"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
FarmI wrote:
Yep, corn does give yellow fat. dunno what gives the yoldk it's
yellow colour in pellets though. do you want me to dig out my
A'Asian Poultry mag with that article in it about yolk colour and
give you a precis?

I am interested but don't go to too much trouble.

OK. I have to dig through them to let someone on another ng know aobut why
lime is used in the henhouse so when I do that for her, I'll look for the
article for you.

Before you even start that, pay strict attention to rats and how to
control and exclude them. But really chooks are easy.

I already have a master plan for the erradication of the rodents since
they ate the weather seal off my shed door to get in and they attack the
produce on the verandah. It doesn't work of course but I do fight them to
a draw. People comment on how generous I am with feed for them. Them
pellets ain't chook food.

Unlike mice, rats are much harder to kill off. We've done the hose pipe
from the car exhaust down the tunnels, the Jack Russells and a shovel and
posion but the sods keep coming back. I'm advised by the chooky people I
know that traps don't work like they do for mice. I think far more concrete
might be the next strategy.

Keep the foxes
away and wild birds out of the night yard/feed area. Keep the
pullets confined when you get them till they get used to their night
house and yard and then let them out to range (Ours range in an
orchard which is prolly about a quarter of an acre). I wouldn't
fully free range if you want to have veg though or toehrwise you
wont' have veg. They will do a good job of spreading horse plops.

Foxes are a real problem, such destructive buggers, the chook house will
be metal with buried barriers, the yard will have a loop off the electric
fence around it as well.

Also lay about 30 cm of wire out from the fence towards where the foxes
would be coming from. They don't think to step back and then to burrow
under so it's more efficient than burying it. Also use a heavy guage
netting on the bottom part of the pen. The idiot who built ours used a very
light guage and the foxes worry at it till they get a hole and you'd be
surprised at how tiny a hole is needed to let a fox through. I've had to
progressively go round that blasted orchard and add new wire in addition to
the old stuff.

How do you stop them scratching all the mulch off your fruit trees?

I don't. I chuck piles of weeds under the fruit trees and the chooks go in
and forage and scratch it around and while they're doing that they're
leaving droppings and getting rid of excess grass growth. My garden is not
a pristine, neat place but it is productive. Me and the willing but
ignorant undergardener have 2 farms to look after and 2 houses and 2 gardens
so there is not a lot of time for 'neat'.