Seasonal jobs

These tasks keep chooks comfortable and healthy through the seasons, although you may need to adjust them to suit your climatic conditions.

SPRING

There’s maximum egg production in spring, and hens may become broody, sitting on their own and others’ eggs. Remove the clutch of eggs – without a rooster, the eggs are not fertile. Check broody hens daily and keep removing the eggs. Broodiness lasts for about 21 days, and hens can get heat-stressed on hot days. If necessary, take the bird away from her nest to encourage her to drink water.

Sow grains (including sunflower, chia and grain amaranth) and leafy greens (such as silverbeet, lettuce and chicory) for your chooks.

Treat your birds for parasites, including intestinal worms, lice and scaly leg mite, with medication from a vet or produce store. Clean the coop and refresh the perches. Also, renew the litter. AUTUMN

Introduce new egg layers

– select pullets at ‘point of lay’. These younger hens will lay through autumn and winter, when the older birds stop laying.

Expect the rest of the flock to

‘go off the lay’ (stop laying eggs) and start moulting. Those that began moulting in late summer should have regrown their plumage.

Check all the birds for external parasites, including lice, among feathers. Treat with lice powder or food-grade diatomaceous earth, adding it to their dust baths and sprinkling it on their perches.

After moulting, clean out the henhouse, which will be full of feathers, and spread fresh straw. SUMMER

Increase shade cover with extra shadecloth, branches, fern fronds or other roofing to keep the hens cool over the hot months. If green, leafy material is added, renew it regularly. Consider training a vine, such as passionfruit, over the area to provide added shade.

On hot days, keep the drinking water cool, and ensure it is easily accessible in a shaded spot. Add a frozen PET bottle to the drinking trough to chill the water.

Add extra water containers to the yard and coop.

On very hot days, hose down the area to keep it cool.

Hang up a flytrap if flies are a nuisance around the coop.

Take any heat-stressed birds indoors to cool them down, and ensure they are drinking water. WINTER

Remove extra shade material to allow more sunlight into the chook yard. Seal draughts and fix leaks in the coop. Renew damaged roofing so it is weatherproof.

Add some extra litter to the floor to provide warmth.

Provide a supplementary morning meal of warm mash made from dry food mixed with warm water or milk.

Expect egg production to pick up as the days lengthen. Hens that have re-feathered resume laying after the winter solstice.

Mice could move into the chook shed. Clean up spilled food, use vermin-proof feeders and keep feed bags in secure, lidded bins.