Under the Animal Welfare Act persons in charge of all animals including poultry must provide appropriate food and water and sick or injured birds must be treated humanely. Suspicious diseases (exotic diseases) must be reported to the Agricultural Department or a private veterinarian. These are diseases out of the ordinary.

When selecting your chickens, choosing a type which will produce eggs for longer periods of time over the year is best. The best backyard chooks, as far as egg production goes, are the crossbreeds.

The cross bred chicken is selectively bred to remove most of the instinct to go “broody”, which means to sit on eggs to hatch chickens. A chicken that doesn’t go broody will lay more eggs, not to produce chicks.

Crossbreds achieve the benefits of hybrid vigour and are better egg producers than either of the parent breeds. Crossbreeding also combines many other desirable traits such as low body weight (resulting in reduced feed costs) and non-broodiness.

Common Crossbreeds:

The most widely available Australian crosses are the:

1. White cross: White leghorn/New Hampshire (white eggs)
2. Black Cross: Australorp/New Hampshire (dark brown eggs)
3. Red Cross: Rhode Island Red/New Hampshire (light brown eggs)
4. The white and red crosses are the most popular and are the most prolific layers. The black cross will generally lay the least amount of eggs, however they are larger eggs. The black cross is also the most placid of the three.
5. Another bird, of French origin, is the ISA Brown. This is a cross between the Rhode island Red and the Rhode island White. With production exceeding 300 high quality eggs in the first year and a very good temperament, this cross breed is likely to become exceedingly more common amongst backyarders.