Has anyone ever kept chickens?

[Lozzie]

Yo!

I've been considering getting some chicks, but I wondered about how easy they are to keep. I'd get a little coop and run for the garden.

I've liked chickens for ages, think they're really cute. Saw some chicken agility (the jumps etc you see dogs doing)...and it kinda sealed the deal. Plus I LOVE eggs!!!!

]

 

[Duke]

ask bennydigital,he is animal man lol, i think they r easy to keep, feed ,clean , fresh water , thats about it , unless they get egg bound, then i ai t got a clue lol, think they do feck up ya grass a bit

 

[Mr Radish]

I grew up on a farm and we had chickens. They are reasonably easy to keep, but can sometimes be noisy and bear this in mind with regard to your neighbours.

They need room to forage for the best eggs and obviously you will have to supplement them with feed.


Make sure that they are protected at night from the urban fox, you would be surprised how many they are. If a fox got in the coup, it would probably kill the lot!

Do some reading up and ask some "owners", but good luck with it mate. I can still remember taking my little basket down to the coup as a 6 year old to collect the eggs and it was great! Better the Coup than the Co-op!

 

[Benny-Digital]

I can still remember taking my little basket down to the coup as a 6 year old to collect the eggs and it was great!

I had visions of you being bald when you were 6 for some reason!! Spot on from Mr Radish Sir, I hatched and kept quails for a while they are great. Really funny to watch.

 

[Mr Radish]

I had visions of you being bald when you were 6 for some reason!! Spot on from Mr Radish Sir, I hatched and kept quails for a while they are great. Really funny to watch.

I had a mop of strawberry blonde hair then mate!

 

[U31]

They need room to forage for the best eggs and obviously you will have to supplement them with feed.


Make sure that they are protected at night from the urban fox, you would be surprised how many they are. If a fox got in the coup, it would probably kill the lot!

Chris' first point -once they are on layers pellets supplements, it will be the most expensive eggs ever. you'd need about 200 chickens to sell the surplus eggs to break even.. therefore they need foraging room to eat naturally, slugs snails, herbs, grasses, seeds worms and wild vegetation in their diet make for the best eggs you will ever ever taste. Fact.


Second point is bang on the money. but not just foxes. Feral polecats and ferrets and once we even caught a badger that had been decimating ducks every night. They often dont even eat the kills which is strangely more annoying because if they'd ate them, you could understand it as survival Only thing is a good coop on legs and surround the field in chainlink fencing, ideally burried three feet deep as the carnivores will dig to get at em.

 

[Superdan]

Yo!

I've been considering getting some chicks, but I wondered about how easy they are to keep. I'd get a little coop and run for the garden.

I've liked chickens for ages, think they're really cute. Saw some chicken agility (the jumps etc you see dogs doing)...and it kinda sealed the deal. Plus I LOVE eggs!!!!

]

S-J has ya bloody loon, they were ace, had booits on and everything

 

[leaky]

regarding foxes, a fox is often blamed for killing more than it needs, but apparently vixens bury chickens all round their territory to save for harder times, and only leave killed prey if they have been disturbed, or at least thats what sir David Attenborough has just said on "The Life Of Mammals"

 

[Joker Jen]

regarding foxes, a fox is often blamed for killing more than it needs, but apparently vixens bury chickens all round their territory to save for harder times, and only leave killed prey if they have been disturbed, or at least thats what sir David Attenborough has just said on "The Life Of Mammals"

The one that got our chickens wasn't a vixen and it came back night after night (unless we had a gamekeeper there) and there were times it didn't even take them away with it! It left one still alive with the feathers stripped from it's neck, my dad had to put that chicken out of it's misery! We ended up with one left and we brought him into the house, it roosted on the kitchen door until he passed away from old age.


P.S. Loz, We will be keeping chickens again when we move to my parents place, they were ace and well worth the effort

 

[U31]

It was the same with the badger, Jen it seemed to just kill for fun and took none.
As i said, if it had been eating them, i would have been pissed off still, but could understand why

 

[Mr Radish]

Chris' first point -once they are on layers pellets supplements, it will be the most expensive eggs ever. you'd need about 200 chickens to sell the surplus eggs to break even.. therefore they need foraging room to eat naturally, slugs snails, herbs, grasses, seeds worms and wild vegetation in their diet make for the best eggs you will ever ever taste. Fact.


.

Dave, the reason I said you will need to supplement them was that I doubted Lozzie graden or run would have enough room for foraging alone. However, I was thinking more along the lines of a bit of grain rather than full layers pellets which are expensive. That said our chickens had acres of farm land to explore! Keeping them in the garden is not really the way to cheap eggs I agree, more a hobby.

 

[mrmedic]

we have 4 , love the fresh eggs , good with kids as well.

 

[mrmedic]

Dave, the reason I said you will need to supplement them was that I doubted Lozzie graden or run would have enough room for foraging alone. However, I was thinking more along the lines of a bit of grain rather than full layers pellets which are expensive. That said our chickens had acres of farm land to explore! Keeping them in the garden is not really the way to cheap eggs I agree, more a hobby.

yeah they need plenty of space , i have a patch of grass at the top of the garden its only about 5 meter by 8 but there never out of there.

ps a chicken will eat anything. and i meen anything.

 

[U31]

yeah they need plenty of space , i have a patch of grass at the top of the garden its only about 5 meter by 8 but there never out of there.

ps a chicken will eat anything. and i meen anything.

Yup, even cannibalise their dead...
but this also means a great way to recycle your unwanted food waste..Proper recycling that, Lozzles.. dodgy on the turn veg in, lovely fresh chucky egg out!

 

[helen(ugg)]

i have chickens and they are dead easy to keep. all my veg waste goes to them, cooked and raw, and lots of other leftover food. a couple of friends save theirs for me too. they come out to forage if i am around all day, otherwise stay in their pen. i buy a sack of layers pellet from the farm supplier which costs around seven and a half quid, and lasts my four girls and a boy for over a month with all the other bits and bobs they get as well...
they have a house with a nest box, and perches, and they are pretty good at only pooing off the perches, not in the nest, which makes it easy to clean. their manure makes really good compost.
i get more eggs than the 2 of us can eat from 4 hens, when i've had more than 4, i tend to give the eggs to the people i collect scraps from, and any one that asks, as you would have to have loads of chickens to make any worthwhile money.
if you have neighbours that you wish to remain friendly with i wouldn't bother with a rooster, but you do miss out on a lot of cock-related jokes if you don't.:$