I tried a few types of "homes" for them and finally settled on one, an enclosure with partial roof as well as laying boxes for the hens. We also placed "standing" rails where the chickens put place themselves during the night time. It appeared that they preferred to be above ground when they rest at night. It was really interesting to watch them look for their spots as darkness fell. As these chickens can fly, albeit not at a very high height, the fencing around the enclosure is about 12 feet high and to prevent them from getting up to the roof of their house, we placed the zinc vertically.
The hens seems to be happy with their laying boxes although I cannot understand why sometimes they want to share the boxes when there are empty boxes. Alhamdulillah, they seem to lay every day and over this period of Ramadhan and Aidil Fitri, I have decided to let them hatch their eggs. At last count there are over 50 eggs and it would be interesting to see how many hatch. This will my starting point for seriously rearing chickens.
The chickens are let out during the day, to forage for insects and worms as well as the greens such as grass. We also fed them with the extra ripe bananas and papayas as well as grated coconut that we had extracted the milk from. So they also served as our organic disposal "machines". Every evening around 6pm, we feed them crushed corn and they seem to have this down to a tea. Should I be walking around during this time, they will follow me until I feed them their corn.
The chickens I raise are strictly for food and not for fights. So, I am selective as to who I sell it to. If all goes according to plans, then we will be able to offer for sale free-range ayam kampung in the near future.
I love unusual breeds of chickens. Have you ever shipped eggs for hatching? I would love to try hatching even a few. I'm in the US but as fast as shipping is now, I think there would be a fair chance for some to manage to hatch.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDeleteSorry, I have never shipped any. The US and Malaysian laws regulating these types of shipments gives me too many headaches :)
Delete