Mobile Chicken House Construction
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Building, Fencing, Land, Livestock, Working Animals — by Paul Kean July 8, 2010
by Paul Kean, aka ‘Ringo’, who, incidentally, recently returned from Afghanistan.
Several years ago I was living and working at Dalpura Farm in Moriac,Victoria a 100 or so acre silvapastoral project. The client, George Howson, was interested in implementing an aquaponics system so we all went for a day and a half trip to Melbourne to attend a seminar on the subject.
Leading up to this I had started gathering chickens and roosters from the local area, from people giving them away for one reason or another, to start using as workers on the farm. At that time I had sourced 21 birds, a third being roosters. The plan was to eventually separate them into tractoring groups to reduce the competition and fighting between roosters. Long term they would go into a set of 4 cell grazing areas and rotate with crop systems. Even longer term the roosters would be our meat source and hens kept for egg production. (I have always been an avid poultry enthusiast and had raised a good flock in past years in Humpty Doo, NT. I always loved to just sit and watch new chicks making their way and learning from their parents. The breed I had were ‘Old English Game Fowl’ and the hen (Ruby) and rooster (Rudy) were a fantastic pair for parenting and protection of their young.)
We had always been present on the farm during the day and the chooks would free range after being let out of their house in the mornings. Everything was great and eggs were coming daily and the animals seemed happy. Unbeknownst to us though, there was a menace lurking.
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