Looking to be new Chicken family in Australia

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blackpotato

In the Brooder
Apr 19, 2023
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Hello everyone, excited to join the community. We are a family of 5 living in Canberra Australia and looking to get some chickens for the first time.
We currently have a couple of bee hives as pets and greatly enjoy looking after them and enjoying their honey.

In canberra we get both cold and hot climates but with low humidity. Can be below 0 degree Celsius in winters, but we don't get snow. We do get 30+ degree summers, sometimes even hitting 40+.
We are looking to get between 4-5 chickens, with varieties being a mix of Isa Brown and Australorp.
I've been reading some books on chickens and lots on the web, so getting a good mental picture of what we'll need etc.

Main problem: We have been tossing up between either getting a chicken tractor, or getting a chicken coop and building a run.
Footprint of the tractor is obviously smaller and involves less litter materials and cleaning, but we are a little worried a tractor might mean that our lawn gets destroyed. I've seen a couple of posts on here about this, but didn't feel I saw a really solid answer to my exact dimensions so thought I'd ask here.

The tractor we'd be looking at is this one:
https://www.royalrooster.com.au/chicken-castle-royale.html
It is 2.9m (9.5 feet) long by 1.2m (3.9 feet) wide and puts the roosting and nesting boxes up off the ground, and we'd get a seperate side nesting box for external access of the eggs.
Main question: I measured our yard, and we could move this tractor 35 times before it'd need to return to the original spot. If we move this tractor once a day, will we see holes in our lawn, i.e exposed dustbaths. Or will it not even be noticeable that 5 chickens were there for the day? What about the levels of droppings, will this be noticeable and will it make our whole backyard smell?

This is the deciding question for us? If we will notice, then we would rather go the coop option. Which we are looking at this one:
https://www.royalrooster.com.au/chicken-palace-small-extension.html
The most off putting part about a permanent coop for us, was the aspects around maintaining a deep litter, and also needing to create a small chicken run which further takes space in the yard. However if it means we don't have a destroyed lawn, this is still the preferred option.

I've attached a photo of our backyard, indicating where a permanent coop would go, and the orange line indicating the direction i'd be building a run (probably only up until the cubby house), but it'd be very small (just over chicken height) and only very skinny, sitting in the garden bed.

Would love to hear peoples thoughts so we can make the right decision and enjoy looking after our ladies.

Thanks again
 

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Hello and welcome to BYC! :frow Glad you joined.
I personally think that the chickens will trash your yard eventually.
I run a flock of 21-27 birds on 1/3 acre and it's still green. But there are holes everywhere from the digging.
I think the birds would be good with a stationary coop/run as long as the run was large. I would construct it (or add onto what you plan to purchase) so the birds have at least 15 sq ft per bird. Put lots of perches, stumps, old wood chairs/stools in the run and use dry organic material for run litter. I use wood chips in my run and have never cleaned it out. I just add more material when needed. I also use poop boards to manage most of the poop load in the coop and compost the poop with the coop bedding when I clean the coop out once a year. The whole setup is very easy to maintain and doesn't take me more than 15 minutes a day to feed, water and clean. Now the annual coop cleaning takes an entire day.
 
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