Keeping chickens

gingaman

Afternoon all,

I have been offered a couple of chicks, and am thinking I will take them to enjoy the fresh eggs etc. RideOnTime made a thread about foxes attacking his flock. I will make the coop myself and try to predator-proof it as well as I can, but those of you that keep chickens, what advice would you have?

Are chickens inherently noisy, or is that just cockerels? Am I going to subject my neighbours to vermin (I have heard that mice and rats will be attracted to the food)?

cheers

katiebob

Pass to chickens but we have rabbits. We used wire from http://www.hillsofdevon.co.uk/ to fox proof it and meshed underneath (with turf laid on top) as well to stop the buggers digging out and foxes digging in. Resonable price and they deliver for free.

Apparently normal chicken wire isn't fox proof (keeps chickens in not foxes out).

mercia_man

I keep a couple of chickens. The eggs are fantastic when compared with tasteless supermarket eggs. They taste and look so much better. The chickens scratch around free range in our garden and are locked up at night. They are friendly, inquisitive and make nice pets. They will eat out of my hand and the tamest one will jump onto my lap or onto our garden table to steal food if we are eating outside. I try to feed them layers' pellets but they prefer raw jumbo oats and breadcrumbs. They also like apple cores and bird corn.

We live in up in the hills in a rural area where there are foxes but have never suffered any attacks. I think this is because we have a dog and a well-fenced dog-proof garden. We are in pheasant shooting land so I guess the foxes have plenty of free food without venturing to our garden. The local hunt is still active and will spend all day in local woods and fields with the hounds making a hell of a noise. A legal drag hunt? I don't think so. Our neighbours, whose hens wander up and down our lane, scratching for food on the verge and in hedgerows, have an open garden and have suffered fox attacks.

The disadvantage with hens is that they do attract rats and mice, will eat everything growing in your garden such as strawberries and young veg shoots and will play havoc with flower beds digging up the soil to have a dirt bath. Their poo is really unpleasant. Ours like to sun themselves on our doorstep and will wander in and out of the house if the door is open. The mess they leave is vile. Ours go broody once or twice a year and just want to stay on the nest. I pick them up and take them to the other side of the garden for a feed but they will then go straight back to the nest.

I'm happy enough to leave ours wandering free if we go away for a weekend. Any longer and we ask our elderly neighbours to feed them and lock them up at night and let them out in the morning. Cockerels are noisy but even hens like ours will do a bit of crowing but not enough to disturb.

First.Aspect

Our neighbour had chickens. We live next to a farm, but it was still something of a "The Good Life" thing.

Noise not a problem. Returning escapees to the neighbours also not a problem.

The smell is a problem.

The mice also a problem. All 4 surrounding properties suddenly had mice.

If you have neighbours, spare them. Move to the country. Buy an acre or two, THEN have chickens.

bernithebiker

We now have 6 chickens, bought 2 on a whim, then more, best thing we ever did.

Picking up your own eggs in the morning is just brilliant, tastes amazing, and you know it's 100% organic.

We have 38 acres, so no space problem, but we have lost 4 to hunting dogs that came into the garden. Now only let the chickens out if we're home and the dog's outside so we get some warning.

There are foxes here, but never seen one in the day. The chickens have a 100m2 run and I built them a 6m2 coop with an automatic door opener (opens and closes with the light).

The fence has anti-dig plates round it, and an electric fence, so very fox proof.

For the poo, not so bad - I chop up some big old beech logs with the chainsaw and spread 6 inches of chipping around the coop - seems to absorb the crap quite well.

As for mice, well they're out there anyway, the owls and buzzards keep those in check.

gingaman

Thanks for the replies and advice, much appreciated.

bernithebiker wrote:

The fence has anti-dig plates round it. As for mice, well they're out there anyway

Do you think any metal plates will do? As for any potential mice problem, could I not place traps etc. in the vicinity?

And as for the waste, father has a couple of allotments, he will use it for his compost heaps.

mercia_man

Rats and mice are everywhere, even if you don't see them. Chicken food is a ready supply of nutrition for them. I am not that bothered about mice, voles and shrews. But rats are a real pain. All the cottages in our area have had rats in the roof. Traps are not that effective. Poison is best. And block off any holes through which rats can enter.

With only two chickens, a good way to deal with overnight poo is to put newspaper down under their perch, a bit like you would do with a budgie cage. I just roll up the fouled paper each morning and stick it on the compost heap. Chicken poo is great for enriching the soil.

bernithebiker

gingaman wrote:

Thanks for the replies and advice, much appreciated.

bernithebiker wrote:

The fence has anti-dig plates round it. As for mice, well they're out there anyway

Do you think any metal plates will do? As for any potential mice problem, could I not place traps etc. in the vicinity?

And as for the waste, father has a couple of allotments, he will use it for his compost heaps.

You can see my pics in the 'Fox' thread below. Yep, any kind of metal plate will work, even chicken wire laid flat on the ground is good too, you can go out about 50cm, that should do it.

But nothing beats an electric fence - one touch of that and no animal will approach it ever again. For all the fox knows the whole metal fence is electrified. We get wild boar here - a real problem, but this year for the first time we've kept them away with an electric fence, albeit 3km of the stuff!

Rats are very hard to trap - I've been trying for a while as one made a nest in the engine of my old Porsche Cayman and started eating the wires. In the end, poison was the only way.

I've caught quite a few mice in a tunnel trap - they go in for the cheese which wiggles and the door springs down. I then go for a 5km ride to dispose of them!!

gsej

If you have a small garden, they will destroy it. We have two laying birds (previously we had birds for meat, and they were even more destructive). We've put a fence across the garden dividing it into two. On their side there's no grass left, just tough plants like rosemary. I've never seen a fox around here so we don't bother shutting them in at night. We've had birds for about 5 years with no problems of that sort.

Yellow Peril

We've got 4. a Brahma, a Poland, a Freisian and a Lakenvelder. The Brahma is like a pet dog it follows you everywhere and likes to be handled the Freisian is a little tw@t and a bit of an escape artist. I love having them in the garden they're a bit like tropical fish. I never tire of watching them, I find them hilarious.

pinno

2 Chickens aren't going to be a handful. I would keep them in a coup that you can move to let the ground recover or it's bye bye garden.
Chicken sh1t needs to break down a bit before you add it to compost or else it is very acidic.

Foxes tend to attack at dawn or dusk so as long as they are in a secure wooden hut, you shouldn't have a problem. Make a hut with a weld mesh base so that the crap falls through and have it on stilts.
Par boil your left over peelings and kitchen waste (apart from the obvious) and mix it with layers mash - even better eggs and if you have acidic soil, you'll need to add grit or the shells will be weak. Feed the a chicken carcass and stand back! Talk about cannibals...

One more thing: Keep a look out for mites. They get under the leg scales. You'll have to treat them with paraffin (forget expensive veterinary products). We had a cockerel called George. He was a star. He used to be first to be out of the hut in the morning and single out a female to shag (I could never break it to him that they were hybrid) and then he would grub up insects for them and look after them.
You could pick George up and he would eat out of your hand. Used to love getting his legs treated.

Remember: Chickens die in debt. Make sure the chicks get vaccinated.

Moonbiker

I wouldn't be keen on taking on free chickens unless they are either fairly young or even better are point of lay as they might be old birds that aren't laying much anymore, so you will be spending on feed but not getting many eggs in return.

Best to have the option of both a enclosed run & to be able to let them free range if you have the space, then you can have the choice depending if you are home to put them in plus let them out, or you can just get a neigbour to do it.

As for rats if you do have a keen cat or dog they will kill them,then no need for posion etc, don't leave excess food laying around, keep the place tidy & keep any food in a rat proof sealed container = alot less chance of any rat problem.

If you want to stop chickens flying over gates/fences you can chop there wing feathers on one side.

ben@31

^ much easier buying them from Tesco.

pinno

ben@31 wrote:

^ much easier buying them from Tesco.

Have you tasted home made organic free range eggs?

Stevo_666

pinarello001 wrote:

ben@31 wrote:

^ much easier buying them from Tesco.

Have you tasted home made organic free range eggs?

Yep, the Waitrose ones are pretty good

pinno

Yep, we get Auchtrelure free range eggs here and they're smashing.




I'll get my coat.

bernithebiker

Looking for advice here (only had chickens 6 months).

One of them has taken to sitting in the nesting box all day and not moving. I tried to gently touch her, and she pecked me!

Trouble is I can't get to the other eggs.......Is she ill? Or broody?!

Yellow Peril

bernithebiker wrote:

Looking for advice here (only had chickens 6 months).

One of them has taken to sitting in the nesting box all day and not moving. I tried to gently touch her, and she pecked me!

Trouble is I can't get to the other eggs.......Is she ill? Or broody?!

Probably broody. Kick her out of the nesting box\and dunk her @rse in a bucket of cold water. after a couple of goes she'll stop brooding. Leave her in there and she'll start dehydrating as they tend to stop drinking and eating.

merkin

Yellow Peril wrote:

Probably broody. Kick her out of the nesting box\and dunk her @rse in a bucket of cold water. after a couple of goes she'll stop brooding. Leave her in there and she'll start dehydrating as they tend to stop drinking and eating.

Yep, I can vouch that works. I tried that on a broody ex missus. Sure enough, she no longer wanted to settle down with me and start a family.

pinno

merkin wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

Probably broody. Kick her out of the nesting box\and dunk her @rse in a bucket of cold water. after a couple of goes she'll stop brooding. Leave her in there and she'll start dehydrating as they tend to stop drinking and eating.

Yep, I can vouch that works. I tried that on a broody ex missus. Sure enough, she no longer wanted to settle down with me and start a family.

Rumour has it that is was the Layer's Mash, not the bucket of water.

bernithebiker

Yellow Peril wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

Looking for advice here (only had chickens 6 months).

One of them has taken to sitting in the nesting box all day and not moving. I tried to gently touch her, and she pecked me!

Trouble is I can't get to the other eggs.......Is she ill? Or broody?!

Probably broody. Kick her out of the nesting box\and dunk her @rse in a bucket of cold water. after a couple of goes she'll stop brooding. Leave her in there and she'll start dehydrating as they tend to stop drinking and eating.

So I kicked her out (not pleasant as she was angry and keep pecking at me), shut the coop door and left her outside all day. By the next morning, though, she was back in the box, all squished out again.

I've built another box, so the other 5 have somewhere to lay. As long as the broody one doesn't stop access to the eggs, I might as well let her carry on......she'll get bored at some point...

mercia_man

bernithebiker wrote:

Yellow Peril wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

Looking for advice here (only had chickens 6 months).

One of them has taken to sitting in the nesting box all day and not moving. I tried to gently touch her, and she pecked me!

Trouble is I can't get to the other eggs.......Is she ill? Or broody?!

Probably broody. Kick her out of the nesting box\and dunk her @rse in a bucket of cold water. after a couple of goes she'll stop brooding. Leave her in there and she'll start dehydrating as they tend to stop drinking and eating.

So I kicked her out (not pleasant as she was angry and keep pecking at me), shut the coop door and left her outside all day. By the next morning, though, she was back in the box, all squished out again.

I've built another box, so the other 5 have somewhere to lay. As long as the broody one doesn't stop access to the eggs, I might as well let her carry on......she'll get bored at some point...

Yeah, just let her carry on with it, Bernie. It's just natural behaviour and she'll not come to any harm. That's what my sister says. She's been keeping and breeding chickens for years and gave us our pair for a Christmas present some years ago. Some breeds are worse than others. Our greeny black Cochin hybrid goes broody two or three times a year. I've tried immersing her in cold water but it doesn't cure her. I've tried shutting her in a shed to no avail. Now I don't bother trying to cure her broodiness. I simply take her to the other side of the garden for a feed and drink and she then goes back to nesting box for the rest of the day. It can take a couple of weeks until she is back to normal.