Under the Choko Tree By Nevin Sweeney

Basic Chooks

INTRODUCTION


Chooks are the ideal animal for the suburbanite looking for a more sustainable, more self sufficient lifestyle. They are easy to feed and look after, cheap and easy to get and produce eggs, manure and entertainment wonderfully well. There can be surprising psychological benefits as well. Just sitting in the back yard on a summers evening in amongst the fruit trees with the vegie patch on one side and a few chooks pecking about the yard on the other can be very relaxing and a wonderfully satisfying experience.

BREEDS

Rhode Island Reds and Australorps in chook tractor

The trouble with many city or suburban locations there is not enough space to keep full size chooks and still remain within the council regs you should check with your local council about this. One possible way around it is to keep bantams which may be classed as caged birds and so the space rules may not apply. They are good layers but tend to go broody in summer, good if you want to raise chicks bad for eggs as they stop laying. If you want to raise chicks you will also need to keep a cockerel, but due to their crowing this can make you unpopular with the neighbours. Their call can travel quite a distance on still mornings so unless you are absolutely sure no-one will be upset, stick with hens. Hens do not need a rooster to produce eggs, just to produce fertile eggs.

Bantam breeds mirror most larger breeds but there are also breeds which have no large counter part. In my experience (which I must admit is not vast in this area) the variation in laying capabilities seems to vary with individual birds rather than breeds. So you might go through a few birds to build up a flock of good layers. The carcass tends to be small but is well covered with meat for its size, so bantams can be used for egg and meat production.

If the size of your yard allows for the keeping of full scale chooks (or you choose to ignore council regs.) the cheapest and easiest way to start out in poultry is to buy a few "spent layers" from an egg farm . These are crossbred chooks that have been specially designed to pump out eggs . They have already been laying for a year at the farm and as their egg production falls off in the second year it is considered better economics to restock the farm at this point (ie turn them into chicken nuggets) . For the backyarder who doesn't have such economic restraints this is not a problem and spent layers may continue to lay for a number of years afterward . They are relatively cheap , but it can be a bit of
a lucky dip as to how many eggs you get out of each bird . It is also nice to show the chooks that there is a world outside their battery cages. When I got my first load of spent layers they would stand in the chook shed where I put them and look sideways at the ground, I could almost hear them ask eachother "What is that green crap all over the place out there?". Spent layers will also have the end part of the top of their beak cut off (to stop the bored crapless birds pecking eachother to death in their cages) and this can interfere with their foraging.

For all their sterling qualities crossbred chooks are egg layers not meat producers , this is especially so of spent layers . So if you want to eat your chooks as well as get eggs off them it would be better to go for one of the so-called "dual purpose" breeds such as Australorp , Rhode Island Red or the Light Sussex . These breeds can be used to produce eggs for a year or two and then eaten , my preference is the Rhode Island Red because along with everything else they are quite attractive birds. Having said that we have had both Australorp and Rhodies here for many years and like both breeds.


HOUSING

Original Chook Tractor in place over veggie bed


Housing can be as simple or as complicated as you like it. There are four main types:-

1/  Movable bottomless house also referred to as and ark or chook tractor - this is moved frequently from one area of
lawn or vegetable patch to another so they crop the grass, fertilize it then are moved on.

2/  Free range - This is the system that I use in that the chooks have free access around the back yard, but the vegie patch is fenced off from them. They have a permanent "hen house" which they return to at night.

3/  Permanent run - Where the chooks are confined to a house and non - movable run which tends to become denuded of grass rapidly. You need to provide them regularly with green feed to keep them healthy .

4/  Deep litter: This is ideal for very small areas as the hens are kept inside in a deep litter house. The floor is covered with minimum 30cm of dry material eg straw or rice hulls which the chooks dig and turn over. This absorbs their excreta and at the end of its life (about 12 months) is a very rich compost.

We have a combination of chook tractor and deep litter systems in operation. We get in day old hen chicks (2 x Australorp and 2 x Rhode Island Reds) from a local supplier and put them in a brooder (covered in another article on the site) and raise them until they can go into the chook tractor. They spend 2-3 years in the chook tractor being rotated around the veggie beds and having the time of their lives. Once their egg laying starts to taper off you would think we would eat them, but instead they go into the "Retirement Home", a deep litter containing shed that has the floor covered with locally grown grass hay. They turn the hay over, eat the seeds and some of the foliage, manure it and turn it into mulch which is then used on the veggie beds so that while we get very few eggs from them, they are providing a useful service. I have also set up temporary runs in places such as under the mulberry tree in spring so they can clean up the fallen fruit.

Which ever method you choose the chickens should have a rainproof, wind proof yet airy place to sleep. For each chook in the "house" there should be 20cm of perch space and one nest per 5 birds. If the birds are to remain inside there should also be 1.5 square metres of floor space per bird. Our chook tractor provides about 1 square metre of floor space per bird, but gets moved to a different area every two weeks.

The house can be fancy or basic, I built my original one from an old recycled plywood packing case with a shelf running along one side for a nesting area and a broomstick fixed up above and to one side of the shelf as a perch. It lasted a good 15 years. At the very least it should be easy to clean, I use straw on the floor and in the nests and change
both 4 times per year, it makes excellent mulch or fertilizer. When the house is cleaned out it should be inspected for parasites and thoroughly gone over with derris dust if required. The perch can be painted in sump oil/turps mix to discourage parasites.

We do not have problems with rats but if you do the floor of any permanent houses should be concrete. Any movable runs should have wire netting floors to discourage predators. If you have a dog and he gets on well with the chooks (mine did) predators should not be a problem.


FEED AND WATER

To produce eggs chooks need water, access to cool clean water is a prime necessity for decent egg production especially in hot weather. Open containers will work but tend to get soiled easily so a commercial or home made waterer is best. This can be made by fixing an upturned bottle in a tray and then suspending the whole contraption 50-75mm off the ground. The bottle is filled with water and then upturned into the tray. The mouth of the bottle should be so positioned as to allow the tray to fill but not over flow. This will keep the chooks supplied with water for days or weeks depending on the size of the bottle and size of the flock. If they free range over a large area you may require several waterers.

Here we will mainly consider the feed needs of adult birds, see the article on raising chicks for details on their needs.

Mash or Pellets

These are commercially available feeds, I find the mash difficult to use and store and much prefer the pellets. They contain nutrients to cover most of the birds needs and are easy to store and feed to the chooks. I made a feeder by cutting both ends from a dog food tin and then attaching a rusty "vacola" bottling set lid on the bottom with about 12mm overlap all the way round. Full of pellets this lasts our 4 chooks for a few days.


Grain

This is slow release chook food as it is digested only slowly. A few hand fulls of grain before bed-time lasts them all night. I use wheat, corn and sunflower seeds and got no complaints from the chooks. If you want to give them an extra lift the grain can be sprouted before giving it to them, they love it. You and also grow some of your own grains, sunflowers work well, to increase the sustainability of your chook flock. Feeding unprocessed grain to your chooks can cause problems if you keep them in a chook tractor because some of the grain always escapes and you can wind up with wheat in your carrot patch or sunflowers growing in amongst your cabbages. This may not be a problem for you but if it is consider running the grain through a grain mill or blender to chop it up a bit first. Sprouted grain can also give chooks a bit of a vitamin lift in winter.


Green Feed

If the birds free range they will not need much extra green feed but if kept on deep litter they will. Under any circumstances chooks enjoy fresh greens so outer leaves from the cabbage or lettuce are well received and I grow  one or two silver beet plants in a corner of the vegie patch for them. They also appreciate lawn clipping and some green weeds such as wandering jew; fathen; dandelion or dock will really go down well (literally!).

Scraps

Chooks will devour most meat and vegetable scraps but do not give them cooked food that is likely to go "off". This will make them sick as readily as you or I. In our place there tends to be a three way tug of war between the worms, compost bin and the chooks for any scraps or peeling. The worms do tend to win, but the chooks put up a pretty good fight.


Shell Grit

To produce egg shells the birds need a constant addition of calcium to their diet. This can be shop-bought shell grit (gasp shudder!) or pick some up next time you are at the beach , make sure it is well washed to remove the salt. According to the books you should not feed chickens egg shells unless they are cooked first by heating up to remove any eggy taste otherwise it encourages them to eat their own eggs. In practice my hens do not get bored enough to try this little stunt and I have been feeding them untreated egg shells for years with no problems.


Hard Grit

The birds require small stones which they swallow into their crops to grind up their food (chookie equivalent of teeth) so granite chips or equivalent should be available. Of course if the hens can free range or are in a chook tractor they will pick up small stones as they peck and scratch.


PRODUCTS

Eggs

Being basically a city lad and conditioned by years of cartoons I thought a hen just sat there and laid eggs by the dozen. It was quite a shock to learn that they only lay once every 25 hours, so that every so often a hen will miss a day. They will also go broody and try to hatch their eggs, particularly in hot weather when they have a clutch of eggs to sit on (note to self: collect eggs every day), if they do go broody (sit on eggs and won't move, make "gluck gluck" noises and peck at you if you try to move them) put them in a cage that does not have any dark, quiet corners they can "nestify" but make sure they have easy access to food and water. After a few days they will return to normal.

Hens will go off the lay during winter and at peak times you will probably have too many eggs (eg in early spring) so they can be preserved using one of the following methods -

VASELINE - A coating of odourless Vaseline (not vicks) will seal the egg and increase it storage life.

LIME - Make up a slurry of 20 parts hot water and 4 parts lime (calcium hydroxide or builder's lime) and 1 part salt, allow to cool. Place the eggs in a jar or crock and cover with the solution.

WATER GLASS - (Sodium silicate solution) add sufficient water glass solution to water so that the eggs will just sink. The eggs can then be preserved in a jar or crock provided the eggs are wholly covered with solution. They may be preserved for up to 12 months in this way.

or you could boil and pickle them!

Manure

If you keep chooks your vegie garden will love you for it! You should design your hen house so that it is easy to harvest this valuable high nitrogen resource. The uninitiated will think you are only cleaning out the chook pen but we know what an important job you are doing! Of course if you have a chook tractor the chooks will deposit directly onto the area to be fertilised, thus saving you considerable work.


Meat

Killing and dressing - bantams tend to become part of the family (could you eat your best friend?) so if you do intend to ingest them at any stage avoid the temptation to give them names and turn then into pets. Having decided that you can eat your best friend you should proceed in the following manner : To kill - you can either use the tried and true hatchet method. This requires two people one to hold the chook the other to use the hatchet, or use the neck dislocation method.This still requires the head to be cut off so the bird will bleed so I  don't see the advantage. Be that as it may to dislocate a chooks neck hold its head in your right hand and feet in your left. Hold the chook head down diagonally across your body and turn its head upwards so that the neck forms a vee with the body. Then stretch the neck very firmly
downwards, but beware, too firmly and you decapitate the chook, a most unaesthetic thing to occur when you are not prepared for it.

TO PLUCK - Now dump the corpse into a bucket filled with water at 66oC, Agitate to ensure the water gets to all parts of the chooks body. The chook need only remain submerged for a minute or two then hang the bird up and pluck. Retain the feathers if possible as they can be washed and put into pillows or composted to provide more a high nitrogen fertilizer. If buried uncomposted they can be used as a slow release fertiliser.

TO DRESS - Cut off the head and push your finger down into the chest cavity through the neck and run it around inside to sever the ligaments. Then cut around the vent (cloaca ; anus) and tie it off or hold onto it. Move your hand into the abdomen and remove all the internal organs, be careful not to tear the gut. Retain the heart, lungs, gizzard and liver as these are edible. The kidneys may have remained in the body cavity, so inspect and remove them if this has occurred. The bird may now be tied up for boiling or roasting or cut up so the pieces can be cooked separately.

 

Click Here to check out our YouTube Channel