I thought I’d give an update on how our four Australorp chickens are going. They are now 17 weeks old and nearly all grown up. I read that they are at point of lay at about 20/22 weeks of age. Not long now before we’re enjoying cooked breakfasts featuring our own free range eggs.
One sunny afternoon we thought we’d let our chickens out of their chicken run into the back area of our yard. We have rural fencing and we were hoping they’d respect the boundary. After a short while, we decided it was now time to get the chickens back into their coop, however, D.W. headed for the fence and then obviously feeling cornered took flight through the fence. Noah and I then had to jump the fence and herd her back into our yard and into the coop. It was a wild ‘Chicken Run’ with Noah and I chasing around crazily ducking and weaving through bush scrub after this rogue bird.
Now my sister tells me that the chickens will just take themselves back into the coop upon sun down, and that her chickens stay within their rural fencing. So, the following week when we needed to put down some fresh straw and fix up the nesting box doors that were sticking shut, we let the chickens out again. This was not a good idea in the end. All four chickens decided they’d pop through the fence into the bushland next to us. I screamed for Matt to come and hoped they wouldn’t get too far away. I was now a bit worried.
They were hanging in a bushy marshy section that was quite dense, and I was not keen to get in there at all. Since Matt was yelling at me to just get in there and I had our four hand raised chickens heading for Mr Fox’s dinner, I grabbed a large stick, took a deep breath and entered the scary marshy bush scene. I wielded my stick around me removing spider webs and had a few little screams as I entered deeper into the scrub. Screaming definitely helps. We managed to get on either side of the chickens to get them back into our yard and into their coop. Thank you God!! And so, I am no longer allowed to let the chickens free range beyond their coop, at least until we get some other more suitable fencing mesh up. And that’s where we’re at with our chickens!
