Poultry Keeping General Discussion #1

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This thread is for you to share your experiences keeping chickens, ducks, geese, etc. If you are new to keeping poultry this is a great place to ask questions about how to get started, if you are well along on your poultry keeping journey please come and share your story, if you are an old-hand at keeping poultry we’d love for you to share some of your wisdom and experience.

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I only have one chook at the moment following a fox massacre, but have a set up that fits 12 comfortably. Our chooks have been free range (1/2 acre) until now, but i am going to put a chook run in before we restock. We built our chook house, it is over engineered and gorgeous- the taj mahal of chook sheds.

We have two chooks and usually get two eggs a day, although one of then has been a little slack lately (just don't know which one!) Unfortunately due to having two dogs and neighbours having cats they are locked on their pen most of the time unless we are home and outside. They go nuts when they are let out & dig up my garden :/

I have a question though for those with chooks - both of ours have feathers missing under their necks - I think they rub up and down on the coup wire but could it be something else?

:doh:

I wanted to be the first to post :rofl:

I have just got my first 5 chooks, young girls who are yet to lay. I am slowlygetting them use to their surroundings so they have not been free ranged yet but they will be very soon. I love them heaps and I think I will be guttered when I lose my first one.

RCC - as I am only just starting out I was just going to suggest dusting them and their enclosure for mites that might be making them itchy?

HotI - I would LOVE to see your over engineered chook house. I am looking for some ideas as DH has agreed to starting the rebuilding phase of the original chook area here on the farm. I was given permission to use the original Clydesdale transoprtation crate, but sadly its a HUGE, HEAVY crate and even if I remove the old timber it would still require a crane or similar to shift it .... something we just don't have.

SO that said I need to re think how I am going to do things and aside from the run would love some ideas on how to build a chook coop that will house quite a few more birds. Would you like to share?? photo's dimensions, materials etc etc????

I have a few Q's.

I have noticed one of the birds has slightly, what looks like blood, stain droppings. These birds have never had grass beneath their feet or to taste so I have put it down to new things aggrivating their system. I cannot tell which bird though and they all seem happy enough.

Also - a few of the birds seem to do a little bit of a cough, thinking they might have a cold. Are there vitamins that can be added to their water to help them recover or is their something I can "whip up"

Also - Scraps, the girls don't seem interested yet in scraps but are there things they SHOULD NOT be fed?

and - I have been covering one section of their run where I keep their feed because its been raining and I don't want their food getting soggy. Do chooks care about soggy food?

Finally - how frequently should I be changing their hay? and what to do with the used stuff as I don't have "garden beds".

Thansk Nae x x

oohhh great thread! We have 23 chooks, did have a duck but a nasty fox got her but she will be replaced soon, we are also getting geese and a turkey or 2. The joys of living on a farm lol

OK so I have discovered that the bloodied poop is something called Coccidiosis or something :dunno: we have put some medication into their water, hopefully they will drink it.

I want to build a permanent chicken coop somthing that can house a few birds ....... any ideas? has anyoen got that book "building chicken coops for dummies"


Would love some ideas

Nae x x

Nae, that's what I was going to say the cocci thing, however it could also be worms - have they been wormed? You should worm every 3 months, and 2 weeks after the first time iygwim.
I have a great forum, which is not for profit with loads of info with all things chooky related that I used heaps when I was new to keeping chookies. It is called back yard poultry dot com if you are interested.

I currently have 1 rooster (George who was initially Mildred and was not meant to be a boy), 1 light sussex Bessie, 1 Coronation sussex Lizzy, 1 buff sussex Buffy and 4 cross breed girls, Mrs Sloakham (who is what they call blue in colour), Betty, Francis (who when I first got her always hid in the corner haha) and Gladys.
The sussex girls I hatched under one of my other girls who was broody year before last, I have also hatched 2 other broods of chicks who moved to new homes.
Chicken keeping is lots of fun and can be addictive!!

yay!! We are in the throes of getting chickens.
My DH is building a coup, have the holes dug already for the foundations. We will be getting 3 chickens, hopefully Australorps.
I can't wait!
I have just purchased Alanna Moore-Backyard Poultry Naturally. It has great tips on building coups and different breeds and keeping them.

Nae, once DH has built ours, I will post pictures up on FB, he has been very thorough with his design.

I have joined a forum called backyardchickens which I think is a USA thing but there are some excellent resources on there and its lead me to find a design in coop that I am REALLY interested in. Its a huge coop and the smallest I believe it should be made is something like 8'x12'.

Its the Woods design. I love it!! big and open and airy ... lots and lots and LOTS of fresh air for the birds which makes perfect sense.
It has two open windows at the front which NEVER closes so that allows plenty of fresh air in the coop all year round. Positioned correctly, then there would be little weather problems too.

Looking at the old coop here ont he farm I believe it would also be considered and "open air/fresh air coop" what a shame FIL keeps all his nuts and bolts in there its perfect.

The book was written in the 1920's and everything that I had read so far (thank you amazon) makes good logical sense. the people on the forums who use this design (while incredibly enthusiastic) have SNOW in their yards and all over the coop and the birds still seem to be happy and healthy.

OK so it won't be for all species of birds but if you think about it logically, Mother nature has provided the birds with the right equipment - feathers and downy feathers ...I sleep under a down doona and its so snuggly and warm ... the birds can and will sleep happily in trees too so an open air coop really (in my mind at least) makes good sense rather than the danky dark box they are currently in.


I am also looking into the deep litter method and using sand and woodshavings.

Its part of the grand scale plan but DH supports it providing I do most of not all of the hard work :leap:

first step - buy book - CHECK
Second step - Find corner post underneath 30 years of Ivy growth - FUN (not)

Nae x

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I have a few Q's.

Also - a few of the birds seem to do a little bit of a cough, thinking they might have a cold. Are there vitamins that can be added to their water to help them recover or is their something I can "whip up"

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Yep, i can't find the name of it now (we have it around here somewhere though), i think it was a powder that you add to their water. we have used it when chooks look abit off.

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Also - Scraps, the girls don't seem interested yet in scraps but are there things they SHOULD NOT be fed?
and - I have been covering one section of their run where I keep their feed because its been raining and I don't want their food getting soggy. Do chooks care about soggy food?

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Chooks don't like similar foods that shouldn't be given to dogs or put in the compost- onion skins etc

You don't want their food to get wet cos it can get mouldy or start to grow (especially if it a seed mix).

OK I have been spending a fair bit of time on 2 different poultry forums lately but wanted to share that I have started working on the reconstruction of part of the original run. Granted I am working faster than I have materials or money but it feels good to have something else to keep my focus on rather than really noticing the "so we are not pregnant this month" thing.

I enjoy a good hard days work being out in the fresh air and seeing the changes I make thats the thing ... I hate doing stuff that is sublte, that you cannot tell stuff is happening.

Anyways My girls faces are starting to redden as is their little sticky uppy things and they certainly are becoming more friendly and trusting though I do resist the urge to catch and cuddle them LOL

Nae x

The redding of their faces and sticky uppy things (combs) means they are very close to laying!! Do you have a nesting box for them?

Yeah my coup has 4 nesting boxes though they all seem to want to sleep in two of them. They girls are still on the pullet mix and their faces and combs are not quite red but they are redder than when I got them. i winder who will be the first to go??
They are sweeties, today I had to chase them onto the other side of the fence as I was rehoming some jasmine that I had planted to cover up the old wires and I have decided that I will build the trench and attach the wires on the out side of the new run so my plants would be in the way. The girls took it upon them selves to investigate the area where the new run and coop will be cheeky little chickens!!

I am heading out tomorrow to price and maybe order some ACQ treated pine 2x4's will be interesting to see how much that will cost LOL Am also going to buy a professional stapler too.

Nae x

Well DH has been madly digging holes for the foundations :dance: He is so particular and thorough I expect it will take a few weeks to build.
I have checked out a few places to get the chicks from and are now hoping to get AustralorpXLeghorn. Think it's the same place you got your hens from Nae? How did you go transporting them in the car?
We are soo excited, I have been saving my egg cartons already in anticipation :lol: I also have a few 'orders' already for eggs!
My book arrived today, it's as good as I remembered.

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Yeah my coup has 4 nesting boxes though they all seem to want to sleep in two of them. They girls are still on the pullet mix and their faces and combs are not quite red but they are redder than when I got them. i winder who will be the first to go??
They are sweeties, today I had to chase them onto the other side of the fence as I was rehoming some jasmine that I had planted to cover up the old wires and I have decided that I will build the trench and attach the wires on the out side of the new run so my plants would be in the way. The girls took it upon them selves to investigate the area where the new run and coop will be cheeky little chickens!!

I am heading out tomorrow to price and maybe order some ACQ treated pine 2x4's will be interesting to see how much that will cost LOL Am also going to buy a professional stapler too.

Nae x

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I had one of my babies lay for the first time and it was the cutest widdle egg I've ever seen - about the size of a quail egg and when i cracked it, the yolk wasabout the size of the tip of your pinky!

Ooo I just realised this thread existed! Yey!

We have two chooks. Used to have 5, but I found them a bit too much. And considering we very, very rarely eat eggs I didn't really need that many. hehe! Henny Penny and Chicken Lickin' (original names eh? ;) )

Will pop in later tonight and have a read of what everyone is saying :)

We are restocking our chook house later this week. Yay! In the next couple of days, we will clean it all out, wash it down and then put more shavings down.

We live in suburbia, what's the deal with giving two or so chooks a good home.... How much square 'meterage' would you suggest for two or three chooks?

ooooh i so want to own some chookies for eggs but im not allowed and its not the real estate as i dont really have one its due to diseases :(

How many eggs do you get a day/week???

I have 6 hens and get between 3 and 6 eggs a day - I give alot away! You can't go past a home grown egg!

wow, me and my Df have a fryed egg almost every night with dinner we go through like a dozen a week almost

Due to us living/working on a huge chook farm we are not allowed our own personal chooks for disease reasons which is really annoying....

What would you require for a chook pen?? if i can get my mum to build a chook pen i can give her some chooks and she can have them for eggs for me :)

Oooo we have our own chatter thread! My poor girls are not very happy with the amount of rain over the last few days. Even if we leave the garage open and their coop is dry they insist on sheltering under bushes, which are not very dry!

NaeNae - no chocolate, avocado and rhubarb for hens. Ours get all other leftovers and are not fussy at all. They love the leftovers so much they stand at the front door and tap to let me know they're waiting after they are let out in the morning.

Heather - Thats great, I think a thorough job will serve you best and a loong time. Are you talking about Abundant layers? They can provide you with a box but if you have a cat cage or can borrow one I strongly recommend that. We nearly had bords loose inthe car because the bottom of the box they provided had fallen through.
See about getting them young too. My Pullets were about 8-10 weeks old when I got them and seriously its taken a fair bit of my hanging around to get them semi ok with me. I would check out Backyard Poultry and get into their forum (Info Centre) as there are quite a few breeders on there. I really liked Bianca and Brendan though I had hoped for birds that were handled quite alot. Never mind ... I may or may not buy from them again when "Cluckingham Palace" is built. I htink I will check out the local poulty club as they have auctions so might be able to get some of the rarer breeds cheaper or something. I have been given a name of a man to seek out at the Warragul one to ask him to show me "good" birds because I am inexperienced.

Kimmi - for their housing I believe the general rule of thumb is 4 square feet per standard bird (bantams are smaller so might be different) and approx 12inches of perch and allow a meter square per bird for a small enclosure. If the birds will get run of the garden through the day then size doesn't matter so much but if they are enclosed then the bigger the better really. If its too squishy the birds can resort to cannibalism which you don't want. This is just the info I am aware of, someone else who is a lot more experienced may be able to offer more ;)

~*Mizqtie*~ might want to get either "Raising Chickens for Dummies" and/or "Build a Chicken coop for Dummies" ebay has a "Dummies" sale on at the moment as there are plenty of designs in there. Build it yourself, DO NOT BUY A PREMADE ONE you can do it MUCH cheaper making it yourself AND at least it will not be made with flimsy materials, I could have got ALL my run materials (it will be 42.1' x 18') for the cost of what I spent on that cheap, china made crappola!

Jennifer13 - thanks for that, I never give chocolate away so no issues there :rofl:

Well today I went and got a few prices for some materials for one side of the run. It was not as bad as I thought it would be but still its going to take me ages to build due to finances. I have found two good local recycled places and I am just waiting on my open air book to come so I can finally decide on a design once and for all.

I am still barking like a dog thanks to this rotten cold thing, so may skip playgroup tomorrow (again) so I am not coughing over other peoples kids. IF I do this I should be able to dig my trench along the post line so I can bury the wire.

I plan on attaching the wire to the outside of the run rather than run it on the inside like Granny did.

I also plan on attaching a gate/door thing to the run on the garden side so that we can let the girls out. I have found a cute arch shaped one for $55 its wide enough for a wheelbarrow too :dance:

Anyways,

I should hit the sack I have a big day tomorrow. Being sick and still working on things takes so much energy but every time I look into their clucky faces I just can't help myself LOL

Nae x

Thanks Nae, it was abundant layers I was talking about. I like the Bakcyard Poultry site, will have a good look around the site later.
Mirboo North had fair not long ago, they had quite a few breeders with their poultry on show. I wish I had got a few names!
The last Mirboo North market I went to, a man was there sellling chicken coups he made himself. They looked very sturdy.

I got 7 new chooks today! Just been down to put them on the perch. Have to go in to training mode again.

We only have one old chook left, so hoping she copes well with the new additions. She will also have to be locked up with the newbys for a couple of weeks so they get to learn where home is. I don't think she will be too happy about that.

We cleaned out the chook house completely yesterday and washed it out with the hot wash pressure washer. It looks brilliant. All fresh wood shavings and sugar cane hay stuff in the nesting boxes. looks very comfy!

Well Done Hoti I bet the coop looks magic, how are all the girls settling in?

I have been busy making a gate that will open from the garden to the main run that I am building at the moment. MIL and FIL are away at the moment which is really lovely. I was talking to SIl yesterday and she said that there is a den of fox cubs/pups not to far away in the plantation. MIL has lost 2 chooks in as many days and the other day when SIL was calling the last surviving Hen the little fox came :rofl: .........

Its a said pack, where you have birds you have preditors.

It just makes me worry that these little foxes are "tame" enough to come when called. I have been thinking about adding "something" to bury in the ground aside from wire. One suggestion has been cliplock but at $10 a meter thats going to be quite expensive with a perimeter of approx 40 metres.

I could use some corregated Iron, we have plenty on the farm BUT its already rusting so as soon as that goes int he ground we can kiss it goodbye.

A final option was to buy sleepers and bury them but again its just an extra expense at approx $6 per metre ...........

The idea of building such a large run was so IF we have a day when I cannot let them out in the garden, they still have lots of space to roam.

Any ideas????

Nae x

NaeNae - as it is being buried, can you find second stuff? We just used whatever bits of chicken wire, ringlock etc that was lying around here (we had old fencing we pulled down) to bury around the chicken coop. Is there a builders reclaim yard or a local tip that allows you to scavenge? We used to have a good one, but the council shut it down :(

Astrid - we have tonnes of chicken wire, I wanted something a little more "solid" but I can't seem to find anything. Our local tip does not allow scavenging NOR do they know (or tell the public) what happens to the stuff that is discarded there. There is a second hand building supply place two towns across but he doesn't have roofing or fencing just timber and windows and doors etc. There is a place in the nearest main town but his trading hours and what he ACTUALLY trades are not in sync :doh: he has lots of recycled tin so I would need to have a good look to see if I can find cliplock. I have seen an ebay sale for some seconds but its all the way in Melbourne and what it would cost we'd be almost better off buying the stuff new ........ We'll probably just use chicken wire and do a low "hot" wire around the outer edge ....... I just wanted something harder ITMS.

Nae x

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Thanks Nae, it was abundant layers I was talking about. I like the Bakcyard Poultry site, will have a good look around the site later.
Mirboo North had fair not long ago, they had quite a few breeders with their poultry on show. I wish I had got a few names!
The last Mirboo North market I went to, a man was there sellling chicken coups he made himself. They looked very sturdy.

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Heather why don't you get in contact with the Warragul Poultry CLub or similar in MIrboo North I have been told most places are quite friendly and happy to help out.
I think I know the coops your talking about, I am SURE I have seen one parked in Leongatha on the Mirboo Road with a for sale sign on it. I am not sure if you know the price he sells them for but I am sure its between $650 and $800. You could build your own for the same price if not less than ....

Thanks Nae, Bernie is determined to build our own, he has started already. Got the foundations dug out. Just needs to time off to get a proper 'build session' happening :lol:
I will check out around Gippsland when we are ready to fill our coup.

To anyone getting new chooks, I would advise you to avoid commercial layer type hens - ISA browns, etc at all costs! They are bred to lay and lay lots and lots, but that also means they are very prone to reproductive cancers, etc. I went through some very devistating losses of beloved chookies early in my keeping years - all ISAs. I decided to go pures and crosses of pures from then on and have not had any deaths or even illnesses since!

OK I am SO confused ......

I was talking to my FIL and (between you and me) I think he is quite impressed at the project I am undertaking ... not just for a chick but for a CITY chick LOL.

We were talking about burying chicken wire and he said burying ANYTHING would be a complete waste of time as the acid in the soils will corode (sp?) anything in no time. HIS suggestion was to bring the wire as close to the ground as possible and string up a tension wire (which I was planning on doing anyway) and leaving some wire extended outwards for the grass to grow up into as that is what they did for the sheep. His other suggestion was to run a hot wire along the bottom edge, again another of what I was planning on doing.

Now all things considered, Pop has never left the farm so I tend to trust his knowledge especially when it comes to fencing and soil etc.

So now I am stuck!!

I was thinking at the very least I will still bury some wire but I might use the old stuff that I have taken down and roll it up a bit and wrap the old barbed wire around that then do the bottom of the fence the way FIL has suggested.

He made a very good point of mentioning that the chicken farm up the road only has a little chicken wire ont he fence and that there is a hot wire that runs around the perimeter of their paddocks. They do also have a merema (sp?) and some alpacas in with their free range flocks but the flocks are true free range as in no locking up the birds at night.

Nae x

Maremmas and alpacas are very good with guarding, especially against foxes. Which would be why they can get away with the chooks freeranging all the time. Alpacas will stomp a fox to death.

We just lost 2 girls and the important pure bred ones, the other day. We believe it was a fox, there was just a pile of feather in the paddock. We thought they would be fine as we have goats, 2 of which we have seen take on a fox.

Your Pops suggestion of the fencing does sound quite good though.

:rofl: Astrid - you know I don't know ONE chook owner who has said that an Alpaca are good for guarding flocks ... NOT ONE. They are MEANT to be good but they really are useless.

Our alpacas were kept with some calving heffers and we still had fox attacks. The Alpacas were also put with some of MILs lambs and we lost two due to fox attacks. The Alpacas were kept next to MIL chooks (in the same area) and she lost 3 of the 4 she had.

It could be a personality thing too and maybe females make better guard animals than wethers do :dunno:

I have seen a herd of alpacas trample and run out a fox terrier but it was the girls that were in the lead and I know the Alpha female will put herself between the herd and "danger" ...

Zak (my alpaca) will chase my dogs but he is useless as anything else. I will still use them around that area though but I sure as hell wouldn't rely on the fellas we have here :rofl:

I don't have alpacas (and don't want them), just going by some others down here who run lots of different animals, that they have had alpacas take on foxes.

I don't think anything is a guarantee against foxes.

Well, we have worked out the culprits for our lost birds. We first though foxes or wild dogs, but the signs were wrong. No carcass was left, just a huge amount of feathers where we lost the 2 Faverolles girls. When DH came home the other evening he saw 2 massive birds of prey, most likely eagles with a wing span of over 2 metres. So we immediately suspected them, the next day it was confirmed when I saw them and noticed that one dropped something. I went to check it and found it was one of our Faverolles boy, the big one we were planning to be the next rooster when he grew up. He was quite big already at 3 months, about the size of an ISA brown. We thought they would be too big to take, but in the claws of an eagle they look so small.

So our plans have changed, we were originally going to let them free range during the day and have specific runs for when we need to isolate for breeding, but now we will need to build a massive enclosure that is fully netted.

Will be keeping them all locked up for a couple of days in the hope the eagles move on. 3 were hiding under the house last night and I have managed to catch 2. 1 boy is still wandering around outside and I just can't catch him.

Wow! we don't have those sort of predators here. Most exciting was when a possum moved in to the chookhouse and then got locked in for the night. (no killing, just the most exciting wildlife & chook story i got).

Hope they move on, i imagine that netting would get expensive

Astrid - I was reading about companion stuff, and a suggestion to plant corn was made so the birds have somewhere safe to hide?

Thats awful Astrid :cry:

We get them here too I am SO paranoid about the prey birds. The bird netting isn't as exxy as the wire/mesh and will keep them relatively safe. I second planting something for them to hide under but think it wise to keep them either enclosed or in a fully enclosed large run until the birds move on, might take a little while though because they know the chooks are there ITMS.

Best of luck hun, I am so sorry you've lost your birds :hug:

Nae x

Oh no Astrid. :( Hope the eagles move on and the remaining chickies are okay.

No predators here. Possums on the roof of the coop, but that's it. Fx!