Keeping Chickens

Thinking of keeping Chickens?  - here is some advice and information we hope you  will find useful (courtesy of Jane our chicken champ!)

One of the joys in life is collecting a still warm egg fresh from your own chickens for your breakfast or lunch.  Chickens are fun, attractive animals to have around but as with any animal you are making a commitment to their welfare when you offer them a home.  They will be very interested in what you are doing when working in the garden and will follow you round to see what you might dig up.  The clucking and small noises made by contented birds is very companionable and comforting.

If you are thinking about keeping chickens there are some things to consider before you take the plunge.

• What space can you offer them?  Chickens evolved from jungle birds, they need shelter, in the shape of their own “house” and trees or shrubs to dive under when they are busy out foraging and space to make a dust bath to help them get rid of parasites naturally.  
• Is someone able to look after them when you are away?
• How do your neighbours feel about the possible noise? Even though you do not need a cockerel to have fresh eggs some girls can be pretty noisy - so it's best to check  
• Neighbours might be worried that your chickens might smell and attract vermin?  There will be very little smell if you clean your hen house regularly and if you have space to keep the food inside in vermin proof bin (eg a metal dust bin) then the risk of  rats etc. is minimalised. 

Once you've covered off these basics the next thing to think about is the 'house' or coop they going to live in.  Make sure you've got enough space and a common piece of advice is to consider buying one larger than you think you need because you will get hooked on chickens.

Choosing the house
Key points to look out for are that the structure is sturdy enough to be secure from predators and bad weather  but light enough for you to  move it round your garden. Clearly larger and more fully featured houses and coops will be more expensive, but we have tried to provide a range of sizes and styles to suit most budgets. Some chicken houses may look like fantastic value, but beware as many are made from very thin timber which struggles to cope with either the british climate or the british fox! 

Please just click HERE to view our carefully selected chicken sheds and arks. 

Here are a few important pointers to consider when choosing:

• Ideally look for timber that is from eco friendly FSC certified or sustainably managed sources. 
• To ensure that your house lasts the timber should be treated but obviously with a non-toxic environmentally friendlyproduct.
• The Poultry Club (www.poultryclub.org) recommend the following guide lines for size.
  • Floor area should be a minimum of 1 square foot per bird (large fowl) or 8" square for bantams.
  • Perches should allow a minimum of 9" for large fowl and 6" for bantams and be 2" wide.
• The  more space the better especially if your birds are going to stay in the house and run and not be allowed to roam free.  In the winter they will be spending long hours in the house for example in November they will be going to bed around 4pm and not getting up until 8am.
• Does the house come with an integral run? 
• Housing with a welded mesh will be much more biosecure than ordinary chicken wire. 
• Roofing material - if the design uses a roofing cover rather than exterior grade treated timber to provide weather protection a roof made of onduline not felt will give better protection from red mite and is less likely to result in condensation.
• Has the roosting area got sufficient ventilation?  
• Design - a house raised off the ground will give no place for rats to burrow under. 
• How difficult will it be to clean? Large doors to access the roosting and nesting areas will make life much easier to clean out the house and that will probably mean that you will do it much more regularly if it is easy. 
• Does the house have carrying handles and should you have wheels fitted if it is to be moved round often?

Siting your chicken house and run.
A static coop could result in a build up of disease or pests.  If you regularly let the birds out to roam free then it is not such a problem, but beware, a chickens sole purpose in life is to scratch around all day searching for worms, small grubs and other such tasty treats.  Your garden will soon  become a wilderness to plants and grass if you have too many birds in too small an area. 

• Can you give the house shelter from prevailing winds, rain or hot summer sun?  A chicken is wearing a nice down coat  so she can actually stand the cold quite well but may suffer from the heat.
• Is the site close to your house?  Easy to pop out and collect the eggs, less likely the fox will call if human (and dog) activity is conspicuous. 

Choosing the hens.
If you are looking for a steady supply of eggs then hybrid laying birds are probably the best choice. These are chickens that have been bred from mixed parents to develop a utility hen that will  produce eggs regularly and are often very docile making them easier to handle.  Bear in mind that chickens need to be wormed regularly, dusted with louse powder and may need medication at some point in their lives. 

• Hybrid Layers will be much cheaper to buy than pure bred birds
• Pure-bred chickens come in a very wide variety of fantastic colouring and markings and by buying one of the rare breeds you will be helping the survival of that breed. Some of them such as the Brahma and Cochin varieties can be very large so make sure you have enough room as chicken house manufcturers tend to give occupancy numbers base on small Bantam birds.  A Bantam is usually the term  for any miniature variety.
• Pure breeds have their own clubs and you can find the address elsewhere on the internet or in the poultry magazines. See the Poultry Society's gallery for pictures of the rare breeds.  If your flock is under 50 birds you will not need to register with DEFRA!

Buying your hens.
For the new keeper the safest route will be to buy  point of lay pullets (POL) through a local agent of the big breeding companies.  The birds will be vaccinated and the flock checked to be salmonella free POL are chickens from 16-18 weeks of age and will start laying for the first time at 19-21 weeks.  There are plenty of other sources such as auctions, adverts in the local paper, but unless you are experienced at choosing your birds you may be buying someone else’s mistake.  If choosing a pure bred you will have to find a specialist breeder and may have to join a waiting list.

Feeding
Don’t forget that what you put into the bird is what you will get out.  Chickens are not a living compost heap and should not be given potato peelings and no meat or salty scraps.  If you are selling your eggs no household scraps are allowed by law.

• Layers mash or pellets are easy to find from animal food suppliers and easy to handle.  At least you know that someone else has done all the work to devise a diet that is complete with all the essential nutrients for your hens. Look for the range that contains ingredients that are not genetically modified and avoid any feed with yolk enhancers or antibiotics. 
• Mixed poultry corn can be given as a treat and if you give this to them when you want them back in the house it can be a good training tool.
• Chickens love fruit and vegetable especially food with pips/seeds like tomatoes.
• Beware of giving them too many treats or they will not eat the complete meal that you are buying for them.
• Hens have no teeth but use small pieces of grit or stone held in the gizzard to grind up food. Grit and crushed oyster shell, which helps put back the calcium used up by the chicken when making the egg shell, are readily available from pet suppliers.  
• Eggs are about 85% water so it is essential plenty of fresh water is available daily.

Bedding:
Chickens like humans, can be prone to respiratory diseases so for the health of both you and your chickens choose bedding material that has been dust extracted. Chopped straw or a mixture of straw and wood shavings will be clean, warm, smell nice and will rot down quickly.  If you only have a couple of chickens it may be better to buy small bags rather than a large bale as it could get damp and musty with the resulting health risk of spores developing.

• Clean you hen house regularly, remove soiled litter daily and top up, then, once a week replace the bedding and nesting material. No need for special tools a dustpan and brush will be fine and an old washing up brush will get into the nooks and crannies, a hand held vacuum cleaner tidies up the dusty bits.
• Don’t let nasties like red mite get a hold on your birds.  They suck the blood from the chickens at night and can make the chickens at best extremely uncomfortable and at worst anaemic and cause death.  Every couple of months in the summer when the mites are active thoroughly clean the house with a propriety brand such as Poultry Shield.

Composting.
The results of your cleaning sessions will make a very good nutritious compost to put on your garden. Do  not add the chicken waste directly to your garden as it could burn your plants.  Straw and wood shavings mixed with the chicken manure will rot down nicely in a compost bin.

Eggs: 
The Chickens will repay your gift of a good home with lovely fresh eggs, they could be white, tinted, brown or even blue depending on the breed.  Eggs will keep well in a cool place, stored with the “pointy” end down  (that’s where the air sack is) for up to three weeks. 

• Absolutely fresh eggs are great fried or poached, if you want them boiled then older eggs will peel better.
• To test for freshness place the egg in water, a fresh egg will sink but as it gets older the air sack will get larger and the egg will float.  
• Excess eggs are a welcome gift for friends and neighbours or you could sell them at your gate.

Advice to keen gardeners:
If you are a keen gardener, cover the roots of favourite shrubs and plants with large stones and place netting over or around vegetables.  Allow the chickens full access in the winter where they will love the veg patch and will help you dig it over whilst manuring it at the same time!

Finally, buy your hen house first, put it in the optimum place, if you are going to paint it leave plenty of time for the smell to disappear before housing the chickens and use paint that is non toxic and environmentally friendly.  Buy the drinker and feeder, then get your chickens and enjoy the rewards of a poultry keeper.