chook questions

[Asha]

chook questions

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We have bought a new house and have inherited some chooks. Presently they are housed in a smallish coup but I would like to free range them. My question is, will they destroy our garden and plants? What sort of damage will they do?
Also, the coup is quite close to the house and there are alot of flies around at the moment. Do chooks attract flies?

[Purly]

Re: chook questions

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What a great score with your new house.

I am sure the chooky people will be by soon to help you out.

[Maire]

Re: chook questions

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From my observations, yes they will definitely destroy your plants. lol. You will also have to consider foxes, cats, dogs etc.

Could you just let them out each afternoon or something instead?

(You will need to clip wings also)

Others might have more help though.

[sweetchili]

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so far our chooks havent actually done too much damage damage to our gardens. they do foriage around in them but just kick dirt about, not actually rip up or eat any plants...obvioulsy if its a vegie garden you would need to keep them out of there.

the biggest issue for us is that they like to hang around our door and poop all over the patio area. which is not pleasant when you want to go out!!

dont seem to have a big problem with flies. I guess if you gave them more scraps than they could eat you might start getting flies though.

have fun!!! hope you are getting lots of yummy eggs!

[lcorteen]

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Hi Asha!

Yeah, that's cool to inherit chooks.

As R'ee said, ours don't destroy the garden, but they do scratch around. We have a couple of small vegie patches as well as some greens in pots. They haven't jumped up to eat the greens yet, and one of the patches is fences off with a makeshift fence so they haven't got to that either. The other one... is going OK - established plants are fine. Any new ones are gone (ripped out by digging/scratching) within a day. I have tried putting an old plant pot with the bottom cut out of it over the new plants, but they have worked out that they can dige them out... so still working on that one as I don;t want to have to fence off everything. Have been hunting the junk collection for an old bird cage or something that I can use, but still looking at this stage.

We normally let our chooks and rabbits out in the morning and then they put themselves back in when the sun goes down - it's very cool! We jsut close the gate after them. But we don't have any probs with foxes really.

As R'ee said, we also have probs with poo next to the back door. They're so friendly they watch us heaps at the back door. As for flies... if we have a lot of scraps around, there are more flies, but really the sticky sweet fruit from our white mulberry attracts the flies much more than the chooks.

Happy egg collecting xx

[Asha]

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Thanks for your help! DH and I are having differing opionions to the free range thing. I must admit though, I am a bit worried about the poop thing now, that hadn't even crossed my mind!

[allycam]

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Hi Asha

What a wonderful inheritance! You can use some plastic trellis (cheap from a salvage yard or the tip) to fence off anything you don't want them to eat. If you clip one wing they will soon learn to not fly over it. As others said, I suspect the main problem would be the veges - they probably won't bother with anything else.

It is probably better to free-range them only part of the day. We've never had any problems with cats, but foxes love chickens and will come into even very urbanised areas to kill. If you let them out for a few hours in the afternoon, the chooks will be happy and then safe at night back in their coop. They like to sleep somewhere up off the ground, so as long as they have a roost then they will probably be happier at night back in the pen. If you free-range them for part of the day, chances are they will give you bigger, yellower eggs, and will even attract the children out of the house for a few hours!

To reduce flies you need to add your lawn clippings or some other mulch into the coop. If you don't have any lawn or don't mow, then you can ask a neighbour or a local handyman to give you theirs. The chickens will constantly turn the clippings over and in, attracting worms and speeding up the breakdown of the poop. They will also use the clippings to cover up any uneaten food scraps which will also help reduce flies. We add a new layer of lawn clippings to our pen about every fortnight (the neighbours love to have somewhere to dump their lawn) and our birds reward us with the most increddible, broken-down & sweet-smelling compost which can be easily dug up from the pen and turned into the vege garden every few months.

There are some great chicken books around. One of my favourites is Jackie Frenches' "Chook Book". Very simple, and gives lots of advice for different ways of caring for chickens to suit your circumstances.

Best of luck!

[Bronnie]

Re: chook questions

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depends on the breed and the size of your yard. a high egg producer (like an Isa Brown) has a high need for protein and so will scratch around the roots of plants looking for protein (grubs etc). other natural (ie not bred to be high producers) breeds may not be as destructive.

the protecting the plants with plastic trellis is a good idea. we've done it in the past (they can be sneaky and still get in)

a bale of straw in the coop would be great, and once all pooped on, is fabulous for the garden.