The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Fleecewife on April 06, 2018, 12:07:04 pm
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This post is apropos nothing, just to say how much I love my hens. We got some very nice new ones yesterday which brings our total up to ten, plus the cock. We are slowly reducing the sheep side of things, and the veg garden size as we get older, but I realise that I never want to be without my hens. They are so calming and self sufficient, purring and chatting amongst themselves. I notice that many people start off their smallholding leanings with keeping hens. I think [member=1]Dan[/member] that we need a chicken- :hug: emoji 8)
We have a variety of breeds/hybrids chosen to be hardy but not too feisty, as they free range in a decidedly icy, wet, windy place. We have whittled out the breeds which don't do well here, and sadly that means no more blue egg laying Crested Cream Legbars, amongst others.
Do you love your hens, or are they just egg producers on legs?
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Just for you Juliet:
:hughen:
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We love our old hens and cocks- 26 of them total in 9 coops. The eggs are just a bonus for us and saves us buying any sometimes. Any rare (now) extras are first frozen then given away as strict French law prohibits sale unless you are a properly registered business. We've been checked out twice by French asking to buy eggs- both occasions we gave them some and never saw them again.
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I did love my hens but the fox got the last of them late last year:-(
Planning on getting some more this spring but may get some that are a bit interesting rather than just egg layers
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Just for you Juliet:
:hughen:
Thank you thank you Dan :hughen: :hughen: :hughen: :hugsheep: :hughen: :hughen: :thumbsup:
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I feel the same way, though have a lot less experience than you FW. I am about to pick up two new girls today, Araucanas, and hope they will fit my circumstances better than did the Legbars; they are supposed to produce blue eggs with relatively big yolks, and apparently are the original bearers of the blue gene. Quarantine and integration are new challenges I look forward to :fc:
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Araucanas are great! You'll love them. :thumbsup:
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I have 20+ lovely ladies who free range. When I go to feed the goats in the morning there Is a queue in the barn of girls who want to lay there. I love the little noise they make :excited: they also lay enough eggs for us to sell the excess so they pay for themselves and we eat lovely fresh eggs
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One of my very favourite films is Chicken Run - I could watch it every day. They have captured hen behaviour and character to a 'T'. :hughen:
We have a sheep shelter which I can see from the kitchen window and every morning at the same time, a little stream of hens can be seen running up there with their hilarious, bustling gait, to be first to the best sunbathing site :hughen:
When the sheep are fed in the winter, there are always hens in amongst them, shoving for their place at the trough.
Our new girls are just venturing a few steps outside for the first time ever, but I'm sure they'll be off with the rest in a couple of days.
For a while when I was a child, my father kept battery hens - aaagh, poor girls - so I love that mine are free range and live the life they want :hughen:
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We started with four, took three Ex-cons but then lost one of the originals to a fox. Friends were giving up their girls so we took on another 7. We "sell" half dozen eggs for £1 which is more a donation to feed then anything else. However that has become so popular that we don't have any eggs for ourselves so yesterday we signed up for another 7 ex-cons.
Each has its own personality and boy do they love free ranging in the garden but I will have to build some fencing for my veg area.
As we lost one to a fox we have decided to get three alpaca's as we understand they scare off foxes and boy they are cute like chickens. Thankfully we have 2.5 acres to put them all in
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We found Orpingtons just didn't suit our windy hilltop - they hated being blown around. Legbar crossed with Welsummer produced a robust hen laying olive green eggs, although the cockerels were feisty and didn't stay long. We've enjoyed keeping a number of different varieties over the years: Campines and Andalusians were too flighty; Polands and Salmon Faverolles were poor layers; RIR's too aggressive towards other breeds. We now have L/F Blue, Gold and Buff Laced Wyandottes, Speckled Sussex and Silver Grey Dorkings. We'll stick with them for a while as we've bred very selectively and now have robust birds that lay well, have a good temperament and win at shows.
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Wouldn’t do the hard labour especially in the winter if we didn’t care for them. All our poultry are loved , especially by grandchildren. Each one has a character but we love them to lay eggs too.
Our peafowl are pure luxury as is our ageing Drake.
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We started with 3 in an eglu. Now on our new smallholding we have 10 and a cockerel free ranging in the hen field with shed for nighttime and then a mix of silkies and bantams in the ‘pet pen’ which is a fenced off lawn with eglus that our holiday let overlooks. Our guests and their children love to watch them. Our whole flock includes white leghorns who literally lay everyday, welsummers, legbarns, hybrids and our cockerel is a gorgeous silver laced Wyandotte given to us by someone who bought him as a hen! We’ve hatched eggs under our silkie broody but have now invested in an incubator and having successfully experimented and hatched 2 out of 4 eggs (leghorn/Wyandotte cross, not sure what sex yet) we have just bought some hatching eggs of various breeds and are going to give those a go. We also sell excess eggs at the gate for £1 per half dozen and can’t meet demand as people love the different coloured shells. Chickens are a delight. Wouldn’t be without them now.
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I love my hens, love the noises they make and love watching them pottering about. I have 8 hens and a cockerel who free range and come and go as they please. Because there are no foxes or rats on the island I don't shut them in they are happy as larry!
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I love my hens, love the noises they make and love watching them pottering about. I have 8 hens and a cockerel who free range and come and go as they please. Because there are no foxes or rats on the island I don't shut them in they are happy as larry!
No foxes..... I'm moving to Orkney
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I love my hens, love the noises they make and love watching them pottering about. I have 8 hens and a cockerel who free range and come and go as they please. Because there are no foxes or rats on the island I don't shut them in they are happy as larry!
No foxes..... I'm moving to Orkney
No trees either ;) :'( :love::tree:
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I started 10+ years ago with 4, then took on some ex commercials, then a few growers/POLs, then started raising day olds and hatching a few when hens went broody as I'd somehow acquired a cockerel..
Usually have between a dozen and 48 at different times of year (raising chicks, tho most of those were sold on as growers along with eggs to pay for feed). They just about broke even if you didn't include fencing the run, coop replacements, feeders etc..
Sadly a fox got 9 of my current 15 on Thursday/Friday so my Friday 13th discovery was the senior cockerel dead of probably a heart attack after failing to protect his girls. Several feather piles around but no other bodies so they've all been taken to feed growing cubs I imagine.
Have had an attack like this before a few years back and survived by totally free ranging so they all had a chance of getting away rather than being cornered. The girls that roosted in trees and were wily about coming down too early, kept going but one was picked off every few nights until the 3rd week of April and the rest then left alone.
This time I was just devastated and asked a friend to take in the remaining 6 either until the foxes give up on this place (for the year at least), which should be a month or so, but the way I felt yesterday, could be possibly permanently. She collected the remaining 2 Welsummers, 1 Rhode Rock, 1 ancient Scots Grey and 1 Bluebell yesterday morning but the dratted cream legbar got away and as she's very flighty I just left her to fend for herself rather than try and drive her back after failing twice as she'd had enough stress.
She laid a wee blue egg yesterday and is hiding up in the same spot today, not sure where she spends the night but not in the coop for sure so I cleared it out today and left it to air. Will either try and fix it and creosote while vacant, or let it be a garden ornament of the decaying kind, depending what happens.
It is SO quiet here without the constant chattering, announcing, crowing and calling to found food noises. It is depressing. I only replaced the run last year and can't afford a roll of chainlink deer fence at the mo, so not sure which way I'll go. They're so happy here and they make me happy too, but their lives can be too short or 7-8 years and I am getting weary of the pain of losing them - esp as one of my 10yo cats died a month or so ago and I'm in that place of feeling they're better off with someone else.
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:hug: :hug: :hug:
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from what you write Ellied, I doubt very much that they're better off with someone else; you sound like a wonderful chicken keeper. I'm really sorry for your loss; it's very upsetting when it happens. Would you consider getting someone in to shoot the fox? My neighbour did after his favorite was taken.
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I have hens as well and would like to install an auto drinker. My hens free range so something that will attach to the wire surrounding the coop. Anyone got anything like this?
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Araucanas are great! You'll love them. :thumbsup:
feisty little things aren't they? Maria (so named because she prompted a memory of a chorus of nuns singing 'how do you solve a problem like...') who escaped quarantine and even had a go at me is now challenging a RIR who is twice her size for dominance. I have no idea how this is going to work out, but fortunately they have plenty of space to sort it out/run away and hide :thinking:
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So sorry to read that, ellied. I do understand why you chose to take a break. My latest rescue girls were just done in last night by a mink, I've only had them since February and they were so happy, excited about every worm and beetle, I'm heartbroken and I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight. Now it's the race to catch the blooming thing before it can get into the other houses - they seem to persist until they find a weekness....:( Btw - we must catch up, maybe coffee some time if you have a lunch break? Don't know where the years went, some were challenging to say the least....
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sorry for your loss nfd :hug:
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How awful :( Predators are the major downside of keeping poultry and it's heartbreaking when they are taken, or worse killed and left. :hughen: :hughen: :hughen: :hug: to you both.
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I am down to just 3 old hens that still lay. I sold of the young ones when I retired as there was just too many eggs. ( used to sell our eggs to the nurses at work ) I love to watch my girls going about there day. Badgers are our main problems so the girls are just in the barn building at night. they have one of the stables as there home. I coax them in every night with treats as the badger has been know to come into the barn through the night. The front door is open in the summer. I had one that wrecked my feed room, I was amazed it even got under the door. Was after the cats food. something thechickens try to get as well. Clever wee things. I feed the wild birds in the winter and the hens get out in the morning and make a bee line for the bird feeders which hang on the apple tree. Always looking for any bits that drop to the ground. the way they run makes me laugh.
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I lost my hens a few weeks back to Mr fox. Yesterday I bought 3 black rocks and 2 Marrans. All pol. There was actually one egg in the black rock cage at the auction so I know that at least one of them has already started laying.
I have just let them out this morning into a smaller pen to start with and they are happily exploring in the sun :chook: :sunshine:
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So sorry to read that, ellied. I do understand why you chose to take a break. My latest rescue girls were just done in last night by a mink, I've only had them since February and they were so happy, excited about every worm and beetle, I'm heartbroken and I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight. Now it's the race to catch the blooming thing before it can get into the other houses - they seem to persist until they find a weekness....:( Btw - we must catch up, maybe coffee some time if you have a lunch break? Don't know where the years went, some were challenging to say the least....
Just seen this NFD, definitely up for coffee too! :)
My 1 remaining feral legbar has recovered her nerves and is coming for feed every morning and evening untouched despite being a tree roosting paranoid. So as a few weeks have gone by without further issue I reckon the other 5 should be ok to return home at the end of the month.
The 'carer' is impressed that 17 girls (she already had a dozen) managed to fit in her Eglu so is now planning to book some rescues from BHWT on 26th. I'd consider some of those myself too but can't manage the date as I have a massage training commitment, the final weekend for my Advanced Remedial Certificate so thinking maybe a few POLs after all..