The Chook House and Pen

I want to be a farmer, I need livestock to fuss after, I only have a 1/3 or an acre. What to do.

Don't worry I did all the holes, he's just posing
for the camera. Motorised hole digging!
The only way to dig this many holes.

I wanted enough chooks so I could bred them if I wanted and eat real chicken not the over bred super quick growing chickens we all buy in the shops.  I wanted them to be community chooks that all my neighbours could enjoy.  So I spoke to my neighbours and yes they wanted to be apart of our chooks lives. They would feed their kitchen scraps, they would look after them when I was away, and yes they would help eat all the eggs 11 chooks would supply.  Yes, Chooks, the gardeners perfect partner. Chooks will eat pests in the garden reducing attacks in the veggie patch and orchard. and all this eating the chooks will be doing will make them poo!!!!!! Great fertilizer to top off all the other benefits the chooks will bring.

All posts in now putting up top rails 

All top rails on, all side & roof netting on

Chook house well on the way

So the planning started. The chook pen would be 18m long by 5m wide. Divided into to pens with a hen house 1.8m x 1.8m tall enough to walk in with out having to bend over. Our back fence was made of sheets of old asbestos roofing. I waited for a rainy day and pulled it all down. (if asbestos is wet the fine dust particles are far less likely to cause future health issues). I triple wrapped in heavy duty black plastic and labeled it as required. My dad on one of his many visits down to us in Kallista loaded it up in his ute and took it to my Uncles landfill in NSW so it could be disposed of in an approved landfill site, all for no cost! Even better, now the real work could begin on the chicken coup. But first a few more trees needed to go to make way for the chicken pen/house which would replace the fence of two of my neighbours.Then I marked out where the pen and house would go. The thought of digging over 20 post holes 600mm deep was daunting so I hired a motorised post hole digger. Oh the bliss, oh the pleasure. It wasn't all easy going. The crow bar was needed to get through rock, remove rocks, cut through tree roots, pull out junk metal and all the other things i found while digging holes!

Starting the chook house, from the floor up!

3m posts were used 600mm deep, once all posts for the pen where in the same sized posts were used as stays to connect corner posts together, (think upside down U). Then posts were used to form a top rail to connect all posts together up the top. These help support the wire roof which makes the pen fully fox and cat proof. The wire at the bottom of the poles runs half a meter along the ground. This was then covered with soil so animals cant dig under the pen. This has worked well to date with nothing getting in when locked up at night.      

 So with the pen and house full it was time to get some chooks. My sister and family with 2  kids were staying with us at the time and the kiddies were busting to get chooks so they could check for eggs. I decided on 4 Australorps and 4

Wall and roof timber going up

Faveroles. Both good layers both very good meat birds as well.

They were young birds old enough so they didn't need artificial heat but they wouldn't be laying until they  grew out.   After a few weeks of the young kiddies wanting the chooks to lay eggs, I decided to look for some chooks that were already laying. I found 3 Isa browns advertised on Gumleaf.com.  $100 and I got 3 isa browns all laying all about 10 months old. A feeder and water container, a plastic box with 3 nests inside, some food and a wire cage to transport the chooks. A steal!!!

The young Faveroles (cream) & Australorpes
(black)  checking out the chook house

The kids and adults welcoming the chooks

So they entered the family and proceeded to bully and peck the much younger and smaller birds. So I build a partition and the 3 isa browns are locked in there at night until the others could hold there own.

The finished chook house, complete with chook doors
a door for me! & window eaves to protect from weather

Instant success within 2 days they were laying eggs and my sisters kids were excited to collect eggs each morning before going to school.