Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

no need... its a modular design that will be put together in place. i just have it in a temp config during construction

Looks awesome mate. Wish the land lord would let us have chooks.

Isa Browns are awesome. We had 6 when i was younger and living with the oldies. So much character. One thing we found that they loved was mice. We would get a big bucket for the chook pellets and half fill it. When mice fell in and couldnt get out just grab em by the tail and knock their head on the side of the bucket and throw them in to the chooks. They go mental for it and it made a big difference to the eggs to. Needed a 12 tonne press to crack the eggs

mice...hmmmm... i will be killing them for sure, didn't think of throwing them to the chooks though

Yeah neither did I.so theres nothing wrong with it?

Went to get eggs last night and saw a mouse in their coop. So tonight I made a bucket spin trap. Will see how many I find drowned in the morn.

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Well they eat alot of bugs etc anyway so meat in their diet cant be too bad. I figure they wouldnt eat em if they didnt like it. As far as i am aware their was never anything left over. They would almost be fighting each other trying to get to the mouse. I dont know if all chooks are like that or if we had ravenous crazed chooks

and if they don't eat the mice i might just chuck them into the Black Soldier Fly system that i'll be making very soon..yummo!!

+1
I was thinking the same thing today as the squirrels are digging up all my corn as soon as it sprouts in the dirt garden.

[quote One thing we found that they loved was mice. We would get a big bucket for the chook pellets and half fill it. When mice fell in and couldnt get out just grab em by the tail and knock their head on the side of the bucket and throw them in to the chooks.[/quote]
So, do the chooks cough up fur balls

chooks go nuts over any kind of meat...even chicken

If you have say trout (or another fish that's fed high Omega-3 feed) and feed the scraps (trimmings) to the chickens you can improve the nutrition profile of the eggs

Talk about moving the project to its real location, I was building mine in the driveway but had to move it once it was mostly framed up. The distance between the legs of the house were just wide enough to fit around the tailgate of my pick-up truck. So I had the missus slowly drive across the yard with me steering a wheelbarrow under the back end of the chicken house. REDNECK INGENUITY!

Hmmm. Power tools.
Nice coop IceMan. Looks pretty neat. Have you done much building before? i.e. are you a builder?
Look forward to seeing it in place. Was thinking about setting up a little coop in our backyard too, lotsa people have chooks around here, but nothing as neat looking as that. Often just a little box they get put into at night time and roaming free by day... maybe one day I'll follow suit... interesting about the mice too.

Thanks mate,

No i'm not a builder, i'm an electronic security engineer, and never done anything like before but i do come from a line of farmers with a fair grasp of DIY etc etc

A bit more progress tonight... at least all the hard stuff is done!!

concentrated on the nesting boxes and cladding one wall, will do the other walls tomorrow and finish off the nesting box wall with all the off cuts.