Poultry

10 Things You Can Do With Too Many Eggs

There are plenty of things you can do with a glut of eggs, here's 10: 1. Mayonnaise – It uses eggs as the base for the recipe so make a big batch! 2. Custard – Make your own custard from scratch (so much better and healthier than pre-made junk). 3. Cheese cake – Some cheese

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How To Stop Ducks Using Chicken Drinkers?

Duck proof chicken drinker If you keep a flock of mixed poultry like ducks and chickens you'll soon find out that even though you have a dedicated bucket for your ducks they will find their way to the chicken drinkers also and make a right mess! An easy fix to stop ducks from drinking (or

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Is It OK To Eat Fertilised Chicken Eggs?

Eating fertilised chicken eggs I've posed this "tip" as a question because I'm often asked "if I have a rooster will my eggs turn into chicks and are the eggs safe to eat?" As strange as this question may seem, it's actually a very good one because fertilised eggs can indeed start growing an embryo

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Do Chicken and Duck Eggs Taste The Same?

 Yes there is a difference between chicken and duck eggs A question I often hear or get asked is do duck eggs taste the same as chicken eggs? The simple answer is NO but having said that, the differences for most people are not obvious. Standard duck eggs are usually bigger than chicken eggs by

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Chicken Feed Scooper Made From Coke Soda Bottle

Make a free DIY chicken feed scooper today! Here's a nice simple tip to make a DIY scooper for those who keep chickens and any other animal for that matter requiring the scooping out of feed from a bin or bag etc. The DIY feed scooper is made out of a soda/soft drink bottle, such

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How Many Chickens Do I Need?

How many chickens should you keep? How many chickens does the average newbie chicken keeper really need? Or, how many chickens should I start out with? These are two common questions asked by people who want to start keeping chickens but aren't quite sure about egg laying or chicken maintenance. The first thing I say

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Can I Keep Just One Chicken?

Can you just keep one chicken I should you have more? Can I keep just one chicken or will it fret? One of the great things about chickens is their versatility. They are also an independent animal and often like to be on their own. Therefore, it is OK to keep just one chicken because

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When Will My Chickens Start Laying?

Here's some info on when chickens start laying eggs Chickens usually start laying between 16 to 20 weeks or around 4 to 5 months old; however, it can take a little longer for hens to settle in and start laying especially if they have been moved to a new area or spent a fair amount

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Can I Keep Just One Duck?

Keep a couple of ducks to keep them happy You can keep just one duck, obviously, but you shouldn't and here's why. One black hen, a couple or ducks, 3 brown bears, 4 running hares… Remember this verbal game? If you do, you probably drank too much in your early 20's ha-ha… However, my loose

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What Does “Point of Lay Chickens” Mean?

You often hear the term "point of lay" in association with buying or selling chickens so what does point of lay actually mean? Simply, the term "point of lay" means hens which have matured to the stage when they should be starting to lay eggs. The time it usually takes for a good laying breed

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Raising Common Japanese Coturnix Quail (general outline)

Introduction (This article was reviewed for currency on 10 Apr 2015) Raising or keeping quail isn't the first thing that comes to mind when one ponders self sufficiency. Needless to say, poultry have always been a favourite for self sufficiency and backyard farming because they are relatively easy to keep compared to livestock, they grow

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I’m a Quail Murderer

Introduction I imagine many (or even most) people who practice some sort of self-sufficiency involving DIY slaughtering would hold some reservations with the whole process. The subject of DIY slaughtering or even commercial slaughtering is a difficult one but it is part of life. For the majority who eat meat, we shouldn't take for granted

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Keeping Chickens Guide (General Outline)

Article revised on 10 April 2015. This article is a very basic outline but we have plenty of other articles also about chicken keeping in our poultry section. When I initially decided to investigate getting chickens the very first question that came into my mind was how easy are chickens to keep? At the time I

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Weber Q 220

Cooking Home Grown Quail on my Weber Q

Introduction It's all well and good to produce your own food, however, if you don't cook it correctly or at least with some imagination your home-grown produce can be a tad bland. So true is the notion you don't need to do much to make good food taste great and I'm the first to preach

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Mixed Grain Chicken Feed

Chicken Feed for Laying Hens

Is feeding chickens as simple as feeding a pet cat or dog? Well, yes, and no. When people first start researching about what to feed their chooks they soon realise there are many answers. And, most of what I have read (and heard) is completely fine; however, there are some areas worth exploring more when

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Chickens under ferns

Chicken Feed Test (experiment)

  Introduction This post on chicken feed test is a short supplementary article to complement my YouTube video “Chicken Feed Test”. I wanted to further explain the test and results for the benefit of anyone who is just visiting and hasn't yet seen the video and for those who are just interested in the reasoning

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Quail run inside

Quail/Chicken Run Build – Lessons Learnt

Several months prior to this article I wrote a two part “How to” article on how to build a quail or chicken run. The interest in this article has been exciting to see and I'm glad this particular project is grabbing peoples curiosity as I wasn't sure if our readers would enjoy my DIY building

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Hens squashed into nesting boxes for roosting at night

Best Nesting Or Laying Boxes For Chickens

Introduction     Article updated 30 Sep 2019   Provide a spot or box with some straw and your hens will happily lay eggs it's that simple, jobs done – sad to say it isn't quite that simple. After much trial and error, open-eyed surprises, shaking head disappointments, wasted money, wasted eggs, and lost time, I have evolved

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Light sussex chicken peaking behind a hollow tree trunk

The Modern Day Chicken

Introduction When you think about great moments in time, human achievement, or an event which changed the world, most people would consider the wheel, electricity, war, medicine, moon landing, internet, Jesus, or Michael Jackson, but very few people give any credit to the domesticated fowl. Therefore, in this article I would like to be the

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