I grew up with chickens in our backyard, although it was mum who did all the work cleaning, feeding and collecting eggs. They are adorable as pets and the fresh eggs are wonderful.

Yes I’ve backyard chickens for since many years and love them !
They lay the most beautiful eggs and all your scraps can go to the chickens instead of going to the bin. I used to have 6 chickens, but I’m down to 3 (2 Leghorns, 1 Isa brown) at the moment, who lay on average 2 eggs a day.

I would love to get some chickens, would be a good learning experience for my son.

I used to have chickens but found they were quite noisy and I lived in fear that someone would complain as my backyard wasn’t big enough to,meet my local council’s poultry regulations. I now keep Japanese quails for their eggs. Since they are not classified as poultry don’t have any council poultry regulations to abhere to! They are quiet birds and kept easily in a cage. 4 to 6 quail eggs equals a chicken egg in weight. I boil them, poach, scramble, fry or use in baking. They look very elegant added to dishes

Definitely recommended getting a few chooks. The eggs are amazing. Let them free range, and buy or make a small coop for night time and they will just wander in on their own when the sun goes down. Usually in the morning they will have layed an egg to collect. Put out a container of water and shell grit to help support the shell production. I found the poo and mess is minimal and the kids benefit and learn from being involved with the care and maintenance of them aswell.

Yes. When they start laying it’s great, we usually end up with more eggs than we know what to do with and supply family and friends.

No l buy my eggs from coles or safeway!

Our friends with chooks swap goods with others for their eggs – it is a great barter system.

depends on time of year, heat, stress etc. they are more work than you think, they need dusting for lice, moving around in yard if you can, or lots of scrubbing of roosting areas, and their yard…. Really, I would say suburban backyard no, farm of course – they need to be able to roam, and peck for grubs etc too

I love fresh eggs and have friends with chooks.

I’ve thought about it, but I’m not keen on keeping them in a pen and I’m also not keen on chicken poo everywhere if they were free range. Not to mention the mess they would make in my garden beds