Chickens are an easy and rewarding full composting system and can be suitable for many households.
Keeping backyard chickens is a great way to help your compost and use your food scraps as a valuable resource.
Raising and keeping chickens can be rewarding and allow you to take your composting to the next level.
Keeping chickens in your backyard is very rewarding, with friendly new pets and, hopefully, the roll out of fresh eggs every day.
You are allowed chickens in your backyard but not of the male ‘morning wake up the neighbourhood’ rooster type. There’s many stories of urban roosters mysteriously disappearing without a sound or trace!
The minimum number of chickens you keep should be two. The maximum depends on the size of your backyard, how many eggs you want and how much food you want to buy in order to feed them. A small (2-5) flock of chickens can be kept for very little ongoing cost when their food is supplemented with household food scraps.
There are lots of coops available online. They want to be cosy, with a perch for night time roosting. You can even purchase an electric closing door for the coop so you don’t have to remember to shut your chickens away at night. (Shutting them away adds another layer of protection from the crafty ferrets/stoats.)
No need to ever worry about your food scraps again! Chickens are the ultimate composters and will eat nearly anything. They love meat and fish and most veggie scraps. Shop bought pellets and grains can supply a rounded diet. Oyster grit is a great supplement for good egg shell production. They also need a water supply; either a continuous trough or something you fill up regularly.
You can go down the heritage/rare breeds route. There are so many beautiful breeds out there: Light Sussex, Orpingtons, Plymouth Barred and Rhode Island Reds to name a few. These breeds are ok egg layers. The problem these days is they’re now bred for their good looks and not necessarily their original purpose.
It’s a bit of a toss up: you could focus purely on how many eggs you get or get a few less eggs and help keep these beautiful heritage breeds alive in New Zealand. That said some breeds like the Leghorn and the Wyandottes can be prolific layers. Hyline and Shavers are commercial egg laying breeds and they are epic when it comes to egg laying. They can also be cheaper to buy.
When buying chickens we’re looking to buy ‘pullets’ – chickens that are 12-18 weeks old. Chickens start laying eggs around 18 weeks. Timed right you can have pullets laying eggs for you through their first winter months. Be aware they are unlikely to be laying you eggs in their second winter.
The number one predator groups are stoats, ferrets and weasels. It’s worth having a trap for these animals as they will wipe out your chickens overnight.
Make sure your chicken run and coop is bomb proof from these predators. This means a very small holed fencing mesh is needed (10-20mm). Even consider burying it in the ground or fold it outwards to stop them burrowing in.
The second predator is dogs. Many a town dog will go on a rampage killing your chickens.
The third predator group is falcons and hawks.Though rare, it can happen when chickens are free ranging.
A varied diet of veggie scraps supplemented with a grain or pellet will keep your chickens healthy. There are also chicken tonics you can pop in their water, like apple cider vinegar. There are a few ailments to keep an eye out for like ‘scaly leg mites’ and chicken mites. Take a look online and you will find some easy products to use. On Facebook, the ‘Queenstown chicken lovers’ community can be a very useful resource to ask questions and get advice.
Fence in a feeding area, this can be connected to their home. It’s great to fence this securely to stop stoats and dogs from getting in. Allow 1-2sqm per bird.
In the autumn months, fill this space with leaves up to 1m high. Then feed all your kitchen food scraps onto the leaves. You can also add scraps and weeds out of the veggie garden.
The chickens eat, scratch poop and turn it over. 12 months later, dig it all out and pop in a pile for a few months to mature, then use this compost in your veggie garden. And repeat filling with autumn leaves again. You could also google chicken tractor, chicken veggie bed system or the chicken clock methods.
Whether you are just starting on your composting journey or you want to improve your current composting set up, our Composting Guides will give you the knowledge to feel confident to take your composting to the next level and divert organic waste from landfill.
Kitchen scraps and garden waste make up a third of household waste. Putting them in the landfill can be harmful as organic waste releases methane, a climate change gas. The Dr Compost project helps people in the Queenstown Lakes district to reduce their waste and feed their soil by composting at home. Dr Compost is funded by Queenstown Lakes District Council and delivered by Wastebusters.
This year our amazing Wastebusters whānau has been busy keeping everything we can out of landfill and supporting resourcefulness in our community while also working on bringing our dream of Wastebusters 2.0 into reality.
We were humbled and absolutely stoked to take home the Wānaka Chamber of Commerce Business Awards Supreme Business Award, along with the Community Contribution and Business Sustainability awards. This success was a powerful recognition of the dedicated mahi of our entire team, giving us huge confidence for the ambitious journey ahead.
We welcomed Aviette Musin on a fixed-term contract as our new Programme Manager for Wastebusters 2.0. Her expertise provided the dedicated, focused capacity needed to accelerate progress on this strategic goal.
Funding was secured through Queenstown Lakes Community Composting Project for the Compost Collect pilot, a joint venture with our neighbours Wānaka Greenwaste that will turn commercial food scraps into valuable compost, launching in 2026. We also intensified our focus on Construction and Demolition (C&D) materials, trialling diversion methodology and securing initial partnerships to divert waste from landfill. With our current site so space-constrained, we are extremely limited in the C&D materials which can be accepted for reuse, but this work will lay the groundwork for future diversion on a bigger site.
We made a compelling case to the Council for the necessary land expansion for Wastebusters 2.0 and prepared for the MfE Waste Minimisation Fund application process to support our expansion plans.
A continued focus for us this year has been on strengthening the Wastebusters whānau and ensuring we are equipped not just for the daily challenges, but for future growth. We continued to be a Living Wage employer, reflecting our commitment to the well-being and value of our staff. Feedback from the team via staff survey results highlighted strong morale and resilience within our workplace culture with 89% saying they enjoy working at Wastebusters and 93% feeling cared for by their manager.
The district’s rapid growth brings challenges as well as opportunities, particularly the Ballantyne Road/Riverbank Road roadworks which demanded flexibility and good humour from our team and customers throughout 2024. Despite the road cones, ongoing community support ensured our Reuse Shop continued to be a first choice destination for both locals and visitors. Improved donation flows and adding new changing rooms has made the shop operation smoother and more efficient for everyone.
Wastebusters’ partnership with events continues to go from strength to strength: including the trial of a food scraps collection from vendors. And our Recycle team did the huge job of relabeling all our events recycling bins to align with national recycling colours, making it easier for event-goers to know what to do. Wastebusters recycling trucks continue to be a much-loved presence in town servicing our 408 business customers, with the team doing a great job of keeping our aging fleet serviceable, in line with our kaupapa of keeping resources in use for as long as possible.
Our Reduce team has continued to deliver exceptional impact, with more than 11,000 people engaged in person through our education and engagement in the community. The Resourceful Communities programme inspires our community to take action and builds the knowledge and know how to engage in areas like repair, low waste living and textile waste diversion. It is proudly supported by QLDC’s zero waste district’s programme which recognises the impact of community connection for zero waste action.
We were stoked to join Environment Hubs Aotearoa, and we look forward to collaborating with this network and amplifying our collective impact on environmental action and resourcefulness across Aotearoa.
We worked with an impact consultant to implement an evaluation framework and behaviour change model to better plan, deliver and measure our impact, and have begun rolling out our learnings across all our programmes.
It was a busy year in advocacy, starting with participation in QLDC’s Waste Management and Minimisation Plan process. We appreciated QLDC’s approach in bringing Wastebusters and other stakeholders in early in the process, which has resulted in a constructive plan for the next six years. Wastebusters has also made submissions on national and local level, including The Right to Repair Bill, the Container Return Scheme and the publicly notified resource consent for McDonald’s in Wānaka.
Ultimately, this year has been about delivering impact while building the foundations for a much larger and even more impactful operation, securing Wastebusters’ future for our community. The heart of our work remains resource recovery and community engagement, and we enter the next 25 years of zero waste leadership with great confidence, welcome community support and an unwavering focus.
Gina Dempster
General Manager
November 2025
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