Backyard Farm – Chooks
As part of the backyard farm today we are looking at chooks. The black Australorp chooks are best as general egg layers or you can get ornamental Hamburgs, Plymoth Rocks or silkies for fun, but rather less eggs.
Go to backyardpoultry.com or rarepoultry.net to find out where to buy beautiful or rare varieties of chooks.
You can start with a chicken coop from a kit that you would get online or at hardware stores, or you can design and build your own chook run. We have a design for building a chook shed on our website – burkesbackyard.com.au
Ideally, you have a covered area about 2m x 2m and an outdoor meshed area about 2m x 2m also. The wire mesh should be buried in the ground to a depth of 10cm then outwards (under your feet) for ½ metre (to beat the foxes). We cover both chook breeds and chook coops in my book ‘Organic’ which is available at bookshops.
Food and water in poultry food & water containers should be suspended from the roof in a sheltered part of the coop. The hens will lay in old wooden boxes filled with straw.
Ideally all chicken coops should get morning sun.
Next time we’ll look at vegie gardens.
Hooroo, Don
