Remove this Banner Ad

Pets chickens

  • Thread starter Thread starter nicky
  • Start date Start date
  • Tagged users Tagged users None

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

JohnW said:
Hey guys any recommendation on a place to buy a coop? I am at a loss of how/where to start. Do I make one out of an old shed? Buy something etc. Any links or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Your best option is to build it yourself. Premade is nearly always poor quality and very expensive.

Never short on inspiration. Some of the coops people have built are mindblowing.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.494558733920175.106607.186188768090508&type=1

Edit with more.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.800159636693415.1073741867.186188768090508&type=3

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.731721293537250.1073741861.186188768090508&type=3
 
PastiesPeake said:
Yeah, I have locked her out. The other chook (the good one) lays in there though, so I have to unlock the hatch late at night, collect the egg in the morning and then yank the broody one out for the day.

Stupid chicken.
Click to expand...
Yeah- it takes a bit of juggling sometimes but it should only be a couple of days and she'll snap out of it. My silkies go clucky all the time.
 
Thought the last method I used was pretty easy, cheap and quick. 2m star pickets hammered into the ground, a row of scrap corrugated iron along bottom about 600mm high along the bottom dug into the ground a bit and 1200mm of chicken wire on top of it with an old bird cage to sleep and lock them away in. Most difficult part was sorting out something for an entry gate, ended up using an old fly screen door wedged in a corner.

Does the job quite well but might make something a little better when I get motivated into rebuilding the old one up the back.
 
Juggalo Balla said:
Your best option is to build it yourself. Premade is nearly always poor quality and very expensive.

Never short on inspiration. Some of the coops people have built are mindblowing.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.494558733920175.106607.186188768090508&type=1

Edit with more.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.800159636693415.1073741867.186188768090508&type=3

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.731721293537250.1073741861.186188768090508&type=3
Click to expand...
Just had a browse through some of those chicken coops, JB- :eek: those chickens are living better that Rose Porteous!!! Wow! Some people's imaginations are amazing!
 

Log in to remove this Banner Ad

Kram81 said:
Lol, went over to my brother's place in Mosman Park today to help him with some stuff, his wife is actually getting a carpenter in to build them a chicken house and pen to run in. They have way too much money..
Click to expand...
Mosman Park? What did you expect?
Will it have its own lounge and dining room? ;)

Ask them if they'd like a pair of silkie roosters ;) heh heh. That'll fix 'em!! :D
 
Kram81 said:
The Mohawk rooster lolol.

Not a massive fan of flat combs on chickens but the chap above him has magnificent feather colouring!
Click to expand...
Those laced wyandottes are gorgeous.
Here's the golden-laced hen:
images

and the silver-laced hen:
images

then there's the blue-laced red hens/roo:
2010flock.jpg


You can also get blue-laced silver ;)

I thought this pic of a golden laced wyandotte hen was beautiful:
Screen Shot 2015-01-26 at 1.53.41 pm.png
 
Kram81 said:
Is Howard the rooster a bit aggressive, didn't he take out a Silkie's eye or something?
Click to expand...
The spiky black one is called Einstein- and yes, he pecked out the eye of Spiky, a silkie.

I checked the eye yesterday- or, rather, the socket... it's been about 12 months since it happened and I cleaned the eye (*syringed with salt water) twice a day for about a month or so... and it looks OK but just weepy. Guess that's how it's going to be forever, now.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Kram81 said:
Early days but I think I have 2 roosters and 2 hens with the new lot I got.

But I wouldn't have a bloody clue what the Pekin is, funny little thing.
IMGP2179.jpg
Click to expand...
It's got bloody big feet, Kram- maybe a roo? :( I hope not, for your sake. (might just be the perspective of the photo) How old is it now? I will see if I can find a photo of my little girl (the chick, not my daughter!) at a similar age for comparison.

Have your chooks been laying over the past week or so? My reds have been a bit light on for production but the silkies and Pekin have been laying most days. The Polish hens have stopped again- they don't go clucky but they lay for weeks then stop. I thought the constant thunderstorms might have frightened them into stopping producing.

We had a large hawk sitting on the fence of the coop today. The chooks just were very unsettled and noisy for a while- I figured the Polish hen had jumped over the fence as she does every day, and was getting chased by a red hen- also as usual. When I finally went out to have a look, the hawk just looked at me as if to say "Well? I'm just LOOKING!!! Nothing wrong with that, is there?" I got the dog to chase it off but it only flew into a nearby tree and waited until the dog lost sight of it... No idea what happened after that as I had to go out and take the dog with me. Nobody seems to be missing...
 
Last edited:
Kram81 said:
As in feathers? It's not a very good photo but I guess he does sort of have largish feet.. About 3 weeks old I think.

Getting probably 2 or 3 eggs a day but I've only got about 4 hens a regular laying age.
Click to expand...
it's a lovely photo of your Pekin.
My daughter thinks ours was about 4 weeks old when we got her (I can't quite remember. Might have been as young as 2 weeks).
Here are a couple of pics:
image.jpg image.jpg

Hmm- the feet look similar. Mine might be older as she looks like she's got a few adult feathers. Can't recall when that happens.
Might just have to wait and see- and fingers crossed that if he's a roo, he's a very quiet one!!
 
I just caught it a compared it to your photos, looks very similar in age. Why have you just picked up the one?

The 2 sussex chooks that lost their siblings have been spoilt, I ended up not keeping them in the main pen and just letting them run free in the yard sleeping in the laundry at night. They are ridiculously tame, lol the flyscreen has been broken and if you forget to shut the back door the cheeky buggers love coming into the kitchen looking for any errant food scraps.
 
Kram81 said:
I just caught it a compared it to your photos, looks very similar in age. Why have you just picked up the one?

The 2 sussex chooks that lost their siblings have been spoilt, I ended up not keeping them in the main pen and just letting them run free in the yard sleeping in the laundry at night. They are ridiculously tame, lol the flyscreen has been broken and if you forget to shut the back door the cheeky buggers love coming into the kitchen looking for any errant food scraps.
Click to expand...
That's so cute!!
My friend said they made little nappies for their chickens, which were allowed to roam the house ;) Maybe you could try that? :D
We had ours indoors watching TV for a while but there was so many of them it became impossible to hold them all- so they later came in a couple at a time.

My daughter, who would've been just over 10y.o., maybe, was very interested in chickens so we rang up a breeder who advertised various types but, though we agreed upon a date and gave them a list of what we wanted, we arrived to find barely any chicks of the type we were after. We took home 1 Pekin and 1 Australorp, each about 2-4 weeks old (that's the bit I don't remember! :oops:) from what they had in stock.

They were doing another hatching a few weeks later, so we told them AGAIN what we wanted and went back the day after hatching and picked up 4 silkies (2 for us, 2 for my son), another tiny Pekin (which died at only a few weeks old), a Polish, a silver-laced Wyandotte and a second Australorp, plus a trio (2 girls, 1 boy) of Sussex for my friend. My friend and her older daughter came with me and the daughter fell in love with a cute little blue-laced Wyandotte so she took him as well.
The chickens were all meant to have been sexed but we ended up with 4 roosters (3 of the 4 silkies plus the Wyandotte). :(

Then we bred 11 chicks from one of our silkie roosters and the hen and got 7 boys, 4 girls. :D
 
Next spring I'll try and breed up a heap of sussex now that I have my own for family and friends, get some more buff pekin eggs eggs of that bloke to replace those lovely little ones I lost :( and sell any extra hens for $30-35. I think chooks for sale around here are in short supply a bit judging by how many instantly wanted to buy those 15 crossbreeds I sold for $15 last year and the lady from the farm supplies that said people constantly come in looking for them.. When I was a kid there were 3 blokes out here as full on breeders but I don't think anyone does it anymore.

Only problem is keeping the rooster/s but I might just do a few electrical jobs for that old bloke he wants and not charge him so he'll then return the favour of looking after some for us.

Also getting rid of extra roos that are purebred should be a lot easier, a lot of my mongrels were quite nice but with crosses you do get quite a few mangy looking units that only a mother could love :D
 

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Kram81 said:
Next spring I'll try and breed up a heap of sussex now that I have my own for family and friends, get some more buff pekin eggs eggs of that bloke to replace those lovely little ones I lost :( and sell any extra hens for $30-35. I think chooks for sale around here are in short supply a bit judging by how many instantly wanted to buy those 15 crossbreeds I sold for $15 last year and the lady from the farm supplies that said people constantly come in looking for them.. When I was a kid there were 3 blokes out here as full on breeders but I don't think anyone does it anymore.

Only problem is keeping the rooster/s but I might just do a few electrical jobs for that old bloke he wants and not charge him so he'll then return the favour of looking after some for us.

Also getting rid of extra roos that are purebred should be a lot easier, a lot of my mongrels were quite nice but with crosses you do get quite a few mangy looking units that only a mother could love :D
Click to expand...
You could make quite a nice bit of money on the side, there, Kram. Selling chickens with one hand and breeding up foxes with the other ;)

Everytime someone loses their flock to foxes, they'll come back to you and you can breed them some more!! :D
 
Teriyakicat said:
You could make quite a nice bit of money on the side, there, Kram. Selling chickens with one hand and breeding up foxes with the other ;)

Everytime someone loses their flock to foxes, they'll come back to you and you can breed them some more!! :D
Click to expand...
lol, by the time you muck around with feed (although I usually find wheat for free, thanks cbh;)) and look after them for 6 months it's peanuts really. I'm just going to breed them for awhile for a hobby I'm sure I'll get sick of it.

Bugger me though there is a lady down in Narembeen iirc that breeds up chicks and rips them from their mothers after only 2-3 weeks and sells them for $20+ each :rolleyes: Just greedy.

I sold all those hens too cheaply really to the Southern Cross lady but it was good to see when she posted facebook pictures a week later of all her grandkids enjoying themselves feeding them and saying how happy they were with them, looked like they went to a nice home.
 
Kram81 said:
lol, by the time you muck around with feed (although I usually find wheat for free, thanks cbh;)) and look after them for 6 months it's peanuts really. I'm just going to breed them for awhile for a hobby I'm sure I'll get sick of it.
Click to expand...
6 months!!! :eek: they're not dogs or cats, you know, Kram! Even d&cs get taken from their parents at 8 weeks...

Bugger me though there is a lady down in Narembeen iirc that breeds up chicks and rips them from their mothers after only 2-3 weeks and sells them for $20+ each :rolleyes: Just greedy.
Click to expand...
Gotta sell them 'as is' to make sure nobody discovers you're selling them roosters. I bet you'd be like me- you'd have 100 roosters running around because you couldn't bear to hit them on the head the minute you heard one of them crow! :D

I sold all those hens too cheaply really to the Southern Cross lady but it was good to see when she posted facebook pictures a week later of all her grandkids enjoying themselves feeding them and saying how happy they were with them, looked like they went to a nice home.
Click to expand...
You're right- that sort of thing just gives you a lovely warm feeling in your chest, doesn't it? Good for you. I think that if you saw a family with littlies who wanted chicks, you'd just about give them away, you're that soft a touch! ;)
 
Kram81 said:
Hah I meant if you were going to sell them at full price as fully laying hens.
Click to expand...
aha!! makes sense- that way they're worth more. I think you could get $15 per chicken at about 1 week of age, so is it worth waiting for the pullet stage (since, logically, half of them are never gonna lay ;))?
You can sell them as pullets- from 16 weeks or less, maybe. That's the fun time, when they're just POL and then the double yolkers start arriving :D
 
A sexed chicken is always worth more.

Here there seems to be a bit of competition which keeps the prices down.

Laying hens for $25. If there's higher demand you can probably charge more.

Special breeds can fetch $50+ but the breeders will have sales every now and then.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Remove this Banner Ad

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Back
Top Bottom