A few questions re chicks!

[Karen]

Well, we got our 6 chickens about 4 weeks ago and they're SO cute. We've still got them inside (in a bird breeding cage actually) during the night and when it rains. In the day time (it's warm here!) when it's not raining we're putting them outside in dappled shade in a enclosure we usually use for a rabbit. It works ok (for now!). It has a wire lid that can open or close, is plenty big enough I think, and we have put a little pet taxi in there so they've got a bit of shelter too.

I have 2 questions:

Firstly, one of the chicks is only about half the size of the others. She seems relatively happy, but so much smaller. Should we be worried?

Secondly, the rush is on to get a permanent house system set up, and I'm so confused about the best way to go. The current plan is for a deep litter permanent chook house, opening into a chook yard (probably with straw on the ground?).This will be good for when we occasionally go away for a couple of days. But the rest of the time the plan would be to let them out for a couple of hours every day when the kids are playing outside, partly because it's good for the chooks and partly because I think the kids will enjoy them more if they're roaming around the backyard.

My question is really what to do about the veggie patch (which we haven't started yet). I'm figuring it'll be much easier if the veggie patch is fenced off? That would be a hassle and another expense, but I don't want the chooks to ruin/eat everything! I've heard it's mostly a problem with seedlings? We plan to do no-dig veggie beds.

My dream is actually a kind of "food forest" for the chooks to forage around in, with clearings for the kids play equipment etc.

The alternative would be to try to do a Linda Woodrow type chook dome, but our yard is the wrong shape for her system. It's a kind of T-shape, so we couldn't do a mandala system, where the dome rotates from bed to bed. We could have a variety of round beds, and move the dome onto them once the veggies are picked, but it wouldn't be as "perfect" as what she suggests. Her book seems to be so well-thought-through but also very particular and detailed. I like the idea of the chooks doing most of the hard work with the veggies though! The downside would be that they wouldn't be free ranging and interacting with the kids as much. Any helpful ideas?

Thanks, Karen.

[Lynda Coe]

Hi there Karen, Like Nikki, We have a raised no dig garden. Our chooks are free range all day and I keep them out of the garden with wire netting. This is a pain when the garden needs attention, but serves two purposes. The major one is to keep the stock out, and the other is more of a side effect, as it also keeps the white butterflies at bay. :-)

[Nikki Dillon]

Our chooks range in a fenced-off area (3m x 6m) for most of the day. They have a hutch in there which is kept open, where they have their food and lay their eggs, and sleep in the winter. They roost on top at this time of the year. We have the compost heaps in their area too, so they can forage and scratch, and we just rake their poo up with everything else - it rots super-fast. When we are at home, the chooks are let out into the garden to get chased, carried around and otherwise tormented by the kids. Our veggie patch is 4 raised beds, away from the lawn, The chooks do occasionally head round that way and have to be chased away, but generally they are too lazy to fly up and prefer to stay on the lawn and around the trees. It's not a big problem. I wouldn't leave them out there all day though; if they did get up onto the veggies they would soon wreck the lot. So we have the best of both worlds - the raised beds get topped up regularly with the compost which is rich in chook poo!