost about $35, a metal one will cost about $50, but they are a good investment.

The number of eggs a chook will lay is dependent upon what type they are and your climate. Chooks lay less in the cold weather and if you have pure breeds, they will take time off laying during the year to moult and replenish their calcium levels. Hybrid chooks don't do that, they're bred to be egg machines and will continue laying most of the year. Where I live, each chicken will lay about 300 eggs per year, or one every 25 hours. They lay best during warmer weather but will stop laying when they lose their feathers or if they are stressed. Work out how many hens you’ll need to supply your family with eggs. At their peak, each hen will lay about four to five eggs a week so if your family eat an egg each a day you’ll need one and a bit hens per family member. So, for example, if you have four people in your family, you’ll need five or six hens and from them you’ll get around between 25 to 30 eggs per week.



Before you buy your first chickens, ring your local council and find out what the regulations are for raising chickens in your backyard. For instance, my local council has banned roosters and the hen house must be a certain distance from neighbourhood fences, there are also restrictions on the number of chooks we keep (20), but apart from that anything goes. Find out what your local authority requirements are and be guided by them. If your local authority won't allow you to keep chickens. I encourage you to write a letter to them, and your local member of parliament, to protest that decision. Chooks were commonly kept in backyards by out grandparents and their grandparents and it is a fairly recent decision to keep backyards chicken-free. I believe it is everyone's right to keep chooks for eggs or for meat, and that right should not have been taken away from you simply because your neighbour doesn't want to see livestock in the neighbourhood. Surely we don't want to live in a place that has been landscaped and cemented with no natural elements in it. Chickens are an important part of a sustainable backyard and if that right has been taken away from you, you should fight to get it back.

Another decision you need to make before you buy is to decide if you want to keep hens for eggs or if you also want to raise your chickens for meat. Some hens are bred to maximize their egg laying potential, others are bred to have big breasts and legs so that they are best for meat chickens. Or you can do what ordinary folk have done for hundreds of years and kill the male birds for meat and keep the girls for eggs. Check the Henderson's chart for meat and egg layers.

This is Mary, one of our Australorps. Look at her pretty black-green feathers. The Australorp is an Australian breed.

There are many different types of chickens but you should buy the type you find visually pleasing and those that will suit your purpose for size, eggs or meat. For example, I keep Rhode Island Reds, Australorps, Plymouth Rocks, Orpingtons, light Sussex and others, in the past we’ve had Pekin bantams. Light Sussex is a dual purpose bird as they are good layers, good broody hens and mothers and have a good body size for meat. If you have small children, maybe you’d like to keep silkies. They are gentle and don’t mind being handled but they don’t produce a lot of eggs, so there is a downside to them. They also have black meat which might put some people off. If you’re in a city, and don’t have much space, you might consider bantams. Three would give you enough eggs for a couple or small family. I have written about the important of pure breed chooks here. I will never buy chooks bred for the caged poultry industry again; from now on, all my chooks will be pure breeds.

If you're unsure of the various types of pure breed chickens, or what conditions they're suited to, read this wonderful chart.



Here are light Sussex, Stella Gladys, and silver Sussex, Poppy. Stella Gladys is really tall her her age and has legs that look like emu legs!

You can buy day old chicks, young chickens or pullets. My recommendation for first timer chicken keepers is to buy pullets. These are chickens that are about 16-20 weeks old and will be ready to lay eggs in the next couple of weeks. Buying pullets gives you a couple of weeks to get used to looking after them and then you will have the eggs to reward you. Try to buy from a local hatchery or a local breeder. This will give valued support to your local community, it will be easier for you to travel there and back with chickens in the car and there will be less stress on the birds. They will also be acclimatised to your local area.

CHOOK FEED
Make sure your hen house is ready before they arrive, complete with food and fresh water. Chickens need four vital things to keep them healthy and laying:

  • Grains – mixed wholegrain, not just sunflower seeds, corn or wheat. They will eat all those grains and seeds but it’s much better for them, and for you as you’ll be eating their eggs, that they have a healthy mix of grains.
  • Fresh green food like spinach, silverbeet, cabbage leaves, lettuce, grass and weeds that you’ve pulled from the garden. They will also eat tomatoes, apples, pears and a number of other fruits.
  • Protein – chickens need a high protein diet to enable them to produce eggs. If your girls are free ranging, their diet will be supplemented with bugs, grasshoppers and caterpillars. This is good for the chickens and the garden. If your chickens are in a pen all day they will need high protein food in the form of laying pellets or laying mash. You can also give them meat, chicken or fish scraps from the kitchen or a little bread soaked in milk as a treat.
  • Water – this is vital to the life of your chickens. A chook can die within a short amount of time if it doesn’t have water. If you’re free ranging your chooks, have a couple of water containers that they can see. If they gather in the afternoon for a rest under a shade tree, put some water there and another under a tree near where they scratch around. There should always be a container should be in their coop. All the water containers must be clean with fresh water every day. Scrub out the containers every week to make sure you have no contaminants in the water.
We feed our girls warm porridge when the weather is cold. They love it, and see it as a treat, but it also provides extra protein and will keep them warm during those cold days and nights of winter.

My local heirloom seed store, Green Harvest, recommend the following plants for chook forage: Asian greens, buckwheat, Ceylon spinach, cherry guava, clover, corn, cucumber, golden purslane, linseed, lucerne, millet, nasturtium, oats, passionfruit, New Zealand spinach, rocket, silverbeet, soybean, tamarillo and wheat. I have found my chooks also love kale, cabbage, all types of chard, capsicum (peppers), tomatoes, pigeon peas and radish tops.



The magnificent Lulubelle.

Remember that everything you give your hens will go into producing eggs that you and your family will eat. If you give them fresh, clean water and healthy food you will be rewarded with beautiful golden eggs. You will have healthy birds that will give you few problems. If you don’t intend to look after them like you would your dog or cat, don’t buy chickens as they deserve to be treated like loved pets and, unlike cats and dogs, for their ability to produce fresh food for you and your family.

Your chickens will need a high protein diet if they are to regularly lay eggs for you. You could feed them exclusively on laying pellets or mash which you can buy from the local produce store. A more natural alternative is to give them a mixture of whole grains, amaranth, kitchen scraps and a few handfuls of laying pellets or mash. Chickens will also eat grass and will get a large amount of their nutrition from it if left to free range all day. Grass eating chickens will have a higher level of Omega-3 in their eggs than chickens that don’t eat grass. You should remember that chickens are omnivores, which means they need to eat bugs, and animal protein (meat) as well as grains and grass. Chickens are creatures of habit so start out the way you will continue to feed them, as once they are used to one thing it’s sometimes difficult to make them change their food preference.

Chickens also need shell grit which you can get from the local produce store. It will help prevent calcium deficiency. You can supplement the grit with finely crushed egg shells. To do this, wash the egg shells and allow them to dry completely. Then finely crush the shells with a rolling pin or pulse a couple of times in the food processor. The aim here is to provide a variety of grit sizes for the chickens. They will choose which size they need. A small bag of shell grit lasts a long time so don’t buy a huge amount.

We let our chickens out of their house every morning about 9am, after they're laid their eggs, and they forage around the backyard eating bugs and grass. We give them most of our food scraps. They love meat and fish, old bread, eggs, crushed up egg shells (for extra calcium), most vegetables and fruit, rice, oats, wheat and most seeds and grains. To be honest, they are will eat almost anything.

CARING FOR YOUR LADIES
The number one consideration in keeping chickens in your backyard is to keep them safe from predators. Check out what predators live in your neighbourhood. If you’re in a suburban area it may be dogs, cats and hawks. If you’re in the country or on the edge of a township you may have foxes, wild dogs and cats, owls, hawks etc. Here at my home we have huge pythons, foxes, feral cats and dogs and dingoes. The hen house we constructed is not fancy – it’s made of recycled materials with a cement floor, but it’s strong and lockable and my girls feel safe in there. We have two large dogs, Airedale Terriers and although one of them rounds up the chickens they have never chased or hurt them. Chickens are sensitive to stress. They have been known to drop dead during thunderstorms or die a couple of days after being chased by dogs. We have wild thunderstorms here during summer and I’ve never lost any hens during one but I have had hens stop laying for weeks after they’ve been scared by visiting dogs or children.

If you have a dog and bring new chickens into the backyard, you'll have to watch your dog for a long time to make sure it accepts the chickens as part of the family. A dog's natural instinct is to see the chook as something to chase and eat. The dog should not be punished for a natural tendency, you need to train it to accept the newcomers. When we bring new chickens home for the first time, our two dogs watch them carefully for a couple of weeks. Hanno often sits with them and will encourage the chickens to come up to him for food and will have the dogs sitting with him. That teaches the chickens that the dogs are friendly and it shows the dogs that the chickens are ours and we look after them. If you have dogs and new chooks, never leave your dog alone with them until you're satisfied you can trust it. It is a good idea to keep the chickens behind a dog proof fence and only let them out together when you're there with them. The more time you can spend out there with the dog and the chickens, the faster they'll grow to accept each other.

Be aware that predators come from the sky too, they are not just lurking around corners. If you have dogs, hawks won’t be so much of a problem. Chickens have a natural tendency to sit under trees and bushes so they will be protected from sight much of the time if they free range in your backyard. After a while you’ll get used to their clucking and just like a baby you’ll learn by their various noises if something is wrong. If they are scared, they’ll let you know.

Always make sure you lock them in their hen house at night. That’s the time animals like foxes, cats and nocturnal predators will be creeping about. If they are safe and secure in their house, even if you have a silent fox in your backyard, they’ll be out of harm’s way.

Try to spend time with your chickens, especially when you first get them, so they accept you as part of their flock. You’ll need to be able to pick up your chickens and check them out occasionally and they will let you do this if you spend time with them and they know you are a friendly human.

Give them treats sometimes. I’ve made it my rule that whenever we take eggs from the nest the girls get a handful of seeds. They love seeds and grain, so a handful for the eggs makes them happy and makes the yolks in the eggs a rich yellow colour.

EGGS
When you collect the eggs each day they should be clean and well formed. When your feathered ladies first start laying they may lay a few without yolks or a couple of double yolkers. The eggs will be small and light when they first start laying. When they settle into laying, the eggs will develop a good weight, the shells will be smooth and strong and the shell colour will be consistent.

Collected eggs should be stored in the refrigerator. If you provide a clean nest the eggs should also be clean when you collect them but sometimes they might be soiled or dirty. If you find an egg like this don’t wash it. Eggs have a protective membrane on the shell that protects the contents from becoming contaminated. Take the dirty egg inside and wipe it with dry kitchen paper. If you must wash it to remove the dirt, dry it with paper and use that egg next time you need an egg.

Chickens are one of the few creatures you can easily keep in your suburban backyard that produce food. So if you’ve been thinking about getting your first chooks, my advice is to jump into it. There is nothing better than fresh golden eggs from your backyard.
SHARE:

28 comments

  1. As usual a lot of really interesting information. You always give such detailed info., that it makes me think; that even a novice like myself, might be able to succeed.

    Very pretty chickens.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Rhonda, that post was very interesting. A question for you or anyone else with chooks. Can they are trained? I'm slowly getting my hubby used to the idea of having chooks when we finish building and he asked this morning can they be trained to stay off the verandah etc? Our new house will not be suitable to have a fenced off area for chooks so they would have free range of the whole yard.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fascinating as usual Rhonda. I want to give up work & travel and stay home with some feathery friends. You have this effect on me a lot!

    I used to work in an egg packing station years ago when I was at school and we were told not to refridgerate eggs. Sadly since I turned 40 and lost half my memory space (or so it seems.) I can't remember why. I think I need some of those omega 3 rich eggs from the grass eaters to get my brain going again.

    Have a lovely day
    Lizzie

    ReplyDelete
  4. If only I had the stamina to keep up with the maintainance, I'd get a couple of chickens tomorrow.

    I remember being a young girl and buying some pretty little yellow fluffy birds from the grocer's shop. I took them home in a box and placed them on the top shelf where I thought they could live. Mum was aghast when she came home and discovered I'd bought baby chickens! Dad made a hen house and a run for them but the neighbours weren't too pleased when one turned out to be a cockerel that woke everybody up at stupid o'clock.

    One day I came home to discover that the chickens had been sent to live on a farm. We seemed to eat an awful lot of chicken for a while following that. It took me a while to figure out the connection.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Rhonda, great timing! I'm getting my first chicks in August. Thanks for all the great info.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Rhonda,

    How very motivating! I am going to check out those hen coops and get a plan together for my wonderful Hubby to make. We'll probably have it ready early spring so the girls don't get too cold. I'm just wondering- do you or anyone else on here know about keeping ducks? Can they be kept with chickens?

    Thanks again for the great info. Beautiful girls you have there!

    Melissa

    ReplyDelete
  7. We have chickens and love them too! We have a problem with feather loss however and I can't figure it out. Maybe someone can help me. It is not the usual moulting feather loss and not all the hens are affected. At one point we thought it was caused by mites but have dusted and put up mite strips to no avail. Some of the poor girls are quite naked. I have thought it was nutritional - but they are free range, gets lots of grass and bugs, have mash and laying mash, too. They're all good layers. Any suggestions would be welcome.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Rhonda,
    Great post it's easy to see you love your chickens. I sat up to 11p.m. last night watching the Jamie Oliver show about chooks did any one else see it? Watching that is reason enough to keep chooks yourself.Melissa I have geese and chooks togeather and have had ducks as well. At night they all go in the pen togeather,and in the morning I let the geese/ducks out.The only thing I have found is they mess the water in the chook pen up, but as I change it every morning it dosn't matter. I do have a bath for the geese/ducks to swim in.in the yard though.Hope I have been some help.
    Mandy

    ReplyDelete
  9. Rhonda,
    THANK YOU so much for this great post with so much information. I loved reading it. Your girls are all so pretty. I can tell you love them and take such wonderful care of them.

    I'm going to have my husband read your post and know he will enjoy all the great information.

    Also, thanks for letting me know about shipping to the U.S. I will look forward to when you sell your homemade things.

    Have a blessed day and thank you again.
    Cathy

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks for the great advice on keeping chooks... I've had chooks since I first left home almost 10 years ago. You've opened my eyes to a whole lot of things about looking after chooks that I never thought about, thankyou...
    Do you ever breed your own chooks?? If so how??

    Jodie :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. This is the best article I've read so far on chickens. We are planning on raising them this next Spring (USA) and I am learning all I can about them! We have city restrictions too...but at least we can have them! We've chosen Australorps! Thank you for such an informative and thorough post!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks Rhonda great post. I have another question for you too. We are adding some pure breds to our current "flock" of two next month and wonder if you would share your experience or advice for dealing with additions and changes to the pecking order?
    Your girls are all lovely!..and very lucky.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I would really like to have chickens again. My daughter had surprized me and brought five chicks home, which we kept under a warming lamp in the garage until they were old enough, and had gotten used to the temperatures. Two of those chicks eventually went to the ranch where she worked, but three reamained here. Out of those three, my favorite colored one, a Rhode Island Red, decided she was one of the dogs and would come in our house and sleep with the dogs at night. Unfortunately, a racoon dug a hole under the chickens' yard fence and got all my chickens (this was on a warm night when my red decided to sleep with her sisters.) I haven't had the heart to get any more since then. But maybe someday, when I can pour a cement slab around their yard!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hello everyone!

    Kathy, they can be trained to do little things but they generally go wherever they want to go.

    LOL Lizzie. ;- ) It's something for you to look forward to.

    Melissa, we've never kept ducks but my understanding is that hens and ducks get along well together but the ducks tend to dirty the water all the time. Maybe they could sleep in the same pen and have separate places in the day time.

    suzen, are the chooks otherwise healthy? If so, they might be moulting. They can lose feathers in high heat. Are the chickens pecking on each other? Or are they picking at their own feathers?

    Mandy, I didn't watch that program.

    Jodie, we can't keep roosters here although I have put fertilised eggs under one of my broodies. No chicks though.
    Thanks Beth! Australorps are an Australian breed. They're good layers and quite docile. Good choice!

    Mr, you should decide on the size you want first. If you want big birds, you can't go past the plymouth rocks, rhode island reds or orpintons. If you need medium birds the australorps are fine. For small chooks, I'd go for the bantam version of the ones you like the look of, or faverolles or hamburgs.

    Most chooks have the same kind of temperment and if you pick them up often when they're young and treat them well, they'll fit right in and probably not cause a lot of bother.

    ReplyDelete
  15. This is a great post Rhonda, full of useful information. As we get a lot of eggs, I always pencil the date onto the egg before I put it into the fridge to make sure the eggs are used from oldest to newest. Though when having a meal of eggs, we always use the freshest eggs, they taste best.

    When I have pruned the lavendar bushes I also put that in the laying boxes. It smells so sweet.

    ReplyDelete
  16. HELP PLEASE!!! I have made laundry liquid earlier today, been out for the afternoon while it was cooling down and have come home to find it is firmer than I think it should be. I've tried to ladle it but it is a bit slimy and quite gluggy. I followed the instructions to the letter, the only thing I added was essential lavender oil. I made sure the sunlight soap completely "melted" in the water. My email address is pedlows@optusnet.com.au if you have the time to reply.!!

    Thank You,
    Olivia

    ReplyDelete
  17. You know, Rhonda, I didn't even know Barnevelders (yay, Dutch breed) existed in black. And I've even been to Barneveld! It's a little town, but cute and all about chickens/chooks. They have this huge egg standing next to the sign with the name of the village. :-)

    Christine from the NL

    ReplyDelete
  18. What lovely Ladys.....
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. A bit off-topic, but I wanted to pop in and tell you that I tried your recipe for chickpea burgers and they were a hit. Oh, and I forgot to add eggs but they were still good! And it made them completely vegan.

    My husband said it reminds him a lot of falafel.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Hi Rhonda :)
    When your chooks free range don't they get into your veggie gardens and flower beds and cause damage?

    We use a pen currently but I would like to try letting them free range, however not at the expense of my vegetables.

    What's the scoop? :)

    Blessings,
    Niki

    ReplyDelete
  21. Loved reading all this. We love our chooks - we have a Light Sussex, one Ancona, and three refugee Isa Browns. My four year olds buried our fourth Isa Brown today with much love and ceremony and thanks for all her eggs

    ReplyDelete
  22. Mandy, I saw the Jamie Oliver programme a few monthsw ago when it was first on. Did you also see Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Chicken Run 3-part series? The effects of that really shook up the UK supermarkets, but its made free-range chicken hard to get hold of cos everybody wants it! I've just eaten less of it as I won't eat those Frankenstein chickens. Its cruel how they are bred and I won't be a part of that. I've always eaten free-range eggs though and when possible have bought them from friends who have chickens, and even our vet sometimes has local free-range eggs in. They are always the best.

    I'd love to keep chickens, but I'm working on hubby, warming him up to the idea. Also, we have 3 cats, so need to investigate how that dynamic may or may not work. Any advice on that anybody?

    Lovely post, as always, Rhonda. Thanks so much :-)

    I love the pic of Stella Gladys and Poppy having a little chat on the bench! They're like 2 old ladies :-D

    ReplyDelete
  23. Great post. I love the pics of your girls. It makes me miss my girls and pushes me to move forward with adopting a couple new ones. In fact, I'm gonna call Sparky right now and ask him to get started on their coop, we have a ton of scrap wood that needs to be used up.
    Thanks again Rhonda, you rock!
    :0)

    ReplyDelete
  24. Hi Rhonda,

    I don't have chooks and don't plan to, but I SURE enjoy looking at the pics of yours!

    We make kettle corn for our business. We give the stales,hulls, crumbs,etc to farmers who feed them to their chickens,birds,pigs,cows,etc. Chickens(chooks)are the main source of the crumbs though. A couple of the guys told me they give their chickens oyster shells also.It's interesting hearing about the care of chickens. I love watching them!

    Maria M

    ReplyDelete
  25. Love the chooky stories Rhonda....I have 3..2 red lomans and a sweet white bantam. Like you, I give my girls warm porridge in the mornings, and mid afternoon, a mash of organic soy beans which I cook up...for the protein. My ducks have this too. The friend who gave me the girls from his large flock laughs at me, and says I spoil them, but guess who gets delicious ochre yolked eggs every day, and who doesn't? I don't eat many eggs, but am enjoying bartering with the neighbours....one gave me some spinach, and another came and dug some holes for me in exchange for half a dozen eggs.

    Melissa..I have a pair of ducks, now that they're bigger the hens don't bother them so much, but a bit of bossy pecking went on when they were little. I make sure the ducks have somewhere safe to go out of reach if the hens get a bit too nasty. The ducks sleep in the chook pen now, and most of the time I free range them together, but bring the ducks down near the house if I'm outside, as they like to be near me.

    Fifi....my cat and chooks co-exist quite well....she sits in the yard and watches them, and they peck around near her, but aren't bothered by her. She's an older cat, but this is the first time she's had contact with chooks. Not sure what younger cats might be like, but a couple of pecks and they'll soon leave the chooks alone, I would think.

    ReplyDelete
  26. I love your chickens. I keep bantams and I write about them on my blog. They give me such joy and can't believe how popular they are now. They are a real conversation starter with people as they want to know more about them and how you keep them. They are some of the best pets ever - such characters.

    ReplyDelete
  27. For those interested in building their own coops, I have developed a set of plans based on a popular European design that area easy to build and use off-the-shelf lumber from your local home improvement center with little use of tools. You can check them out at http://www.CatawbaCoops.com. - Dave

    ReplyDelete
  28. What's up to every body, it's my first pay a quick visit of this webpage; this webpage includes
    awesome and genuinely excellent data for visitors.


    My site ... Use this link

    ReplyDelete

Blogger Template by pipdig