5 Reasons YOU need to Get Some Chooks.

My Girls.

1. Chooks Reduce the amount of Garbage you put in Landfill

I could have been gardening god Josh Byrne (and my what a god...I have a celeb-crush on Josh) or perhaps gardening goddess Sabrina Hahn that said something along the lines of "if local councils were serious about landfill they would make it easier for homeowners to keep chooks". Or something along those lines.

And my goodness, whoever said it, was right. Chooks are natural scavengers. They love the cold mushed up weetbix left over from breakfast and your kids don't like crust?, no problems, chooks love them. I have 4 chooks. I think this is a good number for us. We produce enough scraps to feed the chooks, with layers pellets to supplement should the girls get a bit peckish.

I could go on and on about this point alone. Did you know that food waste in land fill is the number 2 producer of methane and that 38% of our garbage is food waste. Shamefull hey. Because food waste needs oxygen to decompose and in in landfill it gets buried, methane is produced. Methane is not so good for the environment. Yet, a simple and practical solution would be backyard chickens.

2. Eggs!

Fresh, produced in a happy environment, yummy scrummy eggs. And even when you factor in buying a chook and the layer pellets, they still work out cheaper than store bought eggs. This blog post from Leanne Daharja @ Hazeltree Farm shows you just how cost effective chickens are :)

3. They add character and warmth.

Even if your not an animal person, hearing the chickens bok and cluck is joyful. Mine see me at the back door and come running to the gate to see if I have any scraps. I love them :)

4. They contribute tothe gardens too.

They don't just produce eggs. They can be very much part of the garden cycle as well. I heap hay, weeds and grass clippings into my chook run in a deep litter style way. The chooks scratch and poop and general turn everything about. When it starts to look like it needs a clean out, I rake it all out and place in the garden and some in compost bins. Chicken poop can be quite strong, so when I clean this out (it tends to build up where they sleep), I pop it into the compost to break down some more. This all adds nutrients to the gardens, the garden produces nutritious food for the humans, the scraps go back to the chooks and it is one big happy cycle.

Just a couple of notes. Some plants and weeds are poisonous, obviously don't include these, or your chickens will be at the end of the cycle of life prematurely.

Also weeds may not die straight away. That is why they are weeds. Transfering them to the garden bed may give them a new lease on life. If in doubt leave in the coop longer, so the chooks can turn and scratch some more.

5.Chooks are an educational experience.

I'm not a fan of the "get a pet to teach responsibility". It's a bit nonsense if you ask me. However chooks can provide an array of teaching opportunities for your kids. You have basic animal care, where eggs come from, food cycles, waste cycles, life cycles, bi-cycles....nah just joking.

Eggs can lead to cooking lessons, scraps can lead to lessons in healthy eating (don't want the chooks to eat bad food).

Don't have kids that need educating? Well share your eggs with your neighbors. Educate them!

So what are you waiting for...go get some chooks.

More on Breadmaking

Oh Belinda I spoke too soon!

The day after my previous post, I loaded up my breadmaker, pressed all the buttons and left it to make dough. Unfortunately the machine was sitting to close to the edge of the bench and during kneading it fell off the bench. The lid cracked and it couldn't be closed properly.

I recieved the breadmaker for my 19th birthday preasant, I'm now 31, so I have got a good number of years out it. But I was still disappointed.

Anyway, on the bright side, my making bread by hand is steadily getting better. Getting the bread to rise sufficiently has been a problem. It takes several hours and the dough is still not that well risen. The inside of my house is too cold, and I live in a coastal town, so although the sun is nice and warm, the wind has a cooling effect on the dough. Not good.

I read on another blog that placing a cup of water in the microwave, then zapping it to boil the water, then placing the dough in the microwave can work. And it does! The steam from the water combined with the contained space, creates a nice warm environment for the dough.

Hmm, I'm off to make bread ;)

Bread Making

I think I'm finally getting the hang of this bread making thing. I little while ago I set the lofty goal of baking my own bread everyday, then proceeded to make some pretty dismal loaves....5kg of flour later and I think I might be getting it right.

I'm using the recipie from Rhonda over at Down to Earth blog, (i'll add the link in later, not sure how to do it on my phone), with some changes. Firstly, I'm using more yeast that Rhonda. I started of with yeast that is not foil packed and in the stated amounts. The dough was heavy, difficult to kneading and slow to rise. The loaves were too dense, even the chooks weren't that into them.

So then I changed the yeast brand. It helped, but the loaves were still far to dense. So I increased the yeast amount to a while sachet, which I think is 7g. At this point I decided to add in a short cut as well. I have a bread maker, but I hate the shape of the loaf. However, my breadmaker has a dough option, so for the 1st kneading and rise I let the breadmaker do the work.

So far so good. My breadmaker also has a time delay option, so i can load the ingredients, pre-set the machine to be ready first thing in the morning and have fresh bread ready for school lunches in the morning.

Cool hey :)

On a cost comparison, bread can cost generally from $1.20 to $3.50 for a store bought loaf. I usually spend about $2.80 as I prefer to buy loaves I know my family will eat and I tend to buy several at a time, so I buy bread I know will freeze and thaw really well.
Home made bread doesn't keep very long, but then it is so scrummptious it tends not to last long anyway. The ingredients cost around $1.20 for a large loaf, that is a loaf that is white with no extra seeds etc. I know i can get flour cheaper, but have been reluctant to buy in bulk quantities until I'm sure I've got the hang of baking bread.

So on a cost basis, based on my normal buying habits, I'm saving $1.60 a loaf. Not much on one loaf but we go through two loaves a day so that is $3.20 a day. Or $22.40 a week. In the course of a year it is a potential saving of $1164.80.

My next experimenting will be in baking to freeze so that I can have a few loaves in reserve for times when we are running short, too just, kids are sick, I'm sick etc. I also want to play around with making rolls too.