Chicken care
About chickens
Chickens give you fresh eggs, manure for your garden and they catch garden bugs.
There are many benefits for raising a backyard chicken such as:
- eggs from well-tendered backyard chickens are healthier
- eggs from backyard chickens are tastier
- chickens droppings enrich your compost
- chickens provide natural insect control
- chickens scratching for bugs is good for the soil
- backyard chickens provide lessons for children about responsibility and where food comes from
Registration and permits
You don't need to register chickens or any birds with Council.
You can keep up to six chickens without a Council permit.
You need a Council permit to:
- keep a chicken in a unit
- keep seven chickens or more
- keep a rooster in a house or unit, or
- build a chicken coop any closer than six metres to a dwelling on another property.
How to keep chickens in your yard
To keep chickens you need:
- a chicken coop with a perch for them to sleep in
- nesting boxes, and
- some space for them to roam during the day.
It’s much easier to have a cement floor in the coop. You can easily collect the manure and wash out the floor with a bucket of water. A cement floor also stops the manure from smelling, especially after rain.
The chicken coop must:
- prevent chickens escaping or wandering
- meet the welfare needs of the chickens
- have a tall fence around it. Close the fence at night and when you need the chickens out of the way.
- have shredded paper or straw for the nests, a water container and a feeder.
- be easy to clean, and
- always be in good repair.
See our chicken guideline fact sheet (DOC 141Kb).
Feeding the chickens
- Scatter the hen’s food each day and have them forage for it.
- Unlike other animals, hens never overeat. It’s much easier to have a feeder that you can fill up that will feed them for a week or so.
- Water is absolutely essential for the health and wellbeing of your chooks. It must be fresh and clean.
- Change the water every day or two and wash out the water container.
- Add about a dessert spoon of apple cider vinegar to their water to help keep internal worms away. Adding a clove of crushed garlic to the water also keeps your chickens healthy.
- Remember everything your hens eat go into their eggs that you eat. Fresh, clean water and healthy food lead to beautiful eggs.
Stress and chickens
Chickens are extremely sensitive to stress. They have been known to drop dead during thunderstorms or die a couple of days after being chased by dogs. Hens may also stop laying for weeks after they’ve been scared.
Foxes and other predators
In Moreland, foxes, dogs and cats may attack and kill your chickens. Even when a fox has eaten, it will kill a chicken.
To prevent attacks:
- make sure the coop is secure, strong and lockable
- listen to the usual noises your chicken makes and act if you hear them clucking in a different way and
- lock the chickens in a chicken coop at night.
