[Questor]

One for Helen I think, but:

Does anyone know where we can get a cool hen house - really I want an egglu but I don't think I can get one over here!

Also I'll need to know where to get some chickens from - don't want many, no more than the 6 we're allowed by the council :)

[StevieD]

Good post Questor, glad to see you have arrived safely. We are also looking at keeping chooks eventually - will watch with interest :)

Steve

[H & Rick]

Just purchased my Chicken Husbandry book.. :D

Did not know the number of chickens you can keep is limited by certain councils...where can I find out more?

I want to keep 1000 ....only joking :laugh

[adamsat]

It's worth checking your local papers to see if there is anyone who makes them near where you live. Or if you're a keen DIY fan you could look to make one yourself, you can find some good plans free on the web. Here's one I found http://www.geocities.com/heartland/plains/4175/henhouse.html

As for the chickens, take a look in the small ads or whatever your local version of Buy & Sell exchange is - the ads are also on the website http://www.sellmefree.co.nz/ search under animals,livestock and supplies.

It also depends on what you want to do - lots of the chickens for sale in the small adds will be cross breeds - not a problem in its self but you take a chance with their egg laying abilities. Take a look at the rarebreeds site http://www.rarebreeds.co.nz/chooks.html they have a description of some of the rarer purebred types and links to breeders.

You can pick up cross-breeds very cheaply, anything from $2 to $10 per bird. The purebreeds might be a bit more expensive anything up to $25 - $30 depending on type. One of my favourites are Araucanas, they lay green eggs that are meant to be lower in cholesterol (not sure if this is true). I have a soft spot for them as we have one that we hand reared from an egg :)

If you can only keep six, and I guess no roosters :) it's probably best if you go for point of lay pullets, there will be a fair number of them around from this time of year onwards, shavers and leghorns are good layers.

If you have small children it's fun to get some fertile egss and hatch them out, might not be best for you though as you obviously can't tell what you are going to get, and the council (or the neighbours) wouldn't be too keen on half a dozen roosters wandering around your back garden :) - when we first moved here I bought a dozen fertile eggs and out of the 9 that hatched 8 were roosters!

Hope this helps and good luck.

[sizzlingbadger]

We've been looking for a chook house for ages, in the end we've decided to build our own. Most of them are too expensive, not what we're looking for etc, etc.

Have a look on trademe they have some on there sometimes. You can also look on there for chickens.

If you're after silkie pullets we've got a contact here in Featherston who is already holding some for us :D They're bantams so smaller than the araucanas and very friendly towards children .

[sizzlingbadger]

Hi Questor just spotted this on the lifestyle forum ...
http://www.lifestyleblock.co.nz/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=18532

seems like a good place to start :)

[bpk]

One for Helen I think, but:

Does anyone know where we can get a cool hen house - really I want an egglu but I don't think I can get one over here!

Also I'll need to know where to get some chickens from - don't want many, no more than the 6 we're allowed by the council :)

Only 6 allowed by council????? This is too few,
And do you know if those 6 allowed should be all male or female?? or mixed?

[Avalon]

Also I'll need to know where to get some chickens from - don't want many, no more than the 6 we're allowed by the council :)
They limit you???????

Well - you learn something new every day.

[sizzlingbadger]

Not all councils, varys from council to council.

We checked with the council and there was no limit to the amount of chickens we can have.

[Moorf]

They also limit whether or not you can have a rooster if you are within city limits - if you've ever lived within earshot of one you'll know why - a few of those in close proximity in a city would cause "rooster rage"!! I quite like hearing the local one from afar! There's also a fair few communites of wild roosters here - people turf them out and dump them in the country - there's a "pack" (what's the collective for roosters?!!) of 5 of them up the track from us....!!

I love the Egglu's, discovered them a few months back - but if we put a couple of those in the paddock we'd be laughed out of town :laugh

I've just bought two more chooks - point of lays who'll start giving me lovely eggs in Spring - and they cost $8 each from a forum friend (not this forum) down the road from here. Check out "lifestyleblock.co.nz" where you'll find lots of helpful people in NZ who have animals/land. They often have chooks for sale/free on there. :nice1

[Moorf]

Questor - saw this and thought of you... this shed probably won't be "cool" but for $100 it's a good starter set up!

http://www.lifestyleblock.co.nz/classified/index.php?a=2&b=70