Chook farming

Seeing as this year our motley crew of hens managed to hatch 34 chicks between them, I decided to advertise and sell the chicks using the online community classifieds forum, Gumtree. And what a success it was! All the chooks are now sold and I made a profit of $315 ... (OK, I won't give up my day job).

Plymouth rocks, Wyandotte, Bantam and Australorp crosses in this colourful lot

I think I got the pricing right: it's very hard to determine gender, but people don't want roosters (most people can't bear to kill them), so I charged the following:
- $5 for a rooster,
- $10 for an unsexed chook (gender being a gamble),
- $15 for "probably a hen" with the guarantee that they could return it if it started to crow and receive a $10 refund. I offered to despatch the chook if so and the owner could take it home for the pot.

This seemed to reassure people. I've taken the ad down now but am still receiving queries of "when are you breeding more?" so that's a good sign for next year.

All in all a satisfying enterprise.

Note: a huge thanks to Teun, Annamiranda, Leaha and Briony for helping look after them during the various extreme weather events we've experienced these past months.