AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

We have a very large fenced chookie pen that currently contains:

5 x Light Sussex hens
1 x Frizzle Bantam Rooster
5 x ex-battery chookies (think these are Isa Browns or Isa crosses)
2 x cross-bred roosters (these are small fellows with feathers on their feet, mainly brown with bright green/blue tail plumage)
1 x Turkey gobbler
2 x Turkey hens
7 x Turkey poults, 6 weeks old
2 x pet minipigs.

It is a very large pen, must be at least half an acre in size if not larger, so everyone gets on fine, as there is plenty of room for everyone to find their own spot.

The Light sussex girls are teamed up with the Frizzle rooster and share one house
The ex-battery chookies are teamed up with the two young cross-breed roosters and they all share another house
The adult turkeys have a night-time roost
The poults are currently in a house with an enclosed pen within the main yard, but will be let out into the main yard within a week or two.

We have recently made the decision to start growing our own chookies for food. It has been a rocky road to get to this decision, much soul-searching, but we have come to the conclusion that it's not ethical to raise our own chooks in a lovely environment and then eat chooks who have been raised in hell. At least we will know that our own chookies have lived a lovely life the way nature intended (not in a cage or barn) and will be killed as humanely and quickly as we can possibly manage.

Now, my dilemma is this: it may be that we raise too many chicks for eating ourselves, especially in the early stages whilst we're getting the hang of things re setting eggs/quantity hatched/quantity raised/quantity eaten. So I am also looking at the possibility of selling some of the chicks. If there is enough demand to earn me a bit of pocket money, I may also continue to breed for sale.

At the moment, obviously all we would produce would be a variety of cross breeds (frizzle/light sussex and Isa Brown/Who Knows What). I am wondering if we should get a small flock of frizzle bantams to put with the frizzle rooster and a Light Sussex to put with the sussex girls (leaving the Isas with the other two roosters).

The chookie yard is so large that I can fence off sections for each "flock" of chookies, still giving them large individual areas.

Would pure-bred chookies fetch a better price/higher demand than the cross-breeds, or are people just keen to get hold of laying chooks no matter the breed? I have had a look on places like gumtree and there doesn't seem to be a great deal of difference in price for mixed-breed chicks as opposed to pure-breed chicks. Only a dollar or two per chick, so doesn't seem worth the effort to ensure only pure-bred chicks?

At the moment everyone gets on very well, never any fighting between the three roosters, so I'm wondering if I should just leave the status quo or whether I should separate all the chookies so I am only going to produce pure-breds? Fencing everything off means I would no longer have my lovely "barnyard" style chookie pen, but if it is worthwhile for the $$, then it can be done.

I would never have pigs with poultry for disease reasons to be honest sorry do not want to offend you with my very first post but I think that is a bad idea

You obviously have a very large enclosure for the poultry you house. One thing I have to stress to you with your mix of poultry is regular worming and keeping the pen as dry as possible, poultry diseases such as blackhead thrive in wet conditions and on animals that are not regularly wormed and it will wipe out your turkey stock before you know its hit you. Changing wormers regularly is also a must.

If your only breeding to eat them yourselves and selling the surplus then you need to find what mix of hen to rooster makes the best table bird for you then selling the surplus of those when they are young. Are you intending to eat the male turkeys also? Small chickens like the frizzle are time consuming to pluck and hardly worth the bother unless you like things such as quail or pigeon but they are saleable, lots of people like the frizzle, it is said to pair frizzle to a nice small non frizzle rooster for the best results as frizzle to frizzle produces a doubling of the frizzle, and the bird looks a little strange.

With the ex battery hens you may not have too much success with breeding but I would pick the most robust of the two roosters and keep him with them, no need for two roosters who will in breeding season, once they mature, fight with eachother.

The other concern is with your pigs, if they have access to the eggs and chicks they will inevitabely find that they are a great food source, pigs love meat even though they should not be given it, they love it and once they work out what tastes good its extremely difficult to get them to stop.

Thanks Sebducks, for your very valuable input, it is appreciated, especially the advice regards the breeds to select for eating. It sounds like I don't need to worry about selectively breeding for purebreeds then, just the larger/tastier birds and I guess that will only be trial and error. I am happy with that, it means I can just keep the flock/s and setup we currently have and replace the birds in the natural course of things. It is going to be absolutely awful the first few times we cull, but as I said, IMO a bit hypocritical of us not to. Hubby will do the killing (I just can't manage that), but I am happy to do the rest once they are dispatched.

We do everything we can to keep the yard very clean and dry, and as well as regularly worming with poultry/pig wormer also regularly add garlic to their water, which is supposed to also help keep away the nasties.

They all have a very large area to roam in, so I believe this helps keep disease at bay as well rather than being all squished in to a small area. They have all been co-existing for well over a year with no problems to date.

The piggies can't get into the chookie houses, although they certainly love eggs, they are only given these cooked on the ocassions we have surplus (and the dogs also enjoy a good feed of scrambled eggs at the same time).

They completely ignore the chooks & turkeys, always have. We were a little apprehensive at first putting them all in together, but the pigs have shown exemplary behaviour. We currently have a pen of young turkey poults within the large yard and the only interest the piggies have shown towards the poults are for their food (i.e, not the poults themselves, but what we are feeding them). We would/do ensure that chicks, along with their mum/s are kept separate from the rest of the yard until they are large enough not to present a snack opportunity. I have seen one of the pigs devour a massive worm, and it wasn't a pretty sight, so although I don't THINK they would eat a chick, I wouldn't risk the opportunity.

I am only planning on keeping our original turkey tom, it's silly I know, but at this stage I don't think I could manage eating the turkeys, they are my favourites. At any rate, I much prefer chicken to turkey to eat. I will sell on any of the poults that turn out to be toms, at this stage it looks like out of seven we have only two boys. I was hoping to have a go at breeding them for resale (not eating), but have had little success with that so far (the poults were purchased, some as eggs, some as poults).