We inherited one chook and a dilapidated old chook house when we bought our house.

We added a few chooks, and then decided to upgrade the chook house and now have 12 healthy, happy, funny chooks.

We built the chook house (has been referred to as the Taj Mahal of chook houses), using recycled timber and corrugated iron, an old bathroom door and splashed out and bought new boards for the floor. It has a big people door at the front, and a chook door at the back with cables to open. It has 3 nesting boxes in the front that open up from outside to collect the eggs.

You will need a perch for them to sleep on. Just find a suitable large stick or you can buy a lump of wood and round the corners.

Our old nesting boxes were crates with straw in them.

We feed a complete poultry mix, that has different seeds in it, and they get all our vegie scraps, bread etc. They all free range for most of the day at the moment. We are planning to put a run in, but have to get enough cash for some tall wire because we have some flying girls and clipping didn't really help.

They will mess up your garden abit, so you might need to contain them. If ours get in the front yard, they like to scratch in the mulch and spread it on to the lawn.

Chooks are great. Ours will let us know if they have run out of food, and run up to us when we go in the yard.

A shell pool in the yard can be good, so you know they always have access to water.