Phoenixuk2oz

OMG...doesn't bear thinking about....two of us lot :scared: :scared:

G'Day

Hi Larissa,

Be sure to dig under the floor of the chook run and put wire mesh in there too as foxes and dogs can dig their way through. Also take your side wall mesh down a couple of feet onderground.

My personal favourite is the Rhode Island Red which is a good egg layer and good for eating too. A chicken's egg production tapers off after 2 years and that's when they are still good enough to eat and not too stringy either. If you have a cock you'll have little chooks too and the young roosters will be your pot-chickens as you can't afford to have more than one or two roosters around or they fight like mad & forget all about passion

Phoenixuk2oz

Lol...I think Larissa's a veggie G'Day

How can you eat your ikkle mates anyways

And who to eat first? Bagsy it's not me...lol :scared:

scottyboy

We used to have three pet Rhode Island Reds.
Really easy to keep and they shoot eggs out like bullets.
Well, one a day each which is pretty good going. Best you'll ever taste.
What a buzz when you get your first egg.
They used to eat loads of kitchen scraps, LOVE worms and quite a few treats (spoilt rotten) and their poo makes crackin compost.
As I remember the least number to keep is three though our remaining two were still happy when one croaked.
Let em run in the day and cooped at night.
Never underestimate foxes they are very determined and make a real mess of pet chooks if they visit.
Ours have retired to one of our friends and now live in an orchard in the manner they have come to expect. Bless.
Don't know why but chooks seem to prefer vegetarians. Strange.

Scotty.

G'Day

Oh Shucks! Sorry Larissa! I can eat my chooks because they're not my mates, my social life is a bit more interesting than THAT. I grew up on a farm so I have no issues with eating chooks, can't eat pork or veal though as I don't believe in eating anything I can't personally kill - so I guess you're safe mate.

Phoenixuk2oz

Ahh but that's the thing. The chooks and Expats are Larissa's mates

Although she's a veggie... I think she'd gladly kill the odd Expat

...but the chooks are safe

DagBoy

That's a coincidence. I also have an imaginary friend called MrsDagBoy.

DagBoy

When we started with our chooks I had a spreadsheet to keep track of costs (I am a geek).

Some highlights:
Initial outlay
chook wire $39.95
wire $20.00
star pickets $30.00
6 chooks $72.00
feed $29.85
(we had an existing shed - I built the run around it)

We got the chooks 13-Apr-03
Our first egg arrived on 21-May-03 (at a cost of $191.8)
By 11-Jun-03 we had had 66 eggs, bringing the price down to $2.90/egg)
By 26-Oct-03 (when I got fed up of keeping records) the price was 32c/egg .... BUT the eggs were fresh and delicious. Also, we were getting about 6 a day - way more than we could eat, so I took them into work and bartered them - a dozen eggs for a large flat white from the coffee shop ($3.60) so I was saving cash

Sadly, the fox got in and took Luigi, Peach, Bowzer, Kazooie and Scruffy and Mario was adopted by our neighbour's horses so at the moment we are chook free. I will have a new run soon and some new chooks - hmmmm maybe we will name after expats too -to go with our possum (podgy) and our rat (stanton).

Cheers,

ChookBoy

MrsDagboy

Phoenixuk2oz

And Mr Dagboy.....do you play with this imaginary friend of yours

Simone

Uhhhhmmmm, just realised something....
Larissa, are you sure you want to (and can) do this in a rental....?!


OMG, now I really want to know who's child had the imaginary friend! Pleassssssse tell!!!


Now, I think it's time for pics....


Oh, DB, I kept a diary of which animals I had about once a month(what with chooks gotten by foxes, rabbits getting heartattacks by dog in cage or diarihea, goats getting infected legs and dieing, it was always changing.....!!!)

Right, this was the first load of chooks we had(minus the 2 killed by dogs, plus 2 new. Peg, Honey, Brownie, Whiteone, and Honey. Behind our Angora goats, KFC (because he was born or something in a KFC box) and Red (Rooster I named him..) Hey, I was 11!!!!!!!!! :scared: (and have always known I am not creative)

Simone

Whiteone (oh wait, that makes that white rooster in the other pic, 'Whitto' ) with 12 chicks, Jan(the lightest one) - Dec (darkest)

DagBoy

Well,
as long as you are posting dull pictures of chooks, here is our dull pic of the chooks.

This is Alistair the dinosaur (on his visit home from pre-school) in with our chooks. The white one is peach - the others are the others - let's face it - they are all the same - they are just chooks.

Simone

lol!
Well, see, those others are all brown, bantams(or whatever I had are called..) are all different


Ok, last one:
Silky rooster Ruby from the neighbours, Flispy(bought on a trip home from Perth..) and chicks. The silky chick came to life by casearian on the egg. It took much longer than usual(hours at least), so I decided to help in along.


One of the neighbours chooks once had a nest on top of our chook pen, what we didn't realise until half of the chicks (14!) fell off and died..!

Bix

Don't forget you need to feed them lion bars to get the lion brand on the eggs .