There was a very good segment on ABC TV’s Landline show last Sunday, How Green Was My Valley, on the challenges faced by dairy farmers as our climate slowly changes. You can watch it online.

The first 10 minutes or so focuses on a Victorian dairy famer, and the problems he faces when water allocations are [...]

I previously posted asking if anyone had any suggestions on how to make a hen go broody. I got some helpful answers, and did some research, and found a few suggestions:

leave eggs in the nest put golf balls in the nest, so she thinks they’re eggs set up a nice quiet nest in a darkened, sheltered corner [...]

So, after trying to stop a chicken from going broody several times throughout last year, now I want her to go broody and she won’t!

Late last year we got some new chickens – 4 brahma pullets and a rooster to match. We also acquired 3 unwanted ISA brown layers from a friend. So with the [...]

We had been planning to get a couple more chickens once we got our chook run finished. Molly is a bit of a sporadic layer, and the silkies are even less reliable. We figured a couple of good layers would shore up our egg supply so we’d never need to buy any more.

Sarah had seen [...]

After going broody since Christmas, Molly the leghorn then decided that it was time to molt.

When they molt, chickens lose lots of feathers, and new ones grow to replace them. The process requires lots of protein, so they normally stop laying during molting. They look pretty scruffy for a while too.

Finally last week, Molly started [...]

Help! Does anyone know how to ‘cure’ a broody chicken?

Molly (our cuckoo leghorn) has gone broody, and given her way would spend all day up in the roost area of our chicken tractor. The photo shows the roost with the access door open – she gets cranky and pecks me if I try to move [...]

I previously posted a list of online resources I found useful (for both plans and inspiration) when designing our chicken tractor.

I’ve had a few emails from people who lack either the time or the inclination to build their own, and would like to purchase a ready-made chicken tractor. So here are some of the Australian [...]

I’ve long watched other chicken-bloggers report their first eggs, and now it’s finally my turn!

When I came home from work today, I went out into the backyard to have a look at the garden and the chickens, as I normally do. On a whim, I opened up the door to the roost to check it [...]

It can be hard to find chickens for sale locally, especially if you’re after a particular breed. Here is a big list of all the places I found when I was looking:

Illawarra Mercury Classifieds (look under pets, horses and livestock, and for sale categories) Other local newspaper classifieds (Kiama Independent, Lake Times, etc) The Trading Post The Land Check [...]

The Sydney Morning Herald’s “Good Living” supplement today has an article about HerdShare and Rentachook, titled City folk find a milky way.

HerdShare runs out of Byron Bay, and facilitates a scheme designed to get around Australian regulations that prohibit the sale of raw (unpasteurised) milk. Instead of buying your milk at retail, you instead buy [...]