Chicken dance

A proper chook coop is long over due. While we have not had the chooks for that long, I had wanted to build a chook coop at the end of last year or beginning of this year at the latest. Of course things have not gone quite according to my idealist schedule. Our little girl often has that kind of impact on plans.

Although in reality, the biggest issue with progression of the chook coop was the design plans. The location for the coop is in an area which gets quite wet during heavy rain falls. Even though Rhode Island Reds are a hardy breed, I do not feel that it is all that nice to have them in damp conditions. Thus this meant either a concrete slab or raised chicken coop.

I really liked the idea of a raised chook coop, particularly after seeing one of the members of the Samford Local Growers constructions. His design was based on a BuildEazy chook coop design with a few tweaks such as a flat roof design. The dimensions for my coop are 3.6m by 1.8m, so I am doubling the size of the basic plans. This is so that I can divide the coop into two sections for future purposes.

With a raised coop design, I figure that rats and mice will have a hard time getting access to the interior. I also plan to allow the chooks access to underneath the chook coop as part of their main run, thus it will provide valuable shade during the heat of the summer.

There is still a fair bit of work to complete as only the platform of the coop in place. But at least in the mean time it will allow my little girl a great place to perform her chicken dance.

Chook Breed Research

Like many new things I do, I usually do a fair bit of research upfront. In this case choosing a chicken breed was particularly important as they are live animals who need care and housing.

Our requirements were to get a breed which was dual purpose. That is, they can be used for producing eggs and meat. As the males do not produce eggs, they are expensive to keep around for no food-related benefit. Since we plan on breeding our own chickens, we will undoubtedly end up with many surplus cockerels. Speaking to some members of the Lawnton Poultry Club, more than 50% of fertilised eggs develop into males.

In addition, given that we are planning on eating surplus birds, we want a chicken that has a bit of meat. Thus bantams are out.

So with those requirements our choice was narrowed down a fair bit. After a bit more research I found the following high level dual purpose breed breakdown:

• general purpose breeds: Houdan, Dominique, Wyandotte, Sussex, Oprington, Plymouth Rock (aka Rocks or Barred Rock)
• better for eggs: Australorp, Rhode Island Red
• better for meat: Langshan and New Hampshire

Of the breeds listed above, I was starting to lean towards Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Rock, New Hampshire, Australorp, or Wyandotte based on reading various blogs and other information, including the ability to acquire the breed in Australia.

However when it came time to choose, I found the site http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html to be the most beneficial as it provided a tabular comparison of all the breeds. There is also a shorter dual purpose table, but I have not provided the link.

In Australia, the Rhode Island Red, Australorp, and Wyandotte breeds are more common, thus generally not as dear as the others.

In the end, our decision to go with the Rhode Island Red breed over others was their egg laying capability, hardiness, large size, excellent temperament, free range or containment adaptability, and attractive plumage (i.e. not simply one single colour). As a bonus we found out that due to their size, they cannot fly that well. Thus even short fences present a significant hurdle to them. This has already been handy during the process of fencing of the veggie garden from their incursion.