Caring for your Chooks

Below is a general step by step guide for caring for your chooks. This will help you prevent getting disease into your flock, and help you too keep fit and healthy birds. It is a guide only - we find these points helpful but may not be for every situation.

1. Chooks need feeding. It is a good idea to have a feed dispencer that will hold a few kilos of feed at once. This enables more feed to drop down as the chooks eat, giving them a constant feed supply. You must check daily that they have not clogged the feed dispencer with straw, and that there is ample food. Layers pellets is ideal, with some wheat or mixed grains for scratching.
2. Chooks should have a constant supply of fresh water. I reccomend changing water at least once a week in cooler waether, and twice a week in warmer weather. Rinse out the water container and give a light scrub to prevent algae build up. Water dispencers like the feed dispencers are a good idea.
3. Chooks should have a dry place to roost at all times, dampness leads to disease and other problems. Chooks have to be happy to perform to their highest potential.
4. Greens and vegatable scraps are a good idea. If you can enable your birds to free range in the garden or run once or twice a week. However it is not adviseable to let your birds out in the rain, they could get a chill.
5.Chook pens should be cleaned out regularly. Chooks can catch respiratory diseases from having to breathe in the ammonia from their droppings. If you have the ability to have deep litter, thats the best system. Fill your pens with untreated wood shavings to a depth of  30cm. Deep litter only needs cleaning every six months but it must be kept dry.
6. Chooks like a nice private, dark place to lay their eggs. An old lawn mover catcher is ideal (we have them available most of the year) - or simple make o wooden box, enclosed on all but one side. It's always a good idea to have nest boxes easy to acess.
7. Chooks do like to scratch. If you let them out side you may have to fence them off to keep your garden looking respectable.
8. Chooks in general DO NOT lay 7 days a week. Usually 4-5 eggs per week is acceptable for large good laying fowl. It takes roughly 27 hours for an egg to go through the chooks system.
9. If you want to hatch chickens, very educational for children, you will need a rooster. Yes roosters do crow. The crow of a rooster is no more invasive than the sound of traffic, although some neighbours do not appreciate them crowing. Some roosters will crow at night - to prevent neighbours complaining  train your rooster to a large wooden box. It does not stop him from crowing - but nobody can hear him.
10. Always check your council laws in regards to keeping roosters.
11. Roosters protect hens from vrious prey including hawks and cats. Roosters are always very selfless - they will call their hens for the nice juicey grub he has found, or for the greenest grass. Roosters are truly amazing to watch. So if you can have a rooster it is always advisable.
12. Rooster in general are non aggresive. If you abuse his hens, he will be inclined to get niggly, but if you treat him right, he will treat you right.
13. If you have a rooster, your eggs will be fertile. this does not change the taste or quality of the egg. You will never know the diffrence.
14. If one of your chooks becomes unwell - seperate it and place it in a box in a warm spot. Allow the bird light so it can see to eat and drink. Isolating chooks prevents the spread of disease. Antibiotics are available for a wide range of chooks ailments, but with proper care chooks rarely get unwell.
15. Children and chooks are a great idea, under supervision. Until your child is old enough to understand how to be gentle please supervise. Chooks do not respond well to being thrown or dropped. Most kids absoloutely love chooks, and soon will be able to care for them without your help.
16. Hens go broody, they will want to sit on the eggs and raise young. Some hens are easy to convince to get off the brood simply by locking them outside during the day, others are more difficult. Prevent the hen from sitting on eggs if you do not want chickens or if you do not have a rooster. If you have a spare pen place her in that alone for a few days with food and water and she will come off the brood quickly. More about this topic on the broody hens and chickens page.
17. Roosters should be kept seperate. Unless roosters have grown up together they will fight one another for the right to mate the hens. If you have pure breed birds it is good to keep the roosters away to prevent egg mix ups. Some roosters will be fine with each other, it's just a matter of supervision whilst they get used to each other.
18. For optimum fertility a rooster will be able to easily service 4-5 hens, of some of the larger breeds, 2-3 hens is more than enough.
19. Shell grit is nessecary for a healthy digestion.