Chicken update

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We're back in the egg business.

We had given up last year after the foxes got the better of us - more particularly of our chooks.  In the end they got the lot.

That is the reason we got the Maremmas - see earlier posts.  We started them each with their own small flock of sheep.  As they got a little older we saw the opportunity (as we always intended) to get back into chooks.

Because we are a bit 'gun shy' at this stage we decided to limit our investment by getting some ex battery hens.  I think they're only about a year old.  The man who supplied them said he'd picked out 'the best of them' - and that the shock of being shifted would mean they probably wouldn't lay for a while.

We got 12 eggs from 22 chooks the first day!

They were pretty scruffy when they arrived - not a lot of feathers.  I hate to think what 'the worst of them' must have looked like.

There is a big difference already in this photo - which was taken a couple of weeks after they came.  Tell me these girls aren't happy!  Happy enough to producing an egg each pretty much every day.

As soon as they arrived we put Polo (one of the Maremmas) beside them in a pen made of 5 farm gates.  We then started carefully supervised contact with the chooks - with Polo always on a lead.  Left to himself he wanted to play - except he's 35 kg (and growing) and they are not.

However, I got back from an overseas trip yesterday and - hey - Polo has 'graduated' to being a fully fledged livestock guardian dog.

There he was lying in the shade with chooks all around him.  This photo has him with one of the two that still look a bit scruffy.  The rest a just about as good as new.

I noticed last night that he was barking a bit.  The chooks were locked up, but he's letting any foxes know that he's around.  I'll put up with a bit of barking if I know the chooks are safe.

Polo is still only about 8 months old.  The book says they are not completely reliable until at least 18 months - so we'll keep a close eye on him.

This is a fantastic development though - as we can now think about getting more hens and having more eggs for sale.  And the production we've been getting from the ex battery girls is good enough that they seem to be a better deal at $2-50 / bird than getting point of lay pullets at nearly $20.

We've put a sign at the gate offering free range eggs.  The boss priced them at $5 / dozen without consulting the accountant.  I think they're worth more than that.

My mind is now turning to a Chookmobile V2.0.  The next one will be bigger and enable us to have more chooks - and to follow the cattle.  This is a system developed by Joel Salatin - whereby the chooks act as what he calls his 'sanitation crew'. 

His mobile henhouse follows about 4 days behind his cell grazing cattle.  He says this is just time enough for flies to lay their eggs and for the larvae to hatch - but not enough time for them to pupate and produce the next generation of flies.  The chooks dig their way through the cow pats looking for larvae (maggots) - and, in the process, spread the cow pat about.

This provides quick return to the soil of the nitrogen and organic matter in the cow manure - and, of course, the hens add their own concentrated nitrogen boost.

I already spread a certain amount of chicken manure that I get from a farm over near Riddells Creek.  I was looking yesterday at two parts of my paddock 43 - one half has had chicken manure and other hasn't.  There is quite a difference.
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