Eight Acres

 We recently started using electric fence netting with our chicken tractors and we are very happy with the results. In the past we let our chickens out of their chicken tractors whenever we were home, but they have bad habits, like flying into the garden and wrecking everything or pooing on the veranda. Lately, they have been confined to their chicken tractors, and that just means that we have to move them more regularly, but we missed seeing them running around. What is electric fence netting? Electric fence netting is a roll of plastic netting with metallic wires woven into the horizontal strands of the net.  The netting has pronged stakes incorporated at regular intervals, so you can push them into the ground and set up a fenced area.  It comes in different lengths, and you can combine multiple lengths to make any size yard.  You can use this type of netting to contain smaller animals - its perfect for chickens, goats, sheep and pigs - that can duck under a sing...

 Over the years I've hatched hundreds of chicks using an electric incubator, but I never used a clucky hen to hatch chicks. I had thought about doing it because I don't like relying on an electric incubator, but I just wasn't sure where to start. Then one afternoon late last year I spotted a chicken (or rather Max the kelpie dog spotted a chicken) in the long grass with seven little baby chicks that she had hatched. This escaped mama hen had sat on her eggs for the past 3 weeks and when they hatched, she brought them all back over to the chicken area and was trying to get back in. Side note: Our hens live in chicken tractors (In case you didn't know, we keep our chickens in chicken tractors. We currently have about 20 hens and one rooster in two chicken tractors. We use feather net electric fencing so that the chickens can free range outside of their chicken tractors in a limited area during the day. Unfortunately, there always seems to be one or two hens that fly o...

 Chickens are really easy to look after. They only need a few things - somewhere warm and dry to sleep and lay eggs, regular access to feed (grain + grass) and fresh water. Until recently we were using the old style grain feeders and a bucket of water in each chicken tractor.   ( We did make a chicken nipple system a few years ago, but had trouble with algae growing in the jerry can water reservoir. ) Trying a different feeder.... A few months ago, while we were in the depths of a mouse plague (which has now moved south, sorry NSW!), Pete and I were desperate to reduce the amount of grain our chickens were spilling. We had tried a treadle-type feeder before, but most of our chickens couldn't figure out how to use it. I had bought some PVC plumbing to make a feeder, and some chicken nipples for the waterer, but not made it yet (over a year and counting). So I decided to invest in a two sets of Dine-A-Chook feeders and waterers to see if they would help us with the mice. ...

At my work I’m known as “the egg lady” because I occasionally bring in our excess eggs to sell.  The eggs are very popular and fights have been known to occur over the last carton in the fridge.  As a result I am often sought out by people who are “thinking about getting chickens”.  The questions are always the same, so I thought there are probably other people who would like to know about this too.  I firmly believe that there are no stupid questions about chickens.  When I first moved in with my husband, Pete, he already had chickens, and I clearly remember being surprised that they needed to be fed grain.  I must have thought that they lived off vege scraps!  So it’s not long ago that I was also a chicken novice with very basic questions!   How many chickens should we get? This depends on how many eggs you want and how much space you have.  Assuming that you have the space, I would say four or five hens for a family of four if you want abo...

  Chicken tractors are an alternative to keeping chickens in a fixed pen.  Find out more about the pros and cons of chicken tractors.   My eBook A Beginner's Guide to Backyard Chickens and Chicken Tractors has more detail about chickens and chicken tractors.  At first we had a fixed pen When we first started with chickens, we had an old stable with a tack room, and converted that into a chicken coop, with long star-pickets and chicken mesh used to make a run.  As we got more chickens, we kept having to make the run bigger so they would have somewhere the scratch. It is amazing how quickly a few chickens can demolish a run full of grass.  We used to let them out to free-range before we went to work, but then a few things happened.  First the dog started helping herself to chickens (we’d come home to find a very “sorry” dog and a chicken is varying stages of being eaten).  Then the chickens started crossing the road and scuffing up the ne...

This might sound weird, but we let our hens chose their rooster.  I better start at the beginning (although its hard to tell where that is, chicken and egg and all that).  Here's a summary of how we hatch and dispatch our roosters, and let the hens chose a few to keep. Pop over to my chicken tractor ebook blog to read the rest of the post. By the way, my chicken eBook is now available if you want to know more about backyard chickens and using chicken tractors.  More information over at the  chicken tractor ebook blog .  Or you can get it directly from my shop on  Etsy  (.pdf format), or  Amazon Kindle  or just send me an email eight.acres.liz {at} gmail.com. What's the eBook about? Chickens in a confined coop can end up living in an unpleasant dust-bowl, but allowing chickens to free-range can result in chickens getting into gardens and expose them to predators.  A movable cage or “chicken tractor” is the best ...

This is an article of mine that was published in Grass Roots magazine this time last year.  I got too busy to sent articles for a while, but I just started again, so look out for my contributions! Over spring and summer we incubate chicken eggs and raise chicks. We fatten the roosters to eat and keep the hens to replace our older layers. Raising chicks is great fun, a lot of hard work, but worth the effort if you want a sustainable flock. Whether you incubate eggs or buy baby chicks, all chicks need is three things: a safe, warm place to live; water and food.   Read the rest over at my chicken tractor ebook blog. See this post for a summary of other posts about incubating eggs and raising chicks . By the way, my chicken eBook is now available if you want to know more about backyard chickens and using chicken tractors.  More information over at the  chicken tractor ebook blog .  Or you can get it directly from my shop on  Etsy  (.pdf ...

Are you still wondering if chicken tractors would work at your place? I've written an article for FarmStyle with six reasons why you should consider chicken tractors. Find out more on this link .   FarmStyle has a range of useful farm articles and a forum for small farm discussions. By the way, my chicken eBook is now available if you want to know more about backyard chickens and using chicken tractors.  More information over at the  chicken tractor ebook blog .  Or you can get it directly from my shop on  Etsy  (.pdf format), or  Amazon Kindle  or just send me an email eight.acres.liz {at} gmail.com. What's the eBook about? Chickens in a confined coop can end up living in an unpleasant dust-bowl, but allowing chickens to free-range can result in chickens getting into gardens and expose them to predators.  A movable cage or “chicken tractor” is the best of both options – the chickens are safe, have acc...

Every year I like to do a round up of all the posts I've done of various topics, so that everyone can catch up on what they've missed.  You can catch up on my chicken posts over at my chicken tractor ebook blog . By the way, my chicken eBook is now available if you want to know more about backyard chickens and using chicken tractors.  More information over at the  chicken tractor ebook blog .  Or you can get it directly from my shop on  Etsy  (.pdf format), or  Amazon Kindle  or just send me an email eight.acres.liz {at} gmail.com. What's the eBook about? Chickens in a confined coop can end up living in an unpleasant dust-bowl, but allowing chickens to free-range can result in chickens getting into gardens and expose them to predators.  A movable cage or “chicken tractor” is the best of both options – the chickens are safe, have access to clean grass, fresh air and bugs. Feed costs are reduced, chickens are ...

By the way, my chicken eBook is now available if you want to know more about backyard chickens and using chicken tractors.  More information over at the  chicken tractor ebook blog .  Or you can get it directly from my shop on  Etsy  (.pdf format), or  Amazon Kindle  or just send me an email eight.acres.liz {at} gmail.com. What's the eBook about? Chickens in a confined coop can end up living in an unpleasant dust-bowl, but allowing chickens to free-range can result in chickens getting into gardens and expose them to predators.  A movable cage or “chicken tractor” is the best of both options – the chickens are safe, have access to clean grass, fresh air and bugs. Feed costs are reduced, chickens are happier, and egg production increases.   But how do you build a chicken tractor? What aspects should be considered in designing and using a chicken tractor effectively? In this eBook I aim to explain how to...

There are many options for feeding your chickens. For a while we thought the solution was chicken layer pellets, they are uniform, so the chickens don't pick through them, but you never really know what's in them, and they are usually a relatively expensive option.  Read about a few other ideas of feeding chickens (some for free!) over on my Chicken Tractor eBook blog . By the way, my chicken eBook is now available if you want to know more about backyard chickens and using chicken tractors.  More information over at the  chicken tractor ebook blog .  Or you can get it directly from my shop on  Etsy  (.pdf format), or  Amazon Kindle  or just send me an email eight.acres.liz {at} gmail.com. What's the eBook about? Chickens in a confined coop can end up living in an unpleasant dust-bowl, but allowing chickens to free-range can result in chickens getting into gardens and expose them to predators.  A movable cage...

We hatched some babies!  24 chicks from around 38 eggs.  Not the best hatch rate, but plenty of chicks for us to raise.   See this post on my chicken tractor ebook blog for a summary of all my posts about incubating, hatching and caring for baby chicks. By the way, my chicken eBook is now available if you want to know more about backyard chickens and using chicken tractors.  More information over at the  chicken tractor ebook blog .  Or you can get it directly from my shop on  Etsy  (.pdf format), or  Amazon Kindle  or just send me an email eight.acres.liz {at} gmail.com. What's the eBook about? Chickens in a confined coop can end up living in an unpleasant dust-bowl, but allowing chickens to free-range can result in chickens getting into gardens and expose them to predators.  A movable cage or “chicken tractor” is the best of both options – the chickens are safe, have access to clean grass,...

Until recently our “chicken watering system” was just buckets of water in each chicken tractor . One bucket for every 3-4 chickens, and 3-4 buckets of fresh water to top them up each day. We don’t have any taps in the paddock with the chickens, so this meant carrying water from the house tap to the chickens, a few hundred metres of walking for each load of buckets (welcome to the green gym). And then the chickens would regularly tip over the buckets, and the water got dirty very quickly and had to be tipped out anyway. This often meant a trip back to the garden with a bucket of dirty water (water is very precious here!). So there was a lot of water carting and water wastage.  The other annoying part is that we have to pull out all the buckets when we move the chicken tractor along every few days, and Bella the cow had a habit of trying to get to the buckets (she loves water from buckets) and tipping them over as well. a hen using the new system There had to be a better ...

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about chickens, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post!  New soap website and shop opening soon.... Tanya from Lovely Greens invited me to write a guest post on chicken tractors for her blog.  I can't believe how many page views I get for chicken tractors, they seem to be a real area of interest and I hope that the information on my blog has helped people.  I find that when I use something everyday, I forget the details that other people may not be aware of, so in this post for Tanya, I tried to just write everything I could think of that I haven't covered in previous posts.  I tried to explain everything we do and why, so that people in other locations and situations can figure out how best to use chicken tractors with their own chickens. The dogs like to hang out behind the chicken tractors and eat chicken poo.  Dogs are gross! If you want to read more about...

After a few posts on chicken tractors , its time for some more details.  Well we did have to make life difficult for ourselves and hatch 16 chicks just at the end of summer, with several other poorer hatches over spring, we have ended up with too many groups of chickens that can't be in the same cage due to size difference, so here we go again building another tractor! At least we are getting better at it.  Our first large tractors took 3-4 weekends to build, with the doors and wheels being particularly fiddly, this one took only half a day for Farmer Pete to cut and weld the frame and then another day with me "helping" to finish it off. The only things we had to buy were 30x30mm box section for the frame, cut to 4m lengths, about $150 worth, the hinges and catch for the door ($20), and the wheels ($9/each).  We already had the corrugated iron and wire at home. To start with, Farmer Pete measured up the wire and the car trailer to determine the size of the fr...