Chickens

thejames

Mister_D wrote: »

I find most of these animal charity's are run more like a business each day, steer clear of them and contact chicken farms direct. My local RSPCA ran a story in the local press about some abandoned chickens they DESPERATELY needed to re-home, I thought I'd do my bit as I had a couple of spare pens over winter and rung them up. Sure they said no problems that will be ten quid each......there ended my charitable notions.


Anyhoo, if you want to start keeping chickens and need help with a pen/house/stock I can help you. I build pens/coops to make money but I am more than willing to show anyone how to make a very cheap cost effective coop of there own. I usually have dodgy prototypes or OLD coops knocking around if anyone fancies a cheap way into the hobby. They may need a repair or be a bit tatty but free is free
I'm in North Wales and you fit into my timetable if you're picking something up for free NOT the other way around and as for delivery you have more chance of taking a **** in the popes hat. (yes I have in the past been asked to deliver a FREE coop over 40 miles for FREEEEE)

Any help will be great fully received thank you, although you are rather far. Haha :rotfl:

This did make me chuckle. :beer:

Cass

twiglet98

Lots of useful advice here.

Firstly I'd say be wary of ex-battery hens - they can be immensely rewarding but I honestly don't think they are the best first hens for novice keepers.

Keeping your own hens isn't cheap. In summer, a productive breed, or a hybrid developed for maximum production, will lay an egg each day. This may well mean you will have more than enough for you, and some spare to sell. But most birds lay best in their first year, and progressively less as they get older. Of course there are exceptions and some old hens will still lay an egg a day for most of the year. They all moult in their second year and will stop laying for a while then.

You may get a free henhouse from freecycle along with free hens, and feeders and drinkers (though you don't HAVE to get special ones, they stay cleaner, the feed stays dry and there is less waste if you do). Be very sure a second-hand house isn't harbouring red mite, it's worth spraying every surface and every crevice with Creocote and letting it air very well before use. And make sure it's one you can clean easily, reaching all the corners without having to get on your knees in the mud. We have four different henhouses and the best by far in terms of cleaning and egg collecting is the one like a garden shed, that I can stand up in.

You will have to buy layers meal or pellets to feed every day, and most keepers throw them a handful of mixed corn in the afternoon too. You can supplement it with kitchen leftovers but you'd need a very large family to keep your hens entirely on household scraps.

You need to take droppings out of the house each morning, ideally, or they'll trample through them and quite possibly lay eggs in piles of muck. Don't underestimate how much poo a chicken produces. It's great for making garden compost, though. If they are not confined to a run they will follow you into the house, especially if you ever throw them a grape or a crust from the back door, and they will poo all over the patio, the patio table and chairs, the doorstep where they're waiting for you to come up with more treats... not so bad when we had three hens, not so good now there are nearly 30. They are fenced away from the patio now.

You need to sweep out the bedding material at least once a week and put in fresh woodshavings or whatever you are using as litter. They like straw in the nest box where they are meant to lay their eggs. Some hens will lay theirs away from the others no matter how inviting the nest box, and they are creatures of habit.

You will need to worm them, buying Flubenvet online is cheaper than getting it from the vet. You could get layers pellets from Marriages that have wormer already added. Herbal products are useful preventatives but won't get rid of worms that are already there. Also you will need something to treat the housing (spray) and the hens (powder) for red mite. Sprinkle the powder into the bedding, on the perches, and in the nest boxes. If your garden has wild birds visiting, no matter what you do they will bring red mites in. And unless the hens are shut in a house-and-run that wild birds can't get into, the wild visitors will eat the hens' food. So will rats, if they get a chance. Budget for poison.

You don't have to clip their wings, if you do it will stop them flying any great height or distance, and clipping just one wing unbalances them most effectively, but it won't necessarily stop them flying over your fence. My bantams can fly over 4 foot high electrified netting, though it keeps fox safely away from the ducks and the bigger hens.

I love my hens and ducks, but think of them very much as pets. The eggs are a bonus, and of course it's lovely to cook one that's just been laid, but they're not here to save me money.

Has anyone here done the maths to work out the optimum number of backyard hens for the number of people in the family/number of eggs you want each week vs the cost of keeping them?

[Deleted User]

clipping stopped ours flying over the fence. I was shown what to do by an 80 year old who had kept and bred his own poultry over his lifetime

it was good having the run fenced in all around. It enclosed lots of fruit bushes and raspberries and the hens kept the ground very clean. Loads of space for my very happy hens and there was plenty of room to make them a nice area for sand baths

lostinrates

Davesnave wrote: »

I agree that chickens which are capable of escape, probably don't want to, if they are happy with their environment. Significantly, ours have cleared the internal fence, which is as high as the external one, but they know the difference. Never had one go into the fields.

We don't find cats climb into the enclosure either. It's an orchard, so hard or impossible to net over. Our cat has gone over the top to show off while we've been in there, but never at other times. Similarly, other cats watch, but don't go inside.

Of course, there's a first time for everything....

(Help! They are tweaking the board. My post seems to have gone tall & thin. Now if they could just do the latter for me.....:rotfl:)

I Would like to think that mine are happy. They often stay put, but then the get bees in their bonnets and like to go wandering. Big temptation is provided by some elders about 8 feet from their gate. When the elders are in berry the chickens fly, jump, or wriggle under neath the fence. Pbviously, this is inspite of there being an elder within the ya they could mither instead! They also like coming into the yard where the dogs are which is a poor idea. All though they have free access to a seven acre field, and my neighbours land on one side they would rather walk across the yard, jump the fence, cross the road and roam over another less willing neighbours land:mad: heading off chickens is a feature of summer for me.

At tne old house the garden aways looked more fun to them than theorchard in which they lived.

Badger_Lady

I'm surprised so many people don't find their chickens to be money saving. I had to get rid of mine when I changed jobs and didn't have time for them any more, but until then:

- I got three hens from the battery rehoming centre, for £1 each (so in total about the price of a dozen eggs).
- I kept them in my outdoor toilet, so no cost for that. I attached an old broom handle as a perch and a wooden crate as a nesting box, so I just had to buy straw for the bedding / to make cleaning easier. They were allowed to roam in the whole garden under my supervision.
- Each bird lay an egg every single day, regardless of the time of year. So within 1 week I had 20 fresh eggs.
- I fed them on a mix of pellets and corn - they tended not to eat too much of the corn though - with 'treats' of my kitchen leftovers. I think I worked out that I was spending around £3 a month on their feed.
- Additional to that I bought some basic health supplies from a pet shop... things to stop mites etc. It certainly wasn't much.
- I didn't have to cull any birds, in fact I was banned from doing so by the rehoming charity. Two of the girls died natural deaths and the third was taken to live in a bigger flock in the next town.

By anyone's standard, I think an ititial outlay of £3 followed by a monthly cost of £3 is brilliant for 80-odd fresh eggs a month! And they were so much fun too

lostinrates

Badger lady, you were very lucky to get three eggs a day, for the duration of the two who died natiral life, how long did you have the hens? I understand ex batts tend to have shorter lifespans, so perhaps that is why. I didn't have great luck, my own fault, with ex batts, releasing them too early traimatised mine i think and they died in various ways very quickly, mainly misadventure. Its not uncommon in young egg producing breeds to get a daily egg but as they get old egg numbers go down, and the eggs get a little larger.E.g. I found it quite remarkable that my seven year old chicken still gave me three eggs a week last year....she died over winter.

Re housing, imo you were sensible to use housing available to you. To build something is the next best option, but for some only buying is. To buy something secure and safe is not cheap. It really isn't. Also, for anything timber you really should include the costs of treating annually for weather protection but also, vitaly, mites. I have only had redmite once but it was terrible, twice daily powdering was time consuming and not cheap, and at that time i think i only had a dozen birds. The cost of providing this if you don't happen to have a suitable outdoor loo or shed really is not small.

Most birds love corn, and will choose it in preference to layers pellets which is why most chicken keepers do not put corn down at the same time as feed in the morning. Kitchen scaps are nice and ring the changes for birds, but layers pellets meets their needs well and imo the easiest way to provide the bulk of diet for almost everyone.

Wormers are also pretty well worth considering. I have some new birds ...i am homing some ex batt again, after a long time of avoiding it i feel better placed to meet their needs...coming soon and will be using a standards commercial wormer then. For three birds you could buy a small packet, but thats probably £10 - 15 quid these days, plus has an egg withdrawl period.


nyone can just keep spme chickens, but as davenave said, that doesn't mean keeping them well or meeting their needs. While i am sure yours were well kept, being blase about giving advice concerns me, as i think backyard birds etc are a potentially huge weldare issue, and going into getting some birds without considering costs of housing and perhaps not the superb egg return you had as a purely mse enterprise would be a poor life for most of the birds and a dissapointing return for most of the keepers.

ukbill69

meg72 wrote: »

This was the conclusion I came to when I was offered some free chooks.

What worried me most was that I could not afford vet fees if one of them became ill

If they get ill, knock them on the head and get some more. Thats what every owner ive seem do. Ill chickens are not good.

grey_lady

That's a very kind offer from Mister_D - i erm spent a fair amount on my henhouse, a diy job would have been just as good, possibly better.

My hybrids lay daily, my pure breeds - nah, once in a blue moon (free-loaders).

The cost really isn't a lot, a large sack of layers pellets once in a while and corn as a treat, the very occasional worming and the vet recently charged me about £12 to put a sick hen out of her misery. Oh and I don't clip wings - never needed to, even when I had truly free ranging hens they would head home come tea-time, unfortunately the fox got a couple in broad daylight so now they roam the back garden behind some electric netting. Never under estimate the fox, steel mesh under the hen house and run etc.

I would encourage anyone to get hens, and if you can let them free range it is really rewarding to have a couple of little beaks tapping at the back door in the morning and friends/family/neighbours will all appreciate the odd box of eggs :-)

twiglet98

Badger_Lady, how long did you have your hens? Mine are pure-bred Buff Orpingtons and Australorps, plus RIR-cross bantams, Light Sussex, Bluebelle, Skyline, Black Rocks, Warrens and a few other random crossbred bantams. All the hens I have ever had have moulted every winter from their second year onward, and all have virtually stopped laying during that time. The ISA Warrens and the Black Rocks are the tamest birds and the most prolific layers, of good-sized brown eggs. The Bluebelle's eggs are the biggest, but the birds aren't very sociable and they are very destructive in the garden. The Orpingtons are big, beautiful birds but eat an awful lot and give very few, smallish eggs in return, stopping completely for several weeks in winter. In summer they are constantly going broody, as are the bantams (though they tend to fly out and go AWOL until they reappear with chicks in tow). I also have Indian Runner ducks and they don't lay any eggs from September until March, they also eat a lot of pellets. As they free-range over half an acre of lawn and orchard, surrounded by electric netting, the wild birds also help themselves to food. Each month I buy three 20kg bags of layers pellets, one layers meal, one mixed corn, and use at least half a bale of woodshavings each week, more in wet weather when they spend more time in their houses. A bale of straw lasts a few months as I just put a small handful in each nest area. I also buy mixed grit, mite spray and powder regularly, and worm them twice a year. Through summer I can sell enough eggs to cover the cost of their food, but it certainly doesn't work out at a profit over the year.

ALIBOBSY

spadoosh wrote: »

Oo yes please, i only live in preston so not to far for you!!;)

Im well up for keeping chickens and spent a while looking into it (the missus not soo much but she will be convinced!!) Anyway, the coops i see are all pretty generic that and they are always £3-400+. Now im trying to do it as cheap as possible so they gf cant shout to much, the less objections the better! So was thinking of building my own coop (fairly good at DIY) will certainly give something a try. Now obviously you make a living from this but do you have any simple designs to go off that you dont mind sharing, the ones onthe net seem to be for 10+ birds, i was only thinking 2-3.

Tell me to do one if im being too cheeky but any advice on sourcing materials (OSB board good enough for the most part?!??!) or anything along the lines of building a coop will be greatly appreciated.


Sorry for highjacking the thread.

We are not too far from Preston and got our girls and coops from a lovely family who run a farm out at preesall. They are happy to give advice and help. We went for hybrids as they don't really go through much of a moult and lay pretty much all year around.

OH was going to build his own coop, but we got one from them and 4 chooks, plus the feeders, a bag of feed and some "smite" which is basically that diatomous earth stuff-prevents mites/worms so great stuff. All in it was £165 if I remember right, but they did some sort of deal for it all in if I recall correctly. The coop is very solidly buildt-they make them on the farm themselves.

I don't think I am allowed to name them but can give you their name if you pm me. They were great and we took the kids down and spent a lovely afternoon looking around the pens and seeing the chooks. They also do ducks etc as well.

We get our feed from a factory shop of a feed producer in leyland and pay £8 for a big bag(25kg bag I think), and with the extra veggies they get from us seems to last for ages. My mum and sister both take eggs from us and give us a pound every so often to subsidise the food. So I reckon with the manure for our veggie beds and the eggs we are certainly breaking even if not ahead. Plus they are lovely to have around.

Ali x