Australians - Where are you all????

[Blair75214]

My husband is from Melbourne, but we live in Dallas Texas now and go back to Aus every year! I need a fellow Aussie to assure my husband that getting our first chicken is a GREAT IDEA! He is a bit, hmm, reluctant to the idea...

 

[cluckcluckluke]

My husband is from Melbourne, but we live in Dallas Texas now and go back to Aus every year! I need a fellow Aussie to assure my husband that getting our first chicken is a GREAT IDEA! He is a bit, hmm, reluctant to the idea...

RELUCTANT about getting chickens, are you CRAZY man???????????

PROS-
They are so amazing they'll keep you occupied for hours.
They will bring out you creative and constructive juices.(building roosts, laying box designs etc,etc).
You will see so much that you would never expect from a chicken, trust me its FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!.
Wonderful fresh FREE eggs they are so good.
Great for children they will love them and it will show them how to look after things/animals properly and it just all round excites them and keeps them stimulated and doing something.
Depending on how many your getting feed is relatively cheap and will last.
Chicks are adorable!!!!!!!!!!
Even, get this Even washing out the roost and cleaning the run is FUN(dont ask me why, it just is).
Doesn't smell unless your physically put your nose in it(well for me it doesn't).
They look great in your garden(almost like decoration, if you get all different colours).
I'm sure neighbors will love benefiting from eggs(my neighbors buy the eggs off me (i have 23 hens) so that covers feed and other stuff- e.g-medicines, etc etc and a bit of lovely profit).
AND THERE ARE MANY MANY MANY MORE PROS, so chickens are a great asset to have around im sure you'll make the right decision by getting some,,,,,,,,,,, or more or more

!!!!!!!!!!

CONS-
(there are non eheh

)

O.K to be honest,
Roosters are noisy (if you dont have neighbors dont worry then)
They can depending on how many you have and your lifestyle be a bit of work especially building a run roost nest boxes etc etc(but i personally found it all fun)
They can be quite frustrating Ive found because they basically do what they wont nothing like a dog(eg- escaping and when your trying to catch one, but if you hatch and then raise them they should be plenty tame).

and that's honestly all I can think of, there's really nothing i dont like about them, but dont just listen to me get some more advice and make the right decision according to you, your husband and your lifestyle.

 

[qldchook]

My husband is from Melbourne, but we live in Dallas Texas now and go back to Aus every year! I need a fellow Aussie to assure my husband that getting our first chicken is a GREAT IDEA! He is a bit, hmm, reluctant to the idea...

Look Aussie, get some "CHOOKS" and call them chooks like any good OZ guy.Chooks are a part of Aussie life- retain your heritage-get chooks!!! (is that ok Blair? LOL)

 

[Rachel96]

Hi everyone!
Remember me? I fell off the face of the earth.
Well, not exactly, but I haven't been on this thread in about three months, so that amounts to much the same thing, doesn't it?

Here's the short version of what's been going on in case anyone's interested:
-Summative assessment tasks completed: I think 16 this semester, but that's just a guess... See, this is what happens when they decide to do away with exams for Year 11s!
-AMEB (Australian Music Examinations Board) exams: one, 7th Grade piano
-Chicks hatched: 52 (3 infanthood fatalities), plus 1 zipped and 2 pipped last time I checked. The oldest chicks are currently 23 days old, others are 14 days, a couple are only hours old.
-Chickens and fowl otherwise acquired: 4 RIR x light Sussex hens (purchased with money from selling eggs...), 10 broilers (they're Dad's...), 1 Tuxedo duck & 1 Tuxedo drake (my sister's)

I guess that just about covers everything. Basically, I have a tonne of schoolwork. But the semester (and thus year) is coming to a close soon, thank goodness. So how has everyone else been going?

Oh, Blair... Get chickens (chooks)!!! Not much of a reccomendation there, but here goes: Chooks are AWESOME! They (1) Are friendly, (2) Have personalities, (3) produce useful stuff (eggs), unlike some pets, (4) clear away weeds and unwanted food scraps and produce fertiliser, (5) are super cute as babies, (6) look gorgeous as adults, (7) You'll never want to eat a shop-bought egg again after you've eaten an egg from your own chook, (8) they're AWESOME!!

Also, treat a chicken well, and they will love you. Majorly. As my sister said the other day:
"Hello, is this the official chicken complaints office? I have a complaint to make about your chicken. She's too friendly."

from Rachel.

 

[Hayleigh Barnes]

My husband is from Melbourne, but we live in Dallas Texas now and go back to Aus every year! I need a fellow Aussie to assure my husband that getting our first chicken is a GREAT IDEA! He is a bit, hmm, reluctant to the idea...

Chickens are the best! Ducks are great too! I got a chicken when she was 5 weeks old and a duck when she was 3 weeks old and they grew up together.
so now the chicken thinks shes a duck and the duck thinks shes a chicken.

They are so funny. Chickens have such great character and odd personalities. Definitely suggested!

 

[qldchook]

Hey Rachel, Year 11 pretty good excuse for little contact. It is MUCH worse than Yr 12 or certainly used to be 100 years ago when I did it.You must be on a property from amount of poultry you have. Post some pics once the dreaded school year over. Good Luck

 

[Rachel96]

Really? Because everyone keeps saying Yr 12 is worse... or it should be, because that would make sense, wouldn't it? But maybe because Yr 11s do 5-7 subjects, and Yr 12s do 4... I don't know.

I do my school largely by correspondence, so I get things done quicker than kids in a school (mostly because I have a 2-hour lesson for each subject a week, that's it for contact and the rest I do by myself). I don't like to think how stressed out kids at school must be... Because they've got 6 hours of doing nothing EVERY DAY, and then they've STILL got to get all the work done! Crazy! Maybe I'm overloading, too, I do far more extracurricular stuff than most Yr 11s because I can; like I love music and have lessons for 3 instruments, I play in a string orchestra, concerts, and in church, I volunteer at a couple of youth camps, not to mention the chickens...

Well, I live on an acre, but we're the smallest block on our street so that's a little weird (I think our house was subdivided from the neighbour, because if you look at a map it looks like someone's chopped of the tiny little corner of his property). But there aren't really any houses near ours so I can get away with having a couple of roosters, we also don't have much livestock that's not poultry so we've got lots of space for chooks and ducks. I won't be keeping all the chicks, though! The cockerels are destined for the table, and I might have to sell some pullets, too.

Got to go now and do some schoolwork.
from Rachel.

 

[Fierlin1182]

Hey guys!

I'm kinda in Rachel's boat too, disappeared for an extraordinaire amount of time.

I have turned into - surprise - a diligent student. I don't even know what started it. It's totally contrary to my personality. I started on my TOK presentation while everyone else was still whinging about how they didn't understand what a knowledge issue is...

(I don't understand what a knowledge issue is either, but that can always be tackled at a later stage. )

I've also begun packing for Germany. I'm leaving in three weeks. :O

 

[transformed]

Hello, I'm a newbie to the forum. I'm in suburban SA.

 

[redfeather13]

My husband is from Melbourne, but we live in Dallas Texas now and go back to Aus every year! I need a fellow Aussie to assure my husband that getting our first chicken is a GREAT IDEA! He is a bit, hmm, reluctant to the idea...

Hi there in Texas

my husband was also reluctant to get chooks, till a neighbours hen hatched some and he gave them to us.
We live on a standard quarter acre house block, my gals have the bottom half of our backyard - which I fenced off with dog wire and star pickets, and softened with a few small shrubs.
Two or three pullets to start with (I like odd numbers

) I don't have a rooster because I'm in town. They have a small open fronted 'chook house' to roost in with lawn mower grass catchers to lay in. Their clucking and 'grumbling' are the loveliest most homely sound - I love it. Somehow makes me feel content. And then, of course, are the eggs!!! Oh those fresh eggs!!!
I eat a lot of eggs and give some away to friends - much to their delight, and swap some with neighbours who bring me some veg from their gardens.
I feed my gals organic layer mix grain, and they roam around 'their' yard all day picking grass and scratching for worms.
They all run to me when I go down to them and I talk to them "tooktooktook"
My dog and cat can wander through their yard without any worries. We all love each other

I LOVE MY CHOOKS

and the little boy next door does too - he come down everyday and talks to them, through the wire fence, and shares a bit of his bread with them.
Being 'in town', the only restriction we had was a) no rooster - because of their crowing, and b) distance from houses - it isn't that far.
So..... hubby of BLAIR75214, the only other thing I can say is that they enrich your life.