National Chook Health Week case study:

Happy to share space

WHO: Ilaria, Damian, Elody (8) and Audrey (2)

WHERE: Tatum Hills Farm, Bywong, NSW

Feathered and furred animals aren’t always the closest of backyard friends, especially if forced to share a confined living space.

At Tatum Hills Farm, however, chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits and ducks happily coexist in a single predator-proof pen, foraging freely throughout a fully fenced orchard.

The fact the unlikely yard-mates have roughly 1000 square metres of freedom at their disposal helps to maintain the harmonious balance.

The generous proportions of their run allow the guinea pigs and bunnies easy access to clean, fresh grass for grazing, and the birds – being omnivorous – are able to search out insects and other invertebrates as their long-ago ancestors would have done in the wild.

Ilaria and her partner Damian decided to build the mother of all chicken runs after they lost two of their hens to foxes soon after they moved from Canberra to Bywong.

Lunch at a nearby restaurant with “a gorgeous big enclosed vegie garden with chooks running around” inspired the couple to draw up their own plans.

“We thought if we were going to have to enclose the orchard and build a chicken coop we might as well put the two things together.

“Plus, we had in the backs of our minds that chickens and orchards would be a good permaculture combination: the chickens would eat the bugs that would otherwise affect the fruit and would provide fertiliser so the trees would benefit from having them around.”

Growing up in an apartment in Bologna, Italy, Ilaria loved animals but had no inkling she would one day be not only living on a small farm but also welcoming members of the public to it.

Damian was also raised well away from agriculture, in Canberra, although visits to his father’s relatives in Switzerland introduced him to dairy cattle.

Both Ilaria (a science communicator) and Damian (a plant molecular scientist) commute from Bywong to Canberra to work.

They juggle this with running tours of their property by appointment, hosting groups of school students as well as families for private functions such as birthday parties as a way of encouraging people to “interact respectfully” with animals.

Four times a year Ilaria conducts a half-day chicken-keeping workshop.

The hen Gingie who was adopted by the family after being in a commercial egg business has become a firm favourite with Ilaria and Damian’s two-year-old daughter, Audrey.

“Actually, she’s one of the friendliest chickens we have, maybe because she finds it a bit difficult to eat from the ground (because she was de-beaked at the commercial operation); she really likes to eat from our hands, particularly Audrey’s.”

Audrey’s elder sister, Elody, eight, is actively involved in caring for the animals and together the two girls like to gather fresh eggs.

“The hens lay in all sorts of places in the large run, so looking for eggs always feels like an Easter egg hunt,” Ilaria says.

“For me there’s nothing more exciting than having animal products you’ve produced yourself and that were produced respecting the animals. We also have dairy goats for the same reason.

“We know the animals; we know how they live; we know that they’re happy.”

Ilaria doesn’t hesitate to recommend chooks as companion animals.

The next big project for Ilaria and Damian will be replacing the fruit-tree netting which currently covers the orchard with metal mesh better able to keep marauding crows away from the nest boxes.

The chooks are fed good-quality layer micro-pellets from a self-serve hopper and a grain blend known as “scratch mix”, and all four species share clean peelings and offcuts from the kitchen.

Ilaria and Damian’s neighbours contribute fruit and vegetable oddments as well and in return receive a dozen eggs every two or three weeks during laying season.

Contact https://tatumhills.weebly.com