Recipe for happy chooks
Only a few basic ingredients are required for chook health and happiness!
Whether you have a few square metres in the backyard, or hectares to spare, you can keep chooks. Only a few basic ingredients are required for chook health and happiness! However, omit any of them and your mix may go horribly sour ...
Ingredients (per chook per day)
Serves a minimum of three chooks for happiness. Will entertain the whole family.
1 square metre of outdoor space (should include sun, shade, and dust)
30 – 50 centimetres of a fat, round perch
30 –50 square centimetres of nesting space
1 litre of cool clean water (per day)
110g of a complete feed with a minimum 16% protein
Leafy greens, to (the chook’s) taste
Lots of bedding and nesting materials such as straw, wood shavings, rice hulls
Clean kitchen or garden scraps as they occur
Treats - occasional
Method
Firstly, prepare the sleeping and nesting quarters (the “coop”).
This must be protected against winter and summer extremes in your region - including wind - must be easy to clean, and must have enough space for all the chooks you plan to house.
It should contain a chunky perch, of about the thickness of your ankle, at least 30cm off the ground.
It can be made from wood, metal, plastic; it can be purpose-made or adapted from other enclosed areas (such as ordinary sheds, dog kennels or children’s cubbies).
Add nesting boxes.
Your chooks need somewhere private to lay their eggs. They prefer areas that are relatively small, dark, and enclosed. Purpose-built boxes inside the coop are ideal; however, chooks might just make their own nests in the bedding materials in the coop.
Next, prepare the attached run.
Your coop and run may be part of a combined enclosed “tractor”, or the coop may sit inside a larger run. This depends entirely on your preferences and available space.
This must be made proof against foxes and other vermin. Foxes are found in all regions of Australia, including cities, except Tasmania.
Fencing around the run should be about 2 metres high, with the base either dug into the ground as far as you can go, or run along the ground for at least 30cm and weighted down. Add electric hotwires or netting if you can. Add a roof if possible.
Now, supply water and food.
Water must be available at all times. It needs to remain cool in summer and defrost readily in winter if you get freezing winters. Chooks can die amazingly fast from dehydration, and they’re fussy about drinking warm, shallow water.
Food can be supplied daily but your chooks won’t over-eat if you let them have their main grain- or pellet-based mix available at all times. Self-feeders and waterers are cheap and easy to use, and free you from worrying about your chooks daily. Treadle feeders discourage rats, mice, and wild birds and reduce feed costs significantly.
Chooks are omnivores – the same as humans - and need a range of nutrients to remain healthy.
Commercial layer mixes with a minimum 17% protein level (levels are written on the bag) are the best way to ensure they’re getting everything they need. They can come as pellets, crumbles, or grain blends.
Scratch mix is made up of loose whole grains and designed to reward a chook’s natural scratching behaviour. A handful a day, scattered widely, is all they need.
Kitchen scraps and treats should be provided as supplements to the main feed, only a few times a week.
Specially-made treats from human food encourage friendliness but should be kept to a minimum - once a week - to prevent nutritional imbalances.
Note that chooks have their weak spots, just like humans. They absolutely adore fatty seeds such as sunflower seeds. These are very good for them in small quantities, but can make them fat and unhealthy in large quantities. Don’t give in to chooks looking sadly at you! Give them all the leafy greens they can eat instead.
Most importantly, acquire your chooks!
Chooks prefer to be in a flock – 2 as a bare minimum, three preferably. Depending on the breed/s you get, three chooks can provide up to 18 eggs a week during the warm seasons. Chooks go off the lay in winter and there may be times when you’re hard-pressed to get two eggs a week.
Commercial layer crossbreeds such as the commonly-available ISA Brown, Hyline, or Lohmann Brown are bred to lay an egg a day for about 18 months, regardless of season. After this time, their laying will drop off very sharply and their health may deteriorate. They don’t tend to “go broody” (want to raise a clutch of eggs) and can be prone to reproductive issues as they age. They are easily available and quite cheap, get on well with people, but tend not to get on well with other chooks.
Pure-breed chooks tend to be longer-lived and will lay more eggs over their lifetime, but will have more seasonal variation over a single year. They are more likely to go broody, depending on the breed, and come in a wide range of colours, shapes, sizes, and temperaments.
Crossbreed chooks are your backyard or farmyard crossbreeds. They result when a mixed flock of pures and crosses breed with eachother. The results are highly individual, suited to their specific backyard/farmyard, and good-looking. All new breeds result from accidental or deliberate crossbreeding, somewhere in the past.
I encourage new chook owners to get pure-breed chooks wherever possible, and can advise on where to get breeds that will suit you. However, I also firmly believe that any chook is better than no chook! Many of us have a combination of purebreed, crossbreed, and even commercial layer birds in our flocks, and love them all.
Use your chook’s talents.
Chooks love doing things that humans don’t. This includes:
Digging and spreading piles of straw, soil, mulch, or compost
Chasing after grasshoppers, mice, caterpillars, and spiders.
Eating left-over foodstuffs
Providing nutrient-rich droppings
Climbing through trees to eat old fruit, insects, and have a snooze
Take advantage of these instincts by providing them with the compost you want dug over, autumn leaves to turn into mulch, kitchen scraps to turn into compost, and soil you want loosened and enriched. “Tractors” which can be moved around your yard are an ideal way to use these instincts.
And finally, be entertained by them.
A flock of chooks rivals daytime TV for the daily dramas they enact (who will lay in the preferred nesting box first? Who will see the caterpillar first? And will the head chook lose her place in the pecking order? Stay tuned for the next thrilling episode!).
Most chook owners report the drop in stress levels gained by merely sitting with the flock with a cuppa and watching them moving around. Most chooks will quickly adjust to your presence and even use you as a perch! Gardeners may soon find their flock following them around the garden, waiting for the next juicy curl grub or new dirt pile to be unearthed.
How did you start out in chickens? Join the conversation!