another chicken question

cuffie

We love our chooks! We have an Omlet (not very money-saving I know, but it was Hubby's 40th birthday present!). We let them free-range for an hour or so each day, but there is always someone out there with them. Apart from once, when we came in from a morning out. Let the chooks out and put the kettle on for a cuppa. Made a cup of tea and in that time my eldest boy started screaming that the fox had one of the chickens. My husband ran outside (in his socks!) and ran after the fox. The fox dropped our lovely Daisy. She was poorly for a while. Limped for a bit and lost a lot of feathers, but she is back to normal again now. We count ourselves lucky, and would never let them free range again without us being there. A lesson learnt. Have fun - they are terrific to have. I love it!!
They are fine in winter. They all huddle together. We give them scraps and treats in the afternoon and just make sure we give them potatoes or pasta to fatten them up a bit.

darcyvuqua

the coop is up i am getting chicken fever

Pruflo

I love this thread - we have been the proud "parents" of four ex-battery girls for about 6 months now and they are hilarious - they come flying (not literally) up the garden demanding a cauliflower for their lunch. Ours were kept in the run when we weren't around for the first few months but they hate it so now free range from morning til night when they take themselves off to bed.

They have totally trashed my hubbies lawn which was his pride and joy - mind you with four dogs and three cats as well he was on a loser anyway....

When you get your girls give them a whole cauliflower and watch them demolish it - once they get the taste for the good life you would never think they had spent most fo their lives in a cage!!

Does anyone know whether it is possible to introduce new girls to the gang - our coop could easily take a couple more andI like to think they would be warmer if there were more to sniggle up against....

darcyvuqua

hi pru are you on the forum for ex battery hens its good lots of advice

Kimitatsu

Pruflo wrote: »

Does anyone know whether it is possible to introduce new girls to the gang - our coop could easily take a couple more andI like to think they would be warmer if there were more to sniggle up against....

Hi Pru

Yes we started with 6 ex battery hens and now have 15 girls and one (happy) boy.

You can add more to them at any time but they will argue amongst themselves - hence the cockeral. He will keep them in line right the way across the board. We found that the new girls would hide for a bit to begin with (we always kwpt them in for a couple of weeks) but then once they had settled in there was no issue.

We always intorduced them in the warmer weather, and usually at night was the time we moved them around. Once they have all slept together then there seems to be fewer issues.

Once you have had chooks I dont think you ever really look back.

darcyvuqua

thanks for your views guys i cant wait to add the hens 9 days to go how noisy are chickens i dont really care just wondering

Kimitatsu

Personally I dont find our girls noisy at all - they have a softish clucking noise rather than any huge noise. Our boy though can be noisy if he is waiting for breakfast or if he thinks there is a threat - we always take notice if he is shouting about something.

Someone was asking about cats earlier on - we have never had an issue with them, in fact the cats sun themselves on top of the coop!

We also find that our chooks are great for eating up odds and ends that are left over. All the peelings go out as does any milk that has gone off - soaked up with a bit of bread they love it. Any salad stuff that has just gone over also goes out and is scoffed in a few minutes.

Darcy - we buy a lot of our feed from these guys http://www.cwg.co.uk/ we get layers pellets and wild bird food that they are fed all year round. In the winter we add kibbled or flaked maize to keep them warm. They are also good for stock fencing etc.

creased-leach

I've been reading this with interest- our coop arrived a couple of days ago. I think it was the one in the second link from ebay- but it's been removed and the company were dreadful to deal with.

Anyway, we're taking our time, as we don't want to get the hens til after we've been away at the end of march. In that time, we want to build their run. Does anyone know any suppliers we can get chicken wire from in east kent? I'll be asking the same question about the hens later lol.

We don't seem to have a fox issue here. I've lived here 10 years and never seen a single fox in the village. We're in the middle of countryside which is used to raise & shoot pheasants, so I think the gamekeepers keep the foxs down. We'll remain vigilant, obviously- but I'm hopeful.

Also, any recommendations of friendly, hardy, productive hens? Ones that can fetch my daily paper would be good too :rotfl:

Thanks!

darcyvuqua

thats cool do you have a picture of them or there living quaters as im going to start work on expanding there run hehe and there not even her however im a little bit nervous as im not at all good at diy

cuffie

Please don't think that just because there are pheasants around the fox won't be there. We were surprised. We have pheasants in our hedgrow (have seen up to 14 recently), and there are still lots of them about so the fox obviously hasn't got them.....but it tried to get our Daisy, and nearly got Rosie, but she ran off to hide for nearly 2 hours - we found her trying to get back into the chicken run...we thought she was a gonner!

Regarding introducing new chooks.....don't do one on their own (the 2 we introduced to our flock of 4 where pecked for a week or so, but they stick together like glue now- even though they don't get pecked....they are best buddies The others go off on their own too). Don't be alarmed - it's their natural way of getting a pecking order. I was so shocked at first, and felt guilty at even getting 2 more hens, but they are great. Im sure if you are introducing a few then that would be better than just 1 or 2.