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We finally got backyard chickens! (Aussie vernacular: "chooks", singular "chook")
They arrived on Thursday (six weeks after I ordered them) and are slowly being introduced to the garden. They won't be fully free-ranging, because I have garden plants that I'd like to keep, and the backyard (only the backyard for the moment; although we'll eventually maybe get to the frontyard...
They're called Hainan and Honey Soy. IT WASN'T ME.
I don't like the coop much, but working out something smaller and lighter in its place is going to be difficult. I definitely want a chook tractor, but the designs I've seen are very solid and therefore rather heavy. I want something that can be moved around the yard - but it's not a large yard, either!
Anyway, I'm still learning their personalities - and I think they're sorting out their pecking order. Honey tends to be the first into the feeder, and she hogs it something terrible when I hang it up, but Hainan seems to like prodding Honey - 'scaring' her, so Honey flaps away, or (when it comes to roosting time) climbing all over Honey until Honey gets off the perch and gets back up again. It's this big jostle-and-flutter on the perch, and somewhat amusing from a human perspective.
I'm contemplating a 'fixed coop' with a moveable dome, but then, where should the fixed coop go? The backyard is about 6m x 8m - about large enough to swing a cat - and honestly, I want most of it for garden space!
At least the biggest danger to them will be the local cats. Not ours who are kept indoors, but the free-ranging, wandering cats who are about the neighbourhood - at least two, maybe three. There are dogs in the neighbourhood but they're all walked on leashes and it's our backyard. There may be urban foxes, but the chooks are mostly in the coop all day, except for when I let them out to free-range. Not sure about rats, but if we have free-ranging cats in the neighbourhood, then they'll probably deal with the rats. (Plus, our cats may be in the house, but their scent is probably on the underside of the house which is the most likely place for rats to try to make home.
At some point, I'm going to need to make some fencing/gates so the chooks can't easily get out without going up. Their wings aren't clipped, but they're not instinctive flyers.
Also, I need more fencing for seedlings! Luckily most of the summer seedlings I've got in the ground have pots around and over them. But the chooks have happily dug up the 'centre bed' which mostly housed the wintervege and coriander-gone-to-seed (coriander did AMAZINGLY in my garden this season, which resulted in my sister putting a chunk in the curry - and I do mean A CHUNK. As in, I forked up a bit of green...which turned out to be a lot of green, like an iceberg of coriander, with only the tip showing in the curry sauce...) I need to start collecting that seed, btw.
Anyway, two new additions to the household!
They arrived on Thursday (six weeks after I ordered them) and are slowly being introduced to the garden. They won't be fully free-ranging, because I have garden plants that I'd like to keep, and the backyard (only the backyard for the moment; although we'll eventually maybe get to the frontyard...
They're called Hainan and Honey Soy. IT WASN'T ME.
I don't like the coop much, but working out something smaller and lighter in its place is going to be difficult. I definitely want a chook tractor, but the designs I've seen are very solid and therefore rather heavy. I want something that can be moved around the yard - but it's not a large yard, either!
Anyway, I'm still learning their personalities - and I think they're sorting out their pecking order. Honey tends to be the first into the feeder, and she hogs it something terrible when I hang it up, but Hainan seems to like prodding Honey - 'scaring' her, so Honey flaps away, or (when it comes to roosting time) climbing all over Honey until Honey gets off the perch and gets back up again. It's this big jostle-and-flutter on the perch, and somewhat amusing from a human perspective.
I'm contemplating a 'fixed coop' with a moveable dome, but then, where should the fixed coop go? The backyard is about 6m x 8m - about large enough to swing a cat - and honestly, I want most of it for garden space!
At least the biggest danger to them will be the local cats. Not ours who are kept indoors, but the free-ranging, wandering cats who are about the neighbourhood - at least two, maybe three. There are dogs in the neighbourhood but they're all walked on leashes and it's our backyard. There may be urban foxes, but the chooks are mostly in the coop all day, except for when I let them out to free-range. Not sure about rats, but if we have free-ranging cats in the neighbourhood, then they'll probably deal with the rats. (Plus, our cats may be in the house, but their scent is probably on the underside of the house which is the most likely place for rats to try to make home.
At some point, I'm going to need to make some fencing/gates so the chooks can't easily get out without going up. Their wings aren't clipped, but they're not instinctive flyers.
Also, I need more fencing for seedlings! Luckily most of the summer seedlings I've got in the ground have pots around and over them. But the chooks have happily dug up the 'centre bed' which mostly housed the wintervege and coriander-gone-to-seed (coriander did AMAZINGLY in my garden this season, which resulted in my sister putting a chunk in the curry - and I do mean A CHUNK. As in, I forked up a bit of green...which turned out to be a lot of green, like an iceberg of coriander, with only the tip showing in the curry sauce...) I need to start collecting that seed, btw.
Anyway, two new additions to the household!
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Urban foxes, yes. Rats, probably. Snakes, maybe?
I have to say, I've never seen any of the three in our area, but that could be because I wasn't look, and also because I wasn't keeping chooks at the time. That said, the people who used to live two houses down kept chooks (they were apparently a bit 'hippie', and I'm just sorry that they moved out before I could meet them) and nobody complained?
From what I gather, there are ways to keep chooks even in areas where there are known predators - it just involves building solid coops and keeping them maintained.