Tips - Chooks

Oh my goodness - I've lost two days. How does that happen? It can't just be to me that it happens. Other people must lose days, weeks or even months. They do, don't they?

This tip is very simple - own a couple of chooks (chickens to those who might be from parts other than Australia). Couple of good reasons for chooks:

• Our chooks lay one egg each every day. We have four chooks, we have three people. I never buy eggs. Good quality (ie free range) eggs are over $5 a dozen. We do buy laying mash for our chooks, but I get a dozen eggs every three days, and my laying mash costs about $20 every month. You do the maths.
• Chooks eat ANYTHING. The down side of that is you have to protect some areas of your garden. The up side is that, other than chicken and egg scraps, all food scraps go to the chooks.
• Food scraps that go through chickens turn into lovely rich growing material. I'm guessing it's not strictly "soil", but its great in the garden.
• Chooks do not take up a lot of room. We have a 'hutch' with an enclosure around it. The whole area would be three metres square. The chooks are often let out to roam our (fully fenced) yard. We let them out in the afternoon as they tend to lay in the morning, and while Easter egg hunts are fun I don't want to do it every day.

The only real down side is that I haven't worked out what to do with chooks that no longer laying but refuse to conveniently die. Hubby keeps suggesting the cook pot, but I'm too much of a city girl to pluck and gut a chook. Ewwww.