Backyard Poultry Forum

Hey all, I haven't been in for ages, sorry large post, am finally back in a house after having been living in the unit for 7 years.
My wife and I bought a 1 acre place out of town in a quiet, low crime suburb, we've bought a large 3.2mx1.8mx1.8m that has the small hole snake proof type mesh and came with a roll of it and all the bird accessories and have finally finished moving so started to work on it yesterday, should have the mods and repairs finished this arvo or tomorrow.

So yay, I can finally keep some jap quails and birds again.
We are picking up a rooster and chook tomorrow and hopefully 2 commercial layers as well if they are still available, the rooster looks like he is a Rhode Island red or Maran, I think the first one due to how much orange he has, not sure what type the chook is as haven't seen any pics of it. We might get 2 ducks off a friend once she has more bubs of the right age.
I'm also thinking of getting a female bantam to hatch jap quail eggs and look after the bubs.
Going to get some jumbo japs and a italian/manchurian golden, not sure what type of male to get or if to get one at all.

The aviary was meshed off in the middle down the length of it, we needed extra room for the poultry we will get so have modded it so as only 1 quarter is meshed off from the rest and has 1 of the 2 front doors entering into that part, that 1 quarter will be for my birds, the other 3 quarters for the poultry.
Have also had to go along the bottom of the frame and zippy tie the mesh to it in the parts where the wire that was securing it had broken, decided to use ties instead of wire for that part as we thought the wire wouldn't take long to rust once on dirt.
Got a few holes in the mesh to repair as well, have set up the feeder that Mel's parents bought up with them, have set up most of the bird accessories it came with in the bird section and have to set up some roof sheeting on the roof over the bird section as the roofing stuff ends at the beginning of it and it is just mesh above for that part. Might as some roof sheeting on one side for better protection from the weather.

We have put it down back in the far left corner with 1 side against the big dog pen fence, we will cut into that side and add in a run with a closeable door to let them out in the fenced dog pen in the morning and put them back away into the aviary for the night.
The fenced dog pen is about 8x10m with the fencing about 6ft high, we are looking to extend the height by another couple of feet and set up shade cloth over part of it for shade for the poultry.
Once we add in the dog mesh onto the 2 fences of the yard that need it we will be able to look at letting the poultry out in the yard rather than just the large fenced dog pen area.

Bird wise I'm going to get some zebra finches again and another Bourke parrot, if not a Bourke then another small quiet grass parrot type breed, I have found some young Turquiose parrots for $35 each so might consider them, they sound similar to Bourkes and can be house with other species of birds like finches etc.

I will post pics of the whole setup and poultry soon.
Here is one of the rooster, he is the type that my wife and I both like the best and a very pretty boy.

Welcome back to poultry

So if I read this right the fox proof area of the coop is 1.8 x 1.8m and two-thirds of that is available for chickens and ducks, which is about 2 sq m. I'd say that you'd be ok with shutting a few large chooks in there overnight but adding ducks to that mix is going to be tricky. There is just not enough room. And putting ducks and chooks together in a small space is not easy - the ducks will totally mess up the water and the rooster and ducks may not get along. So if you want ducks I'd be creating a separate coop for them.

What are your plans for fox-proofing the floor of the coop?

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Cheerio, Rach
Blue Swedish Ducks

The entire coup is small hole metal meshed, down the length, width and height and roof and had mesh through the middle dividing it into two section which we had to alter, best to view the paint jpg I'll attach to get what I mean, easier to explain by picture, the chook section of the aviary is 4.32 sqm and the aviary part is 1.44 sqm, the pen it is running down one side of that they will be let into from late morning - afternoon is about 60 sqm.

Thanks, yeah already on that, the front, sides, back and roof are metal meshed on the outside of the metal frame and also have some roof sheeting and sunproof mesh over that in the roof, we are going to dig a trench down 3 of the sides and fill it in with pavers and bricks to stop snakes and dogs etc getting in under the frame, can't do that down 1 side as it's against the dog mesh of the dog pen that will become the chook pen.

The aviary bit isn't as large as I would like as I'd prefer to have half of the enclosure for that rather than 1/4, so it would be 3.2m x 90cm instead of the new 1.6m x 90cm, I will only be housing small grazing type species that don't normally fly much during the day such as zebra finches and jap quail in the aviary section but would still prefer the extra space for them.

I'll post pics tomorrow, easier to see than to explain it, for now the paint jpg will have to do.

I'll edit the paint jpg later as I checked it all out today and the dog pen part is larger than shown, is more like 10mx6m rather than the 8mx4m I thought it was.

Today we picked up 2 light sussex girls (point of lay and 7-8wks old and a big Aracauna looking female that will likely rule the roost until we get the rooster.
I think the Aracuana will rule the roost for now as she had gone off laying eggs and had been crowing (is why we were getting her, as we needed girls and a workmate of my wife had her and is in suburbia so couldn't keep her anymore due to the crowing).

I'll put up pics of the works on the aviary, pen and the chooks when I can, both camera's went flat and we hadn't unpacked their chargers.

Hope you enjoy your new girls When the actual rooster is in the picture I dare say the Araucana will stop crowing.

_________________
Cheerio, Rach
Blue Swedish Ducks

Thanks, finally found the chargers for the camera's last week but had rellies come and stay, will go through and cull and edit the pics of the work we did on the aviary and pen and post them once I can.

Finally got to go pick up the rooster after having to cancel twice due to car troubles (only had it for 1 month, we think we have a lemon), we also decided to pick up a laying chook as we only have the bantam laying so far out of our chooks.

Here are the whole flock, not getting any more for ages now, also over the last 2 weeks I got 3 king quail (1 male, 2 females). The chooks we got a few at a time from Dec-Today and the 2 little ones were the first of them and taking forever to grow big enough to put with the adults.

The rooster have named George short for Boy George as he is a pretty boy, the black with metallic colours girl at the front is Penny, the sussex closest to her is Bigfoot who we were worried was a rooster due to her different looks to the other light sussex and not laying yet until we put George in today and all hell didn't break loose. The other light sussex is Little One, Match is the little black bantum hen and we named the new chook Sally.

The two young chooks that are housed separate to the adults are Bloody Mary and no name for the white one yet, I've just been calling it the white one, Bloody Mary's name came from that they had Cociadosis when we got them, didn't realise until we got home and saw the poos and saw the black one do a poo with a pool of blood, they are fine now and have been for ages as we treated them asap.

Only Sally and Match are laying so far, Sally laid one before we even got her home today and Match got laying again in the last week.
Match we had given to a friend late last year as a housewarming gift but recently took her back as she turned out to be very broody when laying eggs and was attacking their injured duck and other bantum hen.

The inside of the aviary.

And the quail, they are king quail, I've figured the male is a male cinnamon, 1 female is the wild type variety and the other female looks to be a mix of silver and wild type or silver and cinnamon. The wild type was from 1 place and the other 2 another and going of the difference in variety I think the wild type isn't siblings with the other 2 hopefully (there aren't many people breeding them and selling to the shops here anymore).

The 3 king quail are housed inside the house through the night and let out into a enclosure for grass and sunshine during the day the same as Bloody Mary and the white one are, separate enclosures for the little chooks and the quail.

We started building a large moveable enclosure for the king quail today and I already have 9 people keen on getting fertile eggs and young from them (I did some checking around before I got them to see if anyone interested in the eggs and young so as I wouldn't end up with too many and could also make a tiny bit of money selling them).