poultry:
benefits and costs

which breeds
 to keep?

our breeds

poultry for
 meat

feeding 
chooks

the 
chook run

breeding and
raising chicks

building our own 
incubators

pests and
diseases

Broody hens and the natural way

Most people keep hens because they want the eggs. Broody hens can be a nuisance as they do not lay eggs for weeks. There are some suggested “cures” for broodiness such as making being broody unpleasant for the hen by placing her in the sun. That is not really necessary and not very nice for the hen. If she is left alone she will get over her broodiness in a few weeks anyway. It is a good idea though, to take infertile eggs out of her nest as they could rot and explode.

If you want hens that are not very likely to go broody then you should pick a non-broody breed. Examples of non-broody breeds are our Minorcas and Welsummers while our Light Sussex, New Hampshires and Salmon Faverolles are supposed to make good broody hens.

When a hen goes broody she lays up to ten eggs but does not start to sit on her eggs until she is satisfied with the number in her nest. Eggs will stay viable for up to three weeks if they do not get warm. Then the hen will sit on her eggs and incubate them. The development of the eggs starts once the hen brings them up to incubation temperature. This means that all her chickens will roughly hatch at the same time, after 21 days. It is possible though that eggs will still hatch a few days later. The hen will leave her eggs to feed and to drink, but normally not for longer than half an hour. If the eggs get cold the chickens will die.

Broody hens should have a quiet safe and sheltered place for themselves that is separate from other chickens. A chook tractor is a great place for a broody hen and after the chicks have hatched it’s a great place for the little ones to safely explore their first small patch of the world.

Using an incubator

When we started raising chicks we did not have a rooster. We bought fertile eggs from breeders on the mainland and the eggs were sent to Tasmania by airfreight. Unfortunately air freighting eggs can damage the eggs even more than standard freight. Our experiences with hatch rates from air freighted eggs vary quite a bit and are generally better than we had expected. Four to five eggs out of each dozen will generally hatch successfully - provided they were all fertile in the first place! Buying eggs from the mainland is a great way for us to get hold of chickens from a rare breed that is not readily available in Tasmania. We found that the breeders we dealt with packed the eggs very well and very few eggs cracked during transport. The price for fertile eggs is around $40 per dozen plus freight. Good places to look for contacts for fertile eggs are:

-the bi-monthly magazine Australasian Poultry

- the website www.backyardpoultry.com (the notice board!)

- the website www.farmstock.com.au (under “poultry for sale)

It is an incredibly rewarding experience to incubate fertile eggs and to end up with a handful of fluffy little balls that grow into real chickens! Because no rooster is needed any family on any suburban block can experience this.

Fertile eggs are usually available from July onwards. We do not recommend to buy fertile eggs after the end of December. Tasmanian winters are cold and wet and the birds are much better equipped to handle winter weather when they are already four or five months old.

A multitude of incubators are available from different suppliers. They vary in price from around $300 to several thousand Dollars. All of them will probably be capable of hatching eggs and the main difference is the size and ease of usage. Don’t expect the first hatches to give the best results straight away. It takes a bit of experience to work out what practices give the best results in a particular incubator.

We bought two incubators to get us started and built two large incubators ourselves. Our home built incubators is a dedicated page on this website that provides a lot of information for those who think about building their own incubators. It not difficult, quite affordable, and it is very rewarding!

Our two home built incubator capable with a capacity of 100 eggs each

The first day: for information about the incubation process look at our incubator page. After 21 days of incubation the chicks will pip, they will start to break through their shells. Often you can hear them chirp a day before pipping.  It can take them a day to free themselves from the shell. Once the first chick is out things get very hectic in the incubator! After a short while the chick will get up and start to kick the other eggs around. This is quite normal and actually seems to encourage the other chicks to work a bit harder at getting rid of their shells. Chicks do not need water or feed for a day or two. They are well nourished from the yolk. 

Week five and later:  now the chicks have developed most of their feathering and can regulate their body heat. We transfer them into an outside chook shed. Our chook sheds are safe against birds. All openings are covered with aviary mesh. Their size is 3m x 1.5m. This is enough room for 25 chicks. In spring and early summer we hatch chicks every week, but we do not have enough chook sheds so that each lot can have their own shed. Our experience is that one group of five to six week old will accept a group of four to five week olds when these are put into the same shed. The two groups will cuddle up separately during the first nights, but after a few days they will form one large group. This will only work however if both groups are of a similar size. From week six onwards the birds are now fed Grower Crumble. Grower Crumble does not contain coccidiosis medication and is formulated to provide al the nutrients needed for this stage of development. Depending on the weather the chooks can now be provided with access to open areas. They will explore their world and love any extra treats we offer them. We still keep them in areas which are fully netted against predators. From week 16 onwards the chooks are fed with layer pellets. Soon we will offer them shell grit too. This is the time when we need to start watching the cockerels. It won't be long now until they are mature. They will start to crow and establish a clear order among themselves. As long as their behaviour towards each other does not get to aggressive we let them stay in the same run. But the time may come when they need to be separated!

A hen is born with a fixed number of eggs in her ovaries. Hybrids are bred to produce as many eggs as possible before their first moult. Purebred chickens will lay much less. Most chickens will stop laying and go into moult in the second autumn of their life and every autumn thereafter. Purebreds can be expected to lay between 180 and 200 eggs (depending on the breed) before their first moult and a bit less the following year. Egg production will further decline every year thereafter but continue for many years. To have a continuous supply of eggs it is best to not to buy chickens in the same year but to buy a few each year. It is preferable to buy chickens that hatched early in the season and up to December to those hatched in January or February. Our Tasmanian winters can stress the birds quite severely and the rather young and small birds hatched late in the season may suffer more in the winter. We hatched Minorcas in the second week of February, and May brought some really cold nights. We gave them hot mashed grain and crumbles as a pick-me-up and they did well, but we would not do this again.

Crowing roosters

Roosters can be magnificent. They can look impressive and they are important for the social coherence of a flock of chickens. Our roosters are part of our farm and we love to have them around. But they can be very noisy! It’s not much fun when four or five of them start “talking” to each other in the middle of a night with a full moon. The noise levels are amazing! We didn’t want to put up with this and built night housing for our roosters. We have a few small pens set up inside a windowless room and the roosters stay there during the night. An added benefit of putting the roosters into night housing is that the birds are getting used to being handled. All our roosters wait for us when it gets dark and are happy to be carried to their night housing. They are very tame and not aggressive at all. So far we have experienced this behaviour with Welsummers, Minorcas and Faverolles.

poultry:
benefits and costs

which breeds
 to keep?

our breeds

poultry for
 meat

feeding 
chooks

the 
chook run

breeding and
raising chicks

building our own 
incubators

pests and
diseases