Chickens Every Day
Dedicated to helping backyard chicken owners keep the happiest and healthiest flocks we can.
Chickens Every Day
Australia Meets Louisiana: A Global Conversation on Chicken Care
Are we ready, pawpaw? Hello friends and welcome to Chicken. Every Day, a podcast for you, the backyard chicken enthusiasts, and mine. Your host is my Pawpaw, gary, Gary Valerie of Senla Backyard Chickens. Here we have fun while sharing ideas and learning how to care for our foul-feathered friends. Check out our videos at Senla that's C-E-N-L-A Backyard Chickens on YouTube, tiktok and Facebook. So, without further ado, let's start today's show. How was that?
Speaker 2:Hey guys, welcome to the show, and if you were watching or listening to the podcast a few weeks ago, you know I let out a cattle. Call for anybody that loves chickens that's want to talk chickens. If, whether or not you're an expert or a backyard chicken keeper, I want to hear from you, I want to put you on the show because we want to talk about chickens. Well, I got another reply for us today and this is about as far away from Central Louisiana as you could possibly get. We are in the land down under today and we are talking live with Miss Cara Monte way down in Australia. Karen, how are you today?
Speaker 3:I'm very well, Gary. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:We are so excited about having you on the show. First things first, introduce yourself to my audience. Tell us about why you got into chickens and tell us about your birds.
Speaker 3:No problems. So my name's Cara and I live in Melbourne, australia, and was happily listening to one of my new favorite chicken podcasts and heard the call out so I thought I'd reach out and, yeah, I'd love, love talking chickens and I probably first got my first girls around 15 years ago and we just had a a few backyard Issa Browns in the suburbs and just really, really loved them. And in Melbourne we're allowed to have five chickens in a suburban residential area. So I ended up with six or seven for a little while.
Speaker 2:It's called chicken math.
Speaker 3:We all do it people, uh, people need to move chickens on and things like that, but uh, so that's just how we sort of started and we've always kept chickens we've had. We've lost a couple of flocks, unfortunately, in the suburbs to to foxes they're our main predator here, uh. But across the span of time we've done, we've done fairly well and I've recently moved to a property now that had we're on over an acre and so I'm allowed to have as many chickens as I like, uh, and roosters if I choose to. So, yeah, a bit of a mixed flock now, mixed few heritage in there now and really, really nice girls.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. You know, you and I were chatting a little bit the other day and it was really fascinating some of the things about Australia, and I had to admit to you that what I knew about Australia was from Crocodile Dundee and the Bajee Bajees, so that makes it extremely limited. But you talked about the Arachid, what's the name of the indigenous people down there, yeah, the Aboriginal people, the traditional owners.
Speaker 3:So, in Australia, often when we meet or begin a ceremony or even an online work meeting, we might say that we are going to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land that we're working from or that we're presenting from. And so I'm. Actually. It would be nice to include that I'm here living on land that is traditionally, you know, was looked after by the custodians, who are the Wurundjeri people, so the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. The Indigenous history in Australia is vast and rich and extends anywhere to 65,000 to 90,000 years, and so, yeah, it's a nice thing to acknowledge those people that have taken such great care of the land. Before. I was lucky enough to live here, that's lovely, that's lovely.
Speaker 2:I really really like that. By the way, you have a wonderful accent. I can understand you quite easily and I know I sound like a country bunk it to you, but your accent is just really lovely oh really no, I see I find the Australian accent a bit strange, but uh it look.
Speaker 3:The culture exchange is probably quite unbalanced, gary, because we get a lot of American uh and film and music in Australia. So your accent is wonderful. I love a southern accent. I said to you. It sounds really warm to me and really like welcoming and lovely.
Speaker 2:So it's really-. We were on vacation in Colorado in the mountains last year and we met a couple and their family was there and they were from Australia and I just bugged the hell out of them, just wanted to chat with them because of their accent it was.
Speaker 2:I know they were really ready to get rid of it, you know, but it was such fun to get to meet those people. They were very, very sweet. Don't don't misunderstand, but they were probably going. If this is the average, I'm probably ready to go home, is what they were thinking about. Well, one of the things I had asked you in an email was about biosecurity, about do you guys get chickens that come into the country, or do you get fertilized eggs that are allowed into the country? How does that work? Because y'all are an island country, you're south of the equator, you're separate from everybody, which is not a bad thing the way things are working out nowadays. So how does that work when it comes to getting more chickens in and biosecurity when it comes to those chickens?
Speaker 3:Yeah, australia is really, really strict in terms of our biosecurity at the airport, even if we we have the mainland of australia and we have one of our states which is separate from the mainland, called tasmania, and so they even have even stricter laws down there in terms of.
Speaker 2:We have a famous cartoon character about tasmania devils, oh, yeah of, yeah, of course, the Tassie devil.
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course, yeah, warner Brothers and yeah. So we're very, very strict about what can come in to the country in terms of flora and fauna. And so when it comes to chickens and I did have to look at this a little bit but I was right you, you can there can be imports of fertilized eggs and so commercially that is done on quite a wide scale, I think, and so those eggs will come in and be hatched in really strict quarantine and then bred from there. So I think they're like in quarantine for a couple of months, so they will will be bred from there. And look, my understanding is that breeders can bring in fertilized eggs. It's quite expensive to do that because they have to be brought in under those same conditions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the US has a lot of that same kind of stuff. When you bring chickens from Europe over here, usually they go to the port of New York and there's a place that they quarantine for about six months. So right now, I know, it's winter over there where you are. It's the middle of summer over here where I am. So is there anything special that you need to do for your chickens because of the winter? I mean, are you cold enough that they really really, you know, need some special care, or that's just not really a big deal in Sydney.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm in Melbourne close.
Speaker 2:In Melbourne. You're right, my bad, that's another thing.
Speaker 3:There's state rivalry. That goes on.
Speaker 2:Oh no.
Speaker 3:Look, it's not cold enough really. You know where I am. I'm in like the hills we call it the hills in and so it is that, uh, temperate rainforest and it's so. It's frosty. The coldest it would really get up here is maybe minus one degree celsius. Uh, I'm not sure what that is, fahrenheit, it's probably around 30 degrees or so.
Speaker 2:you know, because 32 degrees Fahrenheit is zero degrees Celsius. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So look the girls. You know you can see their breath in the morning, but they're not too bad. It's just a matter of, yeah, keeping them warm in the roost and trying to insulate that. This is a new property, so I'm kind of figuring things out as I go. We've, we've built the run. It looks like the people who were here last used a tiny shed. I'm not sure where the chickens were, but they clearly, they clearly used a very small, small little shed. But we've, we've extended, we've got a really big, big run and, uh, I I did think I mentioned to you we haven't had much rain, uh, and so when we did get our first big downpour, I was out there in the night, uh, in my, in my gumboots, which is like is that galoshes? Do you have gumboots? Am I willing?
Speaker 2:we have rubber boots or galoshes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, boots, yep, all right. So in my rubber boots um digging, you know, drainage, gutters and and all sorts of things in the pouring rain. So, uh, yeah, look, the girls don't get too freezing. I did have some chicks just come through, so they've just come out from under under heat and have joined the, the big girls now. So everyone's fine out there.
Speaker 2:No one's freezing well, how many adult hens do you have?
Speaker 3:so I've got, uh, nine adult hens and I have now five girls who are around. They're they're a little bit of a mix, but they're around that sort of three months. 10 weeks?
Speaker 2:yeah, are they still laying right now, while it's winter?
Speaker 3:Not many. No, I have my youngest hen. She's the strangest looking chicken I've ever seen. I think all chickens are beautiful. This is the least beautiful chicken. I inherited her from someone. She's very feisty and she's the boss already. Interestingly, she's an Araucana cross, so she's an olive egger and she's the youngest, so she's kept goingucana cross, so she's an olive egger and she's the youngest, so she's kept going through the cold. And I've got one of my Wyandottes and my other Araucana. They're on and off. I'm getting maybe one to three eggs a day, okay.
Speaker 2:At nine hens in the winter, that that's not terribly bad, you know uh, obviously your girls are probably good and healthy. Uh, when it comes to feed, uh, do you have national brands that y'all have over here, like, like over here? We have two or three different brands that are just national. Uh, purina is one of them. Uh, we have a big market feed store, uh tractor supply that you'll find in almost every freaking town. Uh, that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've heard of tractor supply. Yeah, I read about and we have local.
Speaker 2:Well, we have local feed distributors too that I like to patronage as well. So so what kind of feed is the normal feed that you give your girls?
Speaker 3:yeah, there's. There's a couple of big brands. There's one that's called Red Hen and there's Barristock is probably the biggest one. So, look, I support my local small feed store but they of course, carry the big brands, so I've been probably on. There's a couple of different Barristock that I've used and I sort of I can't decide whether I like the pellets or the crumble better. I think they like the crumble better.
Speaker 2:I'm a pellet guy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it just depends Like. I did get a couple of bags of pellets for a while there and they did quite like it. So yeah, we'll see, but they're a pretty good standard. Of course you can get can get different, you know, but the baristox are pretty good. It's not the highest end but it's. It's a pretty good. Uh, nutritional feed and, of course, the brain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most stores around here will offer, you know, three different qualities for lack of a better word for the consumer, because not everybody wants to buy the most expenses that they have. I could go get out of the same store. I can get a 15 bag of feed, and that's 15 us. I'm not sure how y'all's currency works yeah, it's about one and a half.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so 25 dollars, yep oh wow, I can get a 20 and I can get a 25. Now the I don't buy because I want mine to do maximum egg production and I will kind of go back and forth with the 20 and $25. Just kind of depends on how my wallet goes, how well my sponsors do that month, because I do have a couple of sponsors that help pay for some of this, but I don't go to the very bottom.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of fillers in that, and not that there's anything wrong with that. The chickens can still be healthy and grow and do everything that they need. But some of the things I'm looking for is that really good protein calcium type mix and your other vitamins that are in there, your B vitamins that are very, very essential for the birds to make them. So, yeah, I go to the little bit more expensive brands and it helps when you have a sponsor that's actually buying those for you you know, believe me, my sponsors barely pay for my feed.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it. They at least do that, you know, and that it's a wonderful thing. You know, I also feed the girls a lot of, a lot of scraps from the house, and when I say a lot, we do compost and I have two different compost bins and we'll throw veggies and different things in the compost. Well, they make beelines and they do head dives into there. They're going to eat some of the compost In the evenings. Out of a seven-day week, probably four days, I'm going to go out there and give them some black soldier, fly larva boost of protein, especially in summertime, in the dead of winter. Uh, protein is a little more important than it is in the spring and fall, when the when, the wild, where there's where there's a little bit milder. So I'll give them the treats and they really love that. Uh, I could be anywhere and if I holler, come on, girls, it is a wave of chickens, I mean it could be so funny, you know, uh with my egg stand outside.
Speaker 2:I have people come by sometimes they go, oh, can I see the chickens, you know, and we'll go and I'll let them stand by the fence. I don't let them go inside and I holler for them and they almost inevitably they just start screaming because it's so funny about watching these birds do do this. But yeah, you know, feed, feed what, what makes them happy, feed what makes them healthy, and just just keep going the way, the way that you know you want to do, in the way you know that are good for your birds but my kids think it's funny because we now have a uh like a, like a mealy worm farm.
Speaker 2:You know that really I haven't started that well, it's really interesting.
Speaker 3:I I did get started only well, it's probably about a month ago and ordered, ordered some in and and got got my containers going you're gonna have to send me pictures and videos of that yeah, well, at the moment it was just the first tub and this this might make you laugh, but we've.
Speaker 3:We've had a few birthdays, we've had things going on and been checking them and like feeding the girls out of it and I was a bit like, oh, I might have, I might have used too many and I'll have to bring some more in to get the. But they've just been breeding in there. So I'd read all of the information about needing to remove the you know the pupa so they don't eat the worms, they're just big, they're going crazy. So I've just done that. Yesterday I've started to notice the you know the pupa sort of moving around. So I've been pulling them out, but it's abundant and I have not done anything difficult yet. So the difficult bit's about to start. I'll share with you, uh, how that goes. But that's a great thing to have on hand to the girls. And the girls know, especially the, the young, the young birds there.
Speaker 2:Uh, I'll go out there and I'll just call cheap, cheap and the little ones know and they'll run earlier you mentioned about whenever you were in the city and you had predators and foxes that would get after your animals. You know, when I think about Australia, I think about some of the scariest predators on the planet. You know crocs, lizards, snakes. I don't know. We don't want all, but where you are now it's more rural. So is the predator problem more so, less so or different?
Speaker 3:Well, it's funny. Not that it's funny, but like I hear about, all of your predators are animals that I think are like really cute Did you say cute, okay, y'all heard that. Okay, folks, y'all heard that. Okay, folks, y'all heard that I really so things like, like, like you have, uh, like raccoons and things like that, like I, I don't know I I feel like they're adorable animals like I where y'all have things that take a leg off.
Speaker 3:I get it you know, look, australia is really funny, like that we don't have where I am in Melbourne. Look, there might be sort of parts of really regional Australia who may have problems with, perhaps like large lizards, like we have goannas, like really really large lizards, like we have goannas um, like really really large lizards they're. We see them, like they're around, but then they're definitely not considered. Like if you see one it's exciting and they're not. You know um, but if I had, they're not really common around here. So I don't believe they're a predator. But the main predator for for chickens anywhere in Australia are foxes, which were introduced. You know, when we were colonised, the English thought it would be a great idea to bring rabbits to do hunting and foxes to do hunting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a big thing in England.
Speaker 3:yes, and that's a big thing in England. Yes, so now our uh, our native, our native uh, fauna really suffers because of foxes and rabbits. Rabbits do a lot of damage, as you can imagine, to vegetation and foxes are really big predators of chickens and it's it's funny that you should say I really thought it would be worse here. Um, I did like it was a really awful story, but I did live, not in the meantime, when we were looking to to buy, we were uh renting a home and it was a suburb. It was still up here in the hills, but it was more of a suburban beautiful green backyard. Actually for the girls it was smaller but and we lost my son had a pair of ducks as well and I lost two ducks who would not go into the coop uh, and like going to the coop they wouldn't go in, they wouldn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry, they, they, they just they refused to go in the coop and in hindsight it may have been because they sensed that there was go in the coop.
Speaker 3:They refused to go in and in hindsight it may have been because they sensed that there was something near the coop which was quite near the house. However, yeah, that was horrific losing two big, beautiful white ducks whose names were Cheese and Quackers.
Speaker 2:I'm laughing with you, I promise. So foxes were a problem there. I'm laughing with you, I promise.
Speaker 3:So foxes were a problem there. But on this property I have a dog. I have a little dog and no one would be scared of him. He tries, but all of my neighbours have very big dogs, helpful, which, yeah, I mean once we get settled we might get another dog in to help look after the girls. But those dogs, my neighbours have said that they've actually never seen foxes. There are definitely foxes here. Don't misunderstand me. I see them on the roads all the time, but in terms of right where I am, I'm hoping that offers me a little bit of protection at the moment, being surrounded by big dogs. I did hear on a local page someone losing their chickens to dogs, though that had gotten out from someone's property.
Speaker 2:So it's you know, dogs can be bad.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, in terms of small predators, I don't have to do like the, the tiny mesh, you know it's kind of big chicken wire that's dug in as long as I, as long as foxes, you know, like that's the. Yeah, so it's, it's very well reinforced. I've got a couple of big trees in the middle of my run so it's wired in tight around the trees. But so far, yeah, there would be big, big birds, wedge-tailed eagles, which are our biggest bird.
Speaker 2:Y'all do have predator birds.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but they're not. Yeah, I think farmers would have problems with. You know, in big open spaces we do see them, but we're very tree covered here. They wouldn't come down low here. But they have about a six foot wingspan.
Speaker 2:They're huge, beautiful birds, yeah well, we have, uh, bald eagles close to where I am. I've seen them out in the pasture but I've never seen them to get too close. But I have lost birds to chicken hawks before, or red tail hawks. They may not necessarily be what we call a chicken hawk and that's my worst predator. I've had raccoons come in the yard but I have them on video and they just walk back and forth but they can't get in. You know, inevitably I go to trap them because I have a live trap and I want to move them several miles away. But I probably the last three times I went to trap one the very next day someone run over it on the road, you know so I, I, yeah and I hate that to happen, because we need those animals.
Speaker 2:You know that they're part. They're part of the ecosystem and they're part of nature and I don't want to disturb that. But I do want to move them away from my place so yeah absolutely so all right, we're getting close on our time limit on here, so so please tell us some more about what goes on in australia when it comes to chickens.
Speaker 3:I think, look, australia has had a real boom, probably like much of the world when, when it comes to chickens, I think, look, australia has had a real boom. Probably like much of the world when, when it was COVID time and COVID did it over here too.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, everyone, everyone realized that it's nice to be able to collect your own eggs and and have you know, have that happening at home. But there is a real boom and there's a real resurgence in heritage breeds over here. So my first few girls were Issa Browns and you know everyone. They're still a favourite for the beginner backyard chicken lover.
Speaker 2:You don't have any Australorps.
Speaker 3:We do I actually Australorps? Yeah, I don't have any Australorps. That was my choice when I went to get chickens the first time, but my daughter was very, very tiny and the Australop chickens were enormous and I'd never had chickens before, so I did go with the Isis, who turned out to be lovely. But yeah, I do have my eye on a couple of australops because they are very reliable layers and I don't have a brown egg layer in my flock at the moment. Wow, for the first time I did. I lost my last ice uh, uh, not long ago.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I've, I've not got a brown layer but because my eggs are always so fresh they're they're not worth a flip for boiling because you need an older egg to peel a lot better when it's boiled. So my wife will send me to the store to buy it at the store and it's called the walk of shame and I hope no one recognizes me in there because I'm sneaking out. You know like I've got gold bullion under my arm with a dozen eggs. Now. You know like I've got gold bullion under my arm with a dozen eggs. But if people don't know, you know you need at least a month old egg before it's going to boil and peel decently and they don't ever make it that long. They're either sold or eaten the flavor, and I know you've tasted the difference between what you get at the market and what you raise at your house.
Speaker 2:It is that they're just rich and beautiful. So you go to the local feed store. What is an average young two-day-old chick cost Over here? You're going to spend between $4 and $6, depending on the breed. Maybe $8 if it's a really rare type of breed, but $4 to $6 is an average for a chick that you get over here that's a really interesting question, because I've never seen a chick for sale at a feed store really well. How do you? You order them through the mail so it's.
Speaker 3:It's really interesting. The way I've always um sourced them is that there are a couple of kind of poultry farms who do that and you go and pick up your chicks there. Yeah, you can definitely order um fertilized eggs to to hatch if you've got a brooder, but for me personally, and from what I can gather, it's, it's quite rare. I mean, and people are on websites, you know, like gum tree, gumtree or things like oh no, yours probably isn't called.
Speaker 2:Gumtree, never heard of it.
Speaker 3:Like Craigslist kind of thing. Is that a thing?
Speaker 2:Facebook over here Craigslist. Yes, we have Craigslist.
Speaker 3:Yes, so people will do that. It's interesting that you asked that and I wonder if it's to do with animal laws and things like that. But people sell out of their backyards but it's often kind of breeders that get a bit of a name and then you buy, yeah, from the breeder.
Speaker 2:I actually haven't ever bought one or two day old ones myself, but you see them usually going for maybe yeah, five dollars unsexed, um, yeah okay, well, over here we have huge hatcheries that that will hatch a few thousand eggs a week and you may have 20 different hatcheries that you can choose from, probably five out there.
Speaker 2:That are the biggest dealers that that you can find and, like I said, they do thousands of the biggest dealers that you can find and, like I said, they do thousands of birds a week and you can order them through the mail. The United States Postal Service has been delivering baby chicks since the second day they opened in 18-oh-whatever-it-was, and you know, a chick's got the ability because right before it hatches it sucks up all that yolk and it can live two or three days quite easily without food or drink because it has all of that in its body. So so we get them through the mail. It's really easy and it's a lot of fun to do that, because the post office will call you up, say, hey, we have your chicks here, come get them it's.
Speaker 3:It's probably lucky. I don't know how many I would have if I could order them through the mail, because it's often a little bit of a drive, you know to get them.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, definitely a resurgence in in heritage breeds. And so I've got, I've got a couple of interesting girls out there now, which is which is really cool. So I like, I don't know, did I, did you want me to? I I recently was in touch with one of my old high school teachers. So it's a long time ago, it's a very long time ago, and he is retired now.
Speaker 3:He was the animal husbandry teacher at my high school, so he always had chicks in the science labs and things like that. But he breeds very rare chickens in Australia. And so he contacted me and he, yeah, but he breeds very rare chickens in Australia. And so he contacted me and he, yeah, I'll actually send you some information. He has some really beautiful chickens, but he did have one who she wasn't quite her comb wasn't quite up to standard, she's a red Derbyshire. And he said would it be okay if I came out and we had a cup of coffee and would you like this very rare chicken to add to your chicken flock? And we, uh, I hadn't seen him for about 30 years and 35 years and we had a really amazing catch up. And he, he, he got on his walking stick and I headed out and uh checked out my coop and made sure everything was up to his standard, and uh and we had a really lovely catch up.
Speaker 2:So I've got quite a rare chicken, uh, in there now and um I just had to pop up on my screen saying that we're running out of time so we're going to stop it all right here. I think you and I could chat for quite a while. Thank you so much for coming on the show it's. I don't how much we learned about chicken, but we learned about Australia and I think it was just beautiful to do that. I think the moral of this is us chicken lovers are chicken lovers and backyard chicken keepers are backyard chicken keepers all over the planet. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's great when we can connect over things that we share. So maybe we could talk more technical chickens another time but we'll talk more technical another time thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:You're welcome, bye, bye that's all we have time for today. I really hope you enjoyed listening to the podcast. Be sure to watch our videos. So, on behalf of my papa, gary, and me, sylvia, thanks for listening.
