As the days get longer a change is triggered in chooks across the nation.

In what is an awesome trick of nature, a gland in the chook’s brain picks upthat winter is coming to an end, and signals to their body to start, restartor ramp up egg production.

This phenomenon, known as Spring Flush , makes now the perfect time to setup your chooks to spring into another laying season, says poultry enthusiastand animal nutritionist with Barastoc Poultry, Elise Davine.

“It’s great to see the number of people who have chooks on the rise again.Whether people get them primarily for eggs, as pets, to help teach kids, or tohelp breakdown food scraps and fertilise the garden, the basics of supportingyour chooks’ health and performance remains the same.

“We’ve developed a list of top 10 tips that outline just how to coach yourgirls to gold-medal performance in terms of health, wellbeing and egg-laying.It’s all about team selection, having room to move, disease and injuryprevention, and nutrition.”

Elise encourages people, whether they have a few chooks in a suburban backyardor a few dozen on the farm, to run through these tips during Barastoc NationalChook Health Week, which this year is from Monday 9 September to Sunday 15September.

“To test the average chook owner’s coaching ability, we’re also launching theCommonhealth Games. This competition will encourage people to share just howthey are preparing their girls to go for gold,” Elise says.

For more information

The Top 10 Tips for Peak Chook Performance are listed below. Online andprintable versions available here.

For more information on Barastoc National Chook Health Week and how toparticipate in the Commonhealth Games, visit barastocpoultry.com.au or followBarastoc Poultry on Facebook and Instagram.

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