Backyard Chickens ― How to Keep Happy Hens

Dave Ingham (no relation to the food brand!) is the resident hen keeping expert on radio 702 Weekends with Simon Marnie, and runs Rent-a-chook, selling chickens coops and offering try-before-you-buy mini hen houses to Sydneysiders since 2001. Dave first got into hen keeping as an impoverished university student, when he and his mates planted a mega veggie garden - chickens were a natural extension. With home brewed beer, plentiful free vegetables and eggs, those students ate far better than their penury would otherwise have allowed. Some years, many chooks and a few houses later, Dave was invited to speak at a sustainability project about what he'd done to make his house more environmentally friendly. He was waxing lyrical about the benefits of keeping chickens and, on a whim, offered to lend an old coop and couple of hens to one of the group to try out. A no-commitment trial of chooks. Go on, give it a go! Somebody coined the term Dave's Rent-a-chook and it went from there. Since establishing Rent-a-chook in 2001, Dave has seen hen keeping go from a hippie pursuit to something very common and entirely mainstream.