By Bay Jobling
Oh chookies, for eggs, and friends, and happiness and using food scraps and making manure.
There’s so much written about chookies and the advantages of backyard chooks that I won’t replicate here – for more technical information, both Earth Garden and Grass Roots magazines have many articles and publications for the household and Australian level.
Healthy eggs a gift just for you
I am not sure how anyone with young kids reconciles the amount of food scraps that they create without having chooks and knowing that it all comes back again – as eggs. How much better than festering landfill is that? So with scraps, a bit of grain, and anything from your garden (weeds, insects, grass, compost) chookies give eggs for your for your family. Most people can eat eggs (start your little angels on eggs gradually and watch for any adverse reactions as you would for any new food) and they are an excellent source of protein and other nutrients. They keep quite well (in the fridge in summer) and extremely versatile. Chookies so appreciate the food your sweet little ones (and bigger ones) disdainfully waste and all cooking scraps too (even the burnt offerings) that they give you free eggs.
A healthy chook should lay up to an egg a day, going off the lay for moulting in autumn and should lay well for at least several years depending on breed. Be sure to keep good calcium up to your chooks, including some shell grit if in doubt. Two chooks in good condition could do a dozen a week easily.
Happy free chooks
Commercial chooks are, in the main, cage chooks. Some have the fortune to be free range but they can have limited access to grass and it is still animal production on a mass scale. Take a corner of your yard (or paddock) and build a shelter shed and a run. You can be more elaborate and build moveable pens or even a number of small rusn to rotate. Chooks are such happy fee loving creatures that they will completely make themselves free with your garden if given access to it. Most chooks are ardent scratchers, the more sedentary breeds such as silkies much less so. So perhaps think carefully about separating the chooks from the more precious areas of garden.
Chook goes well with . . .
See elsewhere for chicken recipes, in this article, chooks go well in orchards, banana plants, cattle and horse paddocks, lawn if not too small an area, places to dig and dustbath. Even kids . . .
Part of the family
Kids are perpetually fascinated by animals. Animals as a part of our daily lives is something that kids, of every age, will relate to. Some kids might think that chooks are fluffy exhibition items to be seen once a year whereas eggs are a pre-packaged food from the supermarket. Give them the real thing. Start with chooks. They will learn so many things. So many things that are part of our own life cycle. Feeding others. The joy and obligation of feeding. The responsibility for safety, the friendship of names and characters, the need not to intimidate, the offering of company, the return of favours, the truth of growing old and dying, the joy of the young and new, the simple but essential capacity to produce food.
Can anything go wrong with chooks and a young family or reasons why not . . .
The kids might be mean to them: So the kids need to learn about other creatures, better sooner than later. An animal that is part of the family is an important place to start, and set a good example.
The dog might harm them: See above
Chooks might peck the little kids: Most chooks are very placid and unlikely to peck in most circumstances. You can choose calmer breeds. Roosters can be aggressive though, if keeping roosters around little kids, best to have a very mild mannered one (and better for the ladies too). You don’t need a rooster to have chooks to lay eggs.
It takes too much time: Apart from the initial time investment of building the pen and buying the chooks (both of which can be whole family activities, or rope in some friends – you can always promise some eggs), keeping chooks is pretty low maintenance. Perhaps just a daily feeding, and check the water. You might find yourself wanting do more but it’s not time away from the household and family, it’s time with the family providing for the household, what can more relevant?
On the other hand, you might feel the need to sneak out to the chook house yourself and spend some peaceful time with your special chookie friends . . .
