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12 February, 2012

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Funky Chicken Farm Resource

Cooped Up (16 May 2008)

Cheerful Chickens: A few tips on keeping your chooks happy, and our chicken expert Darcy Philp answers some of your questions. (duration: 17′25″); Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3

Here's a shot of the girls settling in to the Funky Chicken Farm.

Hen party outside the coop.

It was a busy week as the girls haven't learnt to perch yet, or even sleep in their coop. Most early evenings the kids and I found them asleep in a huge pile outside, so we gently lifted them into the coop and locked them in using a couple of boards. I called Darcy and he advised leaving them in the coop for 2-3 days. But again one night after a day of playing and scratching for food, they were back in a clump on the ground OUTSIDE their coop! Darcy's coming over!

Feeding is going well and they love scraps from the kitchen, plus we've whacked the worm farm down next to the coop (Hat tip: Ruth Henderson form CHCH) and I've been leaving the lid off for a few minutes while the hens fill their gizzards with tiger worms.

Anyway here's a few shots of the eggs!

Eggs lying in straw. More eggs lying in straw.

Fried egg in a pan sunny side up.

They taste so good, and see how proud they sit in the pan, firm albumen and golden yolks.

Fried egg, over easy.

We've had 5 in all, and 4 of those were in the first 2 days of the girls arriving - in the system from the battery farm no doubt. I found out they'd been on 16 hours of light and had heating - light is the key factor for egg production - I'll find out more on this when avian vet Neil Christensen visits - he's bringing a couple of dead chooks which we're dissecting to see all the yolk and shell glands, and get a close up look at how chickens make eggs.

Index

Simon is an egg.

Welcome to our Funky Chicken Farm resource page.

We set up a backyard chicken coop and leisure area by converting an old playhouse into a coop, whacked a few warratahs around, attached some chicken wire and bought 6 highlay birds from a battery chicken farm. It's our way of fighting back against rising food costs.