Episode Thirty Seven: Get Chickens

Hello again Team! 

There have been a lot of ideas I've shared that are pretty easy to do and use things you may have lying around the house. This one, not so much. This one take a little more effort and frankly, it's not for everyone. Either way, this weeks idea is get chickens.

First things first: Most councils within New Zealand have bylaws surrounding keeping chickens in suburban areas (the majority of them do not allow for roosters within town) so make sure you're aware of what you're allowed and not allowed to do. There can be some pretty stringent rules around how far away from dwellings and fences the chickens are allowed to be. Don't get caught out.

Once you've got that bit of homework done, the fun times begin. For us that meant building a chicken house and a pen for them to be kept within. There are a lot of differing opinions on how much room chickens actually need - not much room if you talk to battery hen farmers. However, we've opted for around 10m2 for five chickens. They seem pretty happy with that.

Chicken houses differ and companies like Farmlands sell pre-made ones which can be quite cool. I've made my own using forklift pallets I've found behind various shops around town. The cool thing about building your own is that you can make tweaks and changes - trust me, there will be a few variations needed as chickens are quite particular about where they lay and roost.

From there it's a case of finding chickens to buy. TradeMe is your friend. We got all sorts of advice around what sort of breed we should be looking for and in the end opted for Brown Shavers. They are pretty hearty and lay quite consistently. There is a great online resource called 'Chickens By Design' that has some good info around breeds and how to choose your chickens. 

For our children it's been a great excercise in seeing food being brought to the table from their back yard. We feed our chickens our various table scraps and compostables and in turn they provide us with five eggs a day. Our kids are pretty stoked to go out every day, feed them and collect the eggs. It's the same theory as gardening and bringing your veggies to your plate - just with less fuss.

I've also learnt a lot about chickens myself. I didn't realise how curious they are. If I'm working in their pen making adjustments or even in the backyard near them, they love to gather around and get involved. They can be quite smart too!

Anyways, this idea may not be for anyone but I guess this is my way of sharing the fact that we've got chickens and they are super low fuss, fun for our children and we haven't had to buy eggs since getting them. If you've been toying with the idea of chickens in your backyard, do it. Trust me, it's great fun. It's nice to have spare eggs to give away and incredibly easy to entice people to feed them while you're away on holiday (they just collect their eggs as payment as they go!).

Have fun!

Episode Twenty Five: Answer Their Questions

When I was young I remember my father telling me about the hard questions we asked him. My brother asked why was the sky blue, my sister asked where do mountains come from and I can never remember what I asked. What I can remember is that he tried his hardest to answer them and when he was exhausted with the follow up questions he said "go ask your mother". When mum got exhausted of those questions she said "go ask your teacher" and the teacher said "go home and ask your father". Classic.

The other day while doing some yard work my wife found a bird's nest. I don't think I'll ever cease to be amazed by the way a bird can construct something so intricate and so ornate. They are incredibly complicated and I've often thought about how I could recreate one but I'm convinced I couldn't replicate the attention to detail. Incredible!

My children were equally impressed and we all took turns looking at it and examining it; wondering what sort of bird could possibly come up with such a puzzling piece of architecture. We also talked about the different strands that were used; not just sticks and twigs but parts of shade cloth, polythene and moss. 

My wife wondered aloud how the birds transport the mud that is used to put it all together (really hoping it's mud, otherwise ew!). My eldest boy wanted to know whether birds get taught how to build nests by their mothers or was it just 'natural ability', as he put it. My middle boy asked if they needed to be reminded how to make nests or if they learnt once and remembered every time. My youngest girl was just happy to poke and prod away at the nest.

With these questions in mind we went inside and looked for the answers on the magical internets. I always think about how lucky my children and I are to be living at a time where all the answers are stored on an easy-to-use network that can be accessed by anyone with a subscription and the technology. I think about how in the past knowledge has been kept guarded by those with influence or wealth. It was held in universities and other establishments that you had to get accepted in to. If you wanted to learn about how the brain worked you had to go to the school that had the best information about the brain. Now days you just do a search on Wiki. It's so awesome. People, who in previous times, wouldn't have had access to this knowledge have begun to use it in all sorts of ways.

Answering your children's questions honestly, properly and effectively is probably the best thing you can do for them. You're teaching them to think, to explore their ideas. You're teaching them that their thoughts and opinions have value. Anyone with a child going through the "why?" phase will know that it's so easy to just give one word answers and dismiss all the questions. But actually indulging these questions can be a pretty fascinating past time. Children seem to have the craziest brains that come up with all sorts of weird and wonderful questions ( thinking). If you don't know the answer, show them how to find out. Or do a search together. Knowledge is power and you can either be like the university that held on tight to it's research and knowledge or you can give it out for free and see what your children do with it.

 If you're interested, a bird knows how to build a nest by instinct and by looking at the nest they grew up in. Birds don't need to be reminded how to make nests but aren't always great at it to begin with. Birds transfer mud and clay in their beaks when building nests. We also found this awesome BBC footage on YouTube - check it out:

Have fun!