It all began when we needed to get the chooks into their tractor early as we were going out for the evening and didn’t want to leave them at the mercy of the foxes (and I’ve heard horrible stories about foxes and chooks). We managed to get all but Ruby in. She then ran under the house and I followed her crawling around in the mud trying to shoo her out. Finally she fled into the bushes over the road with K in hot pursuit. I could see K heading my way so I ran to the tractor and opened the door thinking he was herding her in. Out ran Pearl. K then appeared around the corner of the garage with Ruby firmly under his arm. He then had to go to work and I spent another hour chasing Pearl around and crawling under the house in the mud again. Finally I gave up and went out. I spent a sleepless night listening for squawking noises of poor Pearl being savaged by foxes and got up at first light to see her happily pecking the ground in front of the tractor with the others looking jealously on from inside their cage.
After that day, Ruby started losing her feathers and I began to worry that we had stressed her out too much. So the gardening books got put on hold and I started borrowing books on chooks and chook tractors. Now, Amber and Opal happily come home to roost at dusk – they are the chubby ones who love their food. Ruby and Pearl won’t have a bar of it. They end up roosting on our verandah until they have settled down enough for me to catch them one by one and take them to the tractor. Ruby has grown her feathers back so it seems it was just an annual molt and not a nervous breakdown as a result of all our carryings-on. I even joined an international organic chicken yahoo group and posted a desperate plea for advice.
Slowly I am getting the hang of having chooks – and I’m enjoying them. We get about 2 eggs a day (not sure what’s going on there as they were all regular layers before – adjusting to their new quarters, people say). Now I know that we need to build a bigger enclosure for them so they can sleep in the tractor, have the enclosure to rummage around in for half the day and then totally free-range for the afternoon (apparently you’re supposed to keep them locked up until noon so they don’t lay their eggs all around the garden). I don’t think they like spending half the day cooped up in the tractor when they were used to an enclosure. So I think that’s where our problems began. I’m now thinking about building an enclosure around their mound and turning it into an orchard. Trouble is, I’m not sure if the mound is in the right place and if I build a fence around it, maybe the chooks will be able to fly out because they’re on a mound… Hmmm, well - friends are coming to visit this weekend. I’m thinking of a chook pen building weekend. Hope they’re feeling energetic.
About the Author...
Filippa lives in an ecovillage in southeast Queensland with her husband (K), her young son (Mr T), and "tummy bug" - due late September. She is passionate about nutrition, and enjoys nourishing dinner parties and luscious swims in the nearby waterhole. One day, she's hoping to say that she loves gardening too. First though, she's got to get past those childhood memories of Sundays spent pulling little weeds out of a manicured suburban garden bed.
Feb 8th, 2008 at 1:38 am
Loved your posts and welcome.
I have hens myself:
1 old black and white( silverlaced) small wyandotte ( she is so old that her sister just died of old age- but they eat so little and are so cute that I let them die of old age)
2 mixed breeds - 2.5 years old- I think they will be doggy food soon- they don´t lay eggs anymore and I have never like them much.
4 new hens from August - they are red and lay a lot of eggs 3-4 a day and it is mid winter here.
They fly easy so I cut some of the feathers on one wing so they cant fly ( you could try that)
… but they still get out of their large enclosure.( I need to fix a hole :-) )
I have to keep them there most of the time- first of all the fox loves hens… they have puppies right now - so I lost a hen the other day :-(
My dog Sienna is just a young dog and she finds them the perfect toys… and they dont lay much eggs after a afternoon in her mouth ;-)
And they really mess my garden up- digging and pulling all my new garlics up… so I let them out a few hours every afternoon - late - and keep an eye on them. In the summertime they are in the enclosure all the time- but then we feed them so many weeds, snails worms etc that they are not bored.
Feb 8th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Thanks Henriette, you sound very experienced! We have finally built an enclosure for them and they are much happier (story coming soon!). After building it though, I read Linda Woodrow’s “The Permaculture Home Garden” about chook domes and mandala garden beds that the dome sits over when the bed is resting to be mulched and fertilised by the chooks. What a great system! Not do-able for us at the moment though as we need to bring a lot of soil in here to make usable garden beds. I’ll have to go and find some snails!
Feb 8th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Hey Filippa
You sound like you are plunging into a very serious version of what is rather disparagingly (I think) called ‘hobby farming’. Careful , it might become a life-style! I know, that’s what you want, right?
Anyway, I think you are very brave. All I know about chickens is that they make a noise and their eggs are yummy. Gardening is something I vaguely recall from years ago when I seemed to live, like a mountain goat, on the terraces at Kookaburra Place.
I hope you enjoy the soil under your fingernails, and much more besides!
Peter
Feb 9th, 2008 at 3:45 am
Hi Peter, You got it! Although it feels overwhelmingly hard at the moment - not least being our sizeable mortgage. Well, step by step - one garden bed at a time people tell me. I well remember the lovely garden you created at Kookaburra Place and how much you enjoyed it! I’m sure I will find my inner gardener. But maybe that will be K’s role - he’s been disappearing into the garden where I am usually to be found in the kitchen in what little spare time I have.
Aug 19th, 2008 at 6:32 am
I enjoyed your posts.
We also enjoy our chooks a lot and find that having them is a lot easier than we had anticipated. yes, they do make noise but we live on an acreage so we dont mind it at all. On the contrary, the noise they make reminds me of life on the farm.we struggled a bit with the enclosure : it is very big but we made a big mistake. we covered it with a net so that the other big birds will not share out chooks’ meals.we also didnt want to clip them all the time [they were costantly paying a visit to our nextdoor neighbour]. With time, the debris from all the trees around us made the net sink and it now looks like it needs a big make up.The good thing we did for them was the fresh water : my husband copied the cystern system [like in the toilet]where there is always water in the cystern. he put a container in the enclosure and hooked it to a pipe [dug underground to the nearest tap]so the chooks always have fresh water without the need to change it everyday.
Because I have so little time, I made the chooks my son’s responsibility. he makes sure they get their scrapes and brings the eggs.He is also in charge of finding any chook that went missing exploring.I find that he learns a lot as he looks after them.