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 up that winter is coming to an end, and signals to their body to start, restart or ramp up egg production.
This phenomenon, known as Spring Flush, makes now the perfect time to set up your chooks to spring into another laying season, says poultry enthusiast and 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 to help breakdown food scraps and fertilise the garden, the basics of supporting your chooks' health and performance remains the same.
"We've developed a list of top 10 tips that outline just how to coach your girls to gold-medal performance in terms of health, wellbeing and egg-laying. It's all about team selection, having room to move, disease and injury prevention, and nutrition."
Elise encourages people, whether they have a few chooks in a suburban backyard or a few dozen on the farm, to run through these tips during Barastoc National Chook Health Week, which this year is from Monday 9 September to Sunday 15 September.
"To test the average chook owner's coaching ability, we're also launching the Commonhealth Games. This competition will encourage people to share just how they are preparing their girls to go for gold," Elise says.
