The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Bison on April 05, 2013, 12:51:23 pm
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HI, I am about to get a couple of chickens for eggs and as pets and have spent a small fortune on books and guides.
As experienced chicken keepers is there any advice or knowledge that the guides usually neglect to mention as they all seem to cover the same topics?
Thanks
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Not all books properly explain how much fun you can have just watching your chickens as they scratch around - I wouldn't be without mine now and we've only had them a year.
I don't even mind (too much) if they get into the flower beds!
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Agree with SPBI. Chickens are fascinating and beware - you'll have twice as many this time next year so get bigger than you think you'll need in terms of drinkers, feeders and accommodation.
Get the best/biggest accommodation you can afford.
If they are going to free range then protect what you want to keep in your beds and veg etc.
We have recentley removed the fence from around our chicken pen and within a week they have sussed out where the main feed providers come from - so of a morning now they form a little delegation outside the back kitchen door!!!
Interstingly, they also follow the dog around. I am assuming they think he is something to do with the food as he is always with us when we put their food out so they have also associated him with food too. It's so funny
Good luck. :excited: :excited: ;D
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My contribution would be regarding the medication and egg withdrawal planning. Some medication means you are not advised to eat the eggs for a period of time.
I wasnt aware and lost 4 weeks of prime egg laying time a few years ago.
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emm ,, its addictive,,, you wil be getting more hahah,
ohh and give them a few grapes,,, chicken rugby :roflanim:
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...........is there any advice or knowledge that the guides usually neglect to mention...........
That fox will take your chickens during the day as well as the evening/night.
To make underneath the gate to your chicken pen fox proof too (cement it).
That peeing/placing human hair around the areas where you have poultry to 'deter foxes' is an old wives tale.
To raise your hen house off the ground to deter rats from nesting underneath.
That you also need a male chicken to make baby chickens...................
:chook: :innocent:
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That while most chicken coops sold are waist height at the apex and stand a couple inches off the ground at the base, which is convenient when you're a hen, for a person leaning in through the nestboxes or tiny pophole doors, or even a removable panel in the side or roof, gives you serious backache and many removable metal lined wood trays that you supposedly pull from either end for simple cleaning, warp enough to be stuck after the first time :(
They also cost as much as a 6x4 garden shed which you can walk and stand up in.. And even with 3 or 4 smaller coops to give each their required perch space, they all try and pack themselves like sardines in one until a few get brave enough to form a breakaway roost group ;)
If I were starting over, I'd go straight for the shed - at the time I was "just getting 4 POLs to try" - now I have 26 and might as well have gone for the bigger space to start with ::) Even though I thought I'd never manage to make a pophole I could have just left the door open or closed with the same result until I got my act together ::)
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About a year ago we changed from straw in the bottom of their house to sand (plain old builders sand from B&Q very cheap!). It has made cleaning the house much easier - daily I remove the soiled bits (bit like a cat litter tray) and then replace all the sand every 1-2 weeks.
Donna
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The more time you spend quietly observing your hens the more you'll get used to the way a happy, healthy hen looks and behaves and the quicker you'll spot when something's wrong.
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Don't think sand will compost very well. A bonus of having chickens is that you will have a fantastic compost heap.
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You know when I first started keeping hens and read lots of info I do remember thinking, 'but what about..' so many times as there was such a lot of things I wanted to know and the books didn't tell me. I thought that anyone writing a book on livestock should do it in co with a novice.
As you keep them for years, you find out most things anyway and you forget what you didn't know. So don't worry that you're a novice, it's amazing how quickly you learn and the books do state most of the obvious things anyway.
Hens are fun, but we stopped breeding as we seemed to just be killing lots of lovely looking little boys and it was upsetting. I take the easy route just buying hens. If you do want to do the breeding thing in time, think about colour coded chicks such as Cream Legbar which have different coloured males from females.
Enjoy your hens. and your sheep, goats, cows, ducks ........ :D just all accidentally of course!
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Dont know if books cover this but my tip would be to handle your chooks regularly and get a feel for a healthy fit bird.
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Handy tips - it can difficult to reintroduce new hens to an established group, so think how many you want to start with.
We use shredded paper for the hen house and straw just in the nesting boxes which saves money.
And we got an automatic door for the hen house which saves rushing home in the dark to lock them in, or getting up early to let them out, or having someone open up and shut them in if we go away.
J xxxxx
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Yes - an automatic door is an absolute must :D
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Don't think sand will compost very well. A bonus of having chickens is that you will have a fantastic compost heap.
We use a litter scoop to remove the chicken 'poop' and the used sand just gets spread around on the field.
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I would say that they forget to tell you that chooks can be trained to a call like dogs.
If I need to put mine away early I call em in, even if they are fields away ( ::) ) they come back and a little grain thrown in the house means I can lock up easily.
I feel it best to NOT clip wings of free rangers as then they can flap out of harms way better.
That at some point, unless you want a traumatic car ride to the vet and a big bill you are going to HAVE to kill one of your birds. I say kill as that is what it is, but sometimes it is the only humane option. Find out how to do it and make sure you can BEFORE you need to. There is nothing more distressing than having a sick/injured bird that needs it's suffering ending and realising you don't know how. Trust me on this :'(
That if you hatch eggs out, you are going to get cockerels. YOU have to be prepared to deal with them one way or another. Again decide before it happens :yum:
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I put square plastic boxes under our perch in the big shed....the poo just drops in then I tip it out! I bought a coup at first but was so disapointed, a shed is much much better.
Try to make a well drained pathway to where the chickens are kept as so many people slip and slide when we get lots of wet weather, funny thing is mine are on stone chippings and I never get mud, they have mud boarders around to dig in but I do not slip, its so clean and well drained!!
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the joy of finding eggs, again and again and again.
the fun of watching them - saw Lazarus (we through she was dead but she came alive again) chase our cat away this afternoon.
the great experience our children have of feeding, caring for and generally being a part of an animal's life
find a good Coq-au-Vin recipie as we find our slightly older excess cockerels (all free range) no good to roast.
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Every time you open the door to come out the house they think you have treats for them and all flock around you then get in the kitchen and poo all over the floor
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once you have them, they are hard to live without... you will get so much enjoyment and without saying, the best eggs you have ever tasted...
different breeds have totally different personalities , i love lohmans , to me, they are the friendliest chooks of all
keep an eye out for rats... I know some people put food in the hut, but this can encourage Rats ...
a few years ago i noticed a side sliding door was open..i knew i closed it the night before..this happened again the following night... :thinking:.. so , on the 3rd night, i locked the girls away then stood back a watched fro 10 minutes
A Rat climbed up the perch onto the seal and pushed the door open..if i hadn't seen it..i would have never believed it
he was then followed by 13 others..... the next day i bought an air rifle..that night 14 rats were dead
they never harmed the chickens...but just the idea of them was enough for some action
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Yes - I'm ruined for eggs now except my own :-)
Fortunately (or unfortunately) I have also ruined all my work colleagues for any other eggs so they buy them off me instead :D :D
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Buy Gale Dumelows 'Guide to raising chickens'. There is nothing missing that i've noticed.