Chickens
From the time I was eight years of age, until now, sixty years later, I have always kept chooks in the backyard. Chooks and a veggie patch have followed us wherever we have lived. When I was young, we seldom ate chicken. It was expensive meat to buy and when it was eaten it was usually at Christmas time, following a visit from an adult in the extended family who took my late father’s place, sharpened the axe, and killed and dressed a chook for Christmas.
Today, every supermarket is full of naked chickens in the freezer, labeled with numbers and for sale as one of the cheapest meats available. Every year huge numbers of chickens are raised and killed – 368 million a year are slaughtered in Australia alone. With so many birds, they are treated more like a production line than living individuals. They are the most efficient means of turning food based upon grain into meat. There may be six billion people on earth, but there are ten chickens for every person. This bird, raised for its eggs and flesh, is found all over the world.
Often they are raised in battery cages. Today, even the Australian family egg producers plan larger and more humane caging, and very large firms of chicken meat producers have told Parliament of their plans for more humane housing and raising of chickens.
Meat chickens are a special breed, selected to grow as fast as possible. The chickens people eat are 6-week-old babies with giant bodies. The chickens pay a high price for growing so fast. They have a high rate of bone deformities, which can cause problems walking. Chickens are raised in darkened sheds to keep them quiet – they are less likely to attack each other in the dark. As the manure from thousands of birds accumulates over 6 weeks, the air becomes polluted with dust, ammonia, and bacteria. Chicken farmers, as well as chickens, get lung problems as a result.
When they are 6 weeks old, catchers go through the shed at night and grab several chickens at a time by one leg. They are shoved into plastic crates for transport to the slaughterhouse. They endure the stress of rough handling, road noise, and possibly unpleasant weather such as extreme heat or rain. When they arrive at the slaughterhouse they are hung up by the feet on the killing chain. Their heads are supposed to pass through an electrified water bath to stun them before their throats are cut by an automatic knife. Their carcase is then plunged in a hot scalding tank to loosen their feathers before plucking and gutting. Then it is snap frozen, bagged, stacked and delivered to the supermarket.
My interest has been different. We keep our chickens for the eggs they lay, not for eating. Don Burke writes: “Many people still prefer to keep a few chooks in their backyard, rather than buy eggs. When selecting your chickens, choosing a type that will produce eggs for longer periods of time over the year is a primary consideration. The best backyard chook, as far as egg production goes, is the crossbreed.
The cross bred chicken is selectively bred to remove most of the instinct to go ‘broody’, which means to sit on eggs to hatch chicks. A chicken that doesn’t go broody will lay more eggs, not produce chicks. Crossbreds achieve the benefits of hybrid vigour and are better egg producers than either of the parent breeds. Crossbreeding also combines many other desirable traits such as low body weight (resulting in reduced feed costs) and non-broodiness.”
We usually buy them as pullets, of French origin, the ISA Brown. This is a cross between a Rhode Island Red and Rhode Island White. With production exceeding 300 high quality eggs in the first year and a very good temperament, this cross breed is likely to become exceedingly more common amongst backyards.
Because the birds go into moult each autumn and stop laying, one should stagger the ages of the birds in order to maintain a continuous supply of eggs. Buying replacement pullets close to point-of-lay in January or at point-of-lay in late March /early April will ensure that these young birds do not go into moult over their first autumn and will continue to lay over winter. Hens will produce their peak amount of eggs in the first three years. We keep our mature chooks as we can’t bear to part with our feathered friends and wouldn’t dream of using the axe, preferring to let the birds live their lives out in the yard.
You don’t want them laying eggs all over the ground. Therefore, when you build a chicken pen you make several nests for their egg laying. The chickens like privacy when laying eggs, so early every morning they seek out these elevated boxes with straw. If a chicken that has been released into the yard feels a need to lay an egg, she will return to the nest — as long as it is convenient.
Our ISA Browns will investigate what is going on around the yard and will come to people, often pecking at their feet. They come when I call them. I let ours out early in the morning, usually after they have laid their eggs. They have a large yard with fresh water from the tank behind their shed for roof run off, but we also let them out to free range throughout our acreage. They scratch throughout the gardens and eat well on bugs, worms and garden pests.
The ideal enclosure for chooks should firstly have a zone at the back, the coop, typically made out of wood, galvanized iron or waterproof material. This gives the birds protection from the weather, particularly in winter. Just because you may live in the city don’t think you are free of foxes. Don Burke says there are many times more foxes per hectare in all of the cities of Australia than there are in the country. A chook can make a very gentle pet or a great playmate for after school, and if you love scrambled eggs – even better! They are also great at recycling kitchen waste.
Remember when caring for very young chicks, they must be kept warm! To do this you will need to place them under a broody hen, or under a small electric globe over night. Once they are approximately 10-12 weeks of age they should be able to cope fine on their own outdoors (even at night), provided they have a suitable shelter.
Layer pellets or crumble should be available at all times and should make up the majority of the diet. Fresh veggies are good for variety. So are scraps of pasta, rice, toast, eggs, mashed potato, even scraps of meat, whatever has been left over from a meal preparation or food scraps after. Don’t leave the scraps out overnight or you will encourage rats. Birds have no teeth and by swallowing small stones, and other hard objects, use these within their gizzard to grind down their food. Therefore, they must be provided with a supply of shell grit for this purpose. They must always have access to clean water.
My metal chook shed was demolished in a storm when a neighbour’s huge tree crashed down during a storm, flattening it. I had insurance on my barn and sheds that covered the replacement cost. The concrete floor was still OK, so I designed a new chook shed and an adjourning wood shed, and our son Peter built it out of Western Red Cedar to match the American Barn, with the insurance money.
Around it we fenced a large run with a high fox proof fence. Foxes can dig, so the wire goes down beneath the ground. Even in cities, there are wild foxes, so lock up your chooks. We built feeding and watering facilities, a safe place to lay eggs and hatch chickens, a roosting area for each bird with perches off the ground, for older chooks to sleep on.
If you are not planning to allow your chickens to roam the garden during the day, enclose an outdoors “run” area where they will be able to scratch at the ground and walk in the sunlight. Throw any garden and household waste in for them to pick at. In our run, we throw the scraps onto the recycling bin where chook poo, garden weeds, shredded paper, lawn clippings are piled. The chooks turn all of this over with their scratching, finding plenty of insects and grubs.
In our chook shed we provide deep litter. Ordinary straw can be used for floor litter in the coop. This is cheap to buy. Cleaning is very easy. I shred all of my unwanted Parliamentary papers and pile it up in the shed and once a month I clean out the excrement and soiled litter to the recycling bin for the garden.
Feed is available from produce and larger pet stores and costs about $15 for 20 kg. This bag will feed five birds for about a month. Healthy birds survive for around 10 years, however their egg laying potential is greatly reduced as they get older.
If you have an average sized backyard, you’ve got enough space to keep some chooks. Three to five pullets are all you need to keep a family in a regular supply of eggs. Great for the kids, a few chooks can also be enormous fun and the kids get to learn a bit about handling animals and responsible care. Note that Local Council regulations can vary. Most Councils don’t regulate specifically against the keeping of chickens, although roosters are banned in most domestic areas. We should promote small scale farming in suburban backyards — taking a step back in time to when most people had a vegetable garden and a few chooks.
A small A-frame chicken shed is cheap and easy to build. It can house three chooks or five bantams. A floor of chicken wire allows the grass to poke through, and a couple of wheels will allow you to shift it round the back lawn. It needs a nesting box, roost and access hatch for the eggs to come out and the scraps to go in. The cost? Nothing, if you save the money from buying eggs and canceling your next five trips to KFC! Your own are so much better than the Colonel’s.
Rev The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C.