Services offered and the Pullet Rearing Process….

Services provided currently include:

• We focus on providing Chook lovers with a selection of  beautiful quality purebred Heritage Pullets for sale.

• The pullets at the time of sale,  are approximately 9-12 weeks old and are in the most part, perching nightly by this stage at approximately a metre high.

• They are used to seeing cats, dogs and children.
• They are using Auto-feeding systems – step-on treadle feeders.

• The pullets are also trained to come running for a wheat feed at dusk. This is great when you get them home and you let them out for the first time and need them to come back in near nightfall. Just shake that wheat tin and they come flapping! This is also a great way of getting to know your birds and getting them used to you by feeding a wheat treat around 4-6pm each night.

• All pullets and cockerels offered for sale, will be vaccinated for Mareks Disease from Spring 2016.

• Sometimes, we do hatch other breeds than those we carry on site, so it is always worth contacting us if you are after a particular breed.

• We can usually offer Cockerels for breeding programs where required – those offered will be of NZ breed standard quality and a good representation of the breed. These need to be ordered in advance as we only carry forward very limited numbers.

• We also have a good range of Feeders – manual and automatic / Drinkers – manual and automatic / Health Products / Disease control products / Straw and Feed available in our Chook Shed onsite available on pullet pickup days.

Information on our Rearing procedures at The Chook Shed and some important points…..

 Chick Brooding

A Critical stage to get right. Our brooders can take up to 300 chicks at a time. The brooders are multi-leveled. We operate and all in – all out policy. Chicks are vaccinated for Mareks Disease once they leave the incubators. They live in the high rise brooders for three weeks. Once the chicks have headed outside to the paddocks, the whole area is completely cleaned out and washed down. The area is then soaked in a high grade disinfectant, washed, thoroughly dried out and then prepared for the next batch of chicks. Strict Bio-security is also practiced in this area with foot and hand disinfectant washes being used before handling/attending to the chicks.

Chick Diets

Our Chicks are generally out on grass around 3-4 weeks of age depending on the time of year and the weather!. The sooner they get out and have the sun on their backs the better. Heat lamps keep them warm at night up to 5-6 weeks of age when they are fully feathered. Our chicks are reared on Quality Chick Crumble from Day 0 to 5-6 weeks of age. The Crumble contains a Coccidiostat which can help in the prevention of  Clinical Coccidiosis. This is an anti-protozoal treatment and is not an antibiotic. This disease process can be a problem when intensively raising poultry at certain times and is more likely to occur where there is a chance of contact with faecal material, so it is important to use an excellent quality feed with a registered coccidiostat incorporated. The birds need some exposure to help develop an immune response.

We introduce Grower pellets from 5/6 weeks of age and they will consume this feed up to 16 – 18 weeks.

Pullet Perching Training.

The pullets are housed with perches from 5-6 weeks of age, so when they are going for sale at 10-12 weeks of age, they will have generally been perching/roosting for a number of weeks already. Often, with all well intended efforts, there is the odd ones that just don’t read the handbook. Once they head to a new place they do often forget all training and sit on the floor as they are not sure what to do or where they should be. After dark, just pop out and place them up on the perch rail. They will soon get the idea !

Pullet Diets

We use Excellent quality Grower pellets as they are easily handled and there is generally minimal wastage vs mash.

The pullets stay on the grower feed from 6 weeks up to 18 weeks of age. At this stage they can be swapped onto Layer pellets ( calcium containing for egg shell quality ).

We used treadle feeders from around 6 weeks of age when the birds start to attain an operating weight.

See FAQ section if you are adding your pullets in with already established birds for some suggestions and tips.

Each pullet purchaser will receive a ‘How to care for your pullets’ information sheet. This can be via an email version or print out.

Protein Supplementation

Fine Beef mince or meat scraps are always well received and provide some extra protein. Dog roll can be used but it is difficult to find one that doesn’t contain poultry protein. Feeding ‘chickens’ to ‘chickens’ should be avoided! – See  ‘Mad Cow Disease’. Some feeds available commercially only contain protein from plant sources to keep costs down, which in our experience and from others reports after using these, does not help to make a healthy bird. Poultry need animal based protein to thrive. Bugs are full of protein!. We feed extra protein to the pullets in the form of meat blocks as well as extras like apples, silver beet, grapes, tomatoes etc. They love pretty much anything red!

Worming

At ‘The Chook Shed’ we worm our pullets with Aviverm liquid at approx 9-10 weeks of age via the water systems.

The reason for this is due to the fact we do raise birds relatively intensively and there will always be some re-grazing of pasture that other birds have been on within the last 6 months. We also want to make sure they are not carrying a worm burden to their new home.

Using the Aviverm liquid, we treat via the drinking water. We cannot guarantee that every bird has had the medication as some will withhold drinking for quite some time. We find it helps to add  Organic Apple Cider Vinegar or Cranberry Juice into the water to help cover the taste.

We currently recommend re-worming your pullets – along with all birds, after they have settled in at your place if you have existing poultry or have had poultry on the site in the last 2 years. This can be done after about 3-4 weeks. There will be differing worm burden levels at different properties and it is best to worm the birds before they commence laying as there is an egg withholding period of 6 days, where you cannot eat the eggs laid, associated with using Aviverm. The current recommendation is to worm 5-7 days after the first worming to ensure any eggs that have subsequently hatched, are also eradicated.

Organic Apple Cider Vinegar

We routinely use organic apple cider vinegar added to our birds water. It has many health properties which are well documented on many internet sites.

Sea Sand

All our birds have access to sea sand pits. The birds eat a lot of this from day old’s to adults. Fantastic for fine grit for the birds gizzards which is turn aids digestion.

We go through a trailer load every 4 – 6 weeks! When the winter months draw in and the opportunities for dust bathing reduce – the birds love to bathe in the sand pits when covered to keep dry. Apparently, mites do not like the salt in the sand either…

Feeding your birds for maximal egg production

The old saying – “You get out what you put in” also applies to poultry. If you scrimp on quality feed and feed low quality mash or just table scraps, do not expect your birds to lay to full capacity. A varied diet is important so scraps are integral to this but make sure you feed treats and scraps later in the day so the birds have eaten most of the daily ration of balanced poultry food.

A healthy hen is a productive hen….keep them in great condition and they will keep you in eggs as well as being a joy to behold!

Remember when choosing a layer food – Hens do much better on Animal derived protein than only Vegetable derived. They need the meat protein. Check the source of protein on the bag.

Nest box Control

** Remember to keep your Nest boxes covered over for 10-14 days if all birds are new pullets and are not yet laying as they have a habit of getting comfortable in the nest box for a sleep. This sounds nice but birds ’empty out’ mostly while perching at night so they will fill the box with poop!. This is not ideal when you want to start collecting eggs and is a hard habit to break !