ooops i've done it again.....more chickens...

catewithers

Hi Jim,

Definitely not silly questions! All worth thinking about carefully and i'm sure there'll be lots of other things you come up with too - I know I still am and we've had our hens about a month now!

Now bear in mind that I'm not brilliant at estimating measurements and I haven't been out and measured our garden, BUT, I think ours is probably about the same size as yours, if not slightly smaller. My hens are in a run that measures 4m x 3m and they seem to be perfectly happy with that amount of space. I have 4.

The ground in the run area was originally just weeds and the odd plant, but they quickly decimated that and I have added bark chippings as we've gone along to prevent it becoming too muddy what with all the rain we've had in the last month. So in answer to whether they will make a huge mess of the lawn - quite possibly! Mine certainly love grass. And they spend most of the day scratching around looking for bugs and worms and things to eat in the soil.

We just put the hen house down on the ground as it was, didn't bother with any hard standing.

HTH.

Cate

catewithers

ScorpioLady wrote: »

Yes I too have chickens!
(See my recent post entitled Rats!!! Help!!)
They are calld Esmerelda and Henrietta!:D
Anyone else have problems with their chickens attracting rats?

Not as far as I know - and fingers crossed it'll stay that way!

just-saving

After a few days of Dorothy not knowing exactly what to do with herself, I am glad to say I was right in thinking she was ready to start laying. I found her very first egg yesterday afternoon. And this morning we found her second egg. Cute little eggs about the size of bantam eggs weighing 43g and todays weighing in at 41g. Just a couple of days after clever Edna CW! Only little Henrietta left to lay now, although I think she won't be ready for a while being the baby of the trio.

just-saving

ScorpioLady wrote: »

Yes I too have chickens!
(See my recent post entitled Rats!!! Help!!)
They are calld Esmerelda and Henrietta!:D
Anyone else have problems with their chickens attracting rats?

Hi ScorpioLady,
No problems with rats here I believe. Although I could be wrong and could just not be seeing them! My friends have quails and are losing one quail after another to the flippin' rats which have found a way into their cage but my friend can't find any holes in their cage in which they must be getting through. I clean up the poop in the garden and coop and pen every day and try to make sure no food is around to attract. I do hope you are able to get rid of the horrid little things soon.

By the way, I have a 'Henrietta' too!

just-saving

1jim wrote: »

Hi
We are thinking of getting a couple of chickens but our garden is quite small, would a garden measuring 30x24foot (back of house to fence) be too small an area?, what size coop/run would be best?, will they make a huge mess of the lawn? is the coop/run best sited on hard standing or soft?
sorry I know that these are probably silly questions but am just trying to see of its something I can incoporate into our new garden
thanks
Jim

Hi Jim,
I think its safe to say that your garden sounds big enough for a couple of chickens. After all, they say little town house gardens can hold a couple of chickens in an eglu so I think you would be giving them plenty of room. We made our chicken coop but its really much bigger than they need. They basically only use it to sleep at night and lay and thats it. The house and run were placed on a muddy patch which I chucked bark chips on (three bags for a tenner at Homebase) and they are more than happy on that. Luckily, they haven't made a huge difference to the garden (mess-wise) but like to dig about in the borders (they actually look better than they did now) and always have a nice bit of broccoli which I hang up for them to help themselves to. I have always gone for evergreen shrubs not being a great gardener myself and this has always been the case, way before ever deciding on chickens so my garden still looks fine a month after having them.

just-saving

Dorothy really surprised me today. For the past three days her first eggs that she laid have been between 41g-43g. Imagine my surprise when my daughter went and collected todays egg and told me it was 73g! It was HUGE.
Also, I went outside last night, later than usual at about 9.45pm. Thinking they had put themselves to bed as they always do I shut the pophole and then peeped in to make sure they were all safe in their coop. The coop was empty and all three hens were missing. When I turned round with torch in hand I spotted out the corner of my eye two hens balancing high up on the top of the safety netting of our 13ft trampoline. The other hen obviously couldnt get up there and was roosting on a garden chair instead. So, I rounded them up and put them safely to bed. Funny girls.

Edit: The 73g egg was a double yolker :-)

poohbear59

Hi, I just found your thread. Can I join in please. I have 5 rescue hens at present but have ordered 5 pols for two weeks time. We live down a dead end in the middle of knowhere and for a laugh put a sign up outside offering eggs for sale. We have had a few holiday makers and a couple of local families buying the extra eggs when we can find them. One of our hens ran away from a local man who didn't feed it!
I was interested in egg weights. We have had on of 3 1/2 ozs. The hen died soon after!

catewithers

Hi poohbear - you're more than welcome to join in! Welcome to the hen appreciation society!

Mine now have the run of half of our garden!! Which of course got me thinking, well that's more than enough room for some more hens..... :eek: But DH hurriedly pointed out that we don't have enough housing for more hens and we can't afford to buy anymore so that's the end of the matter! Mind you, it took me 4 years to convince him to get a second dog, but I got there in the end....

Edna and Bridget are laying an egg every day - sorry, can't comment on weight, haven't weighed them! - and Margarita is just starting to lay. Had 3 from her so far. Guinevere is bringing up the rear, but she is younger than the others.

They're still trying to roost on top of the run every night instead of going into the house and perching. I'm out there every night to pick them off and put them to bed! Someone has suggested putting a torch in the house to encourage them to go in, so I'll try that tonight.

Having a problem with greenbottle flies at the moment - absolutely hundreds of them hanging around. I'm meticulous about clearing up poo but it's a real problem. So have ordered a red top fly trap to hopefully sort it out.

Hope everyone else is getting on well.
Lisa, have you got that coop built yet?!
Jim, did you decide to join us in chicken ownership?!

Sue55

Hi, I've been lurking as a guest for a while & have been fascinated by this thread as we've been thinking of getting chickens for a while now & after doing some research & reading the really helpful messages on here we've decided on 3 or 4 Pekin Bantams but I still have some worries that I'm hoping someone could help me out with. Me & OH both work full time so would they be ok in a secure run during the day while we're out? Also I'm curious as to how people manage with the dark mornings in the winter as it would still be quite dark when we leave for work and we don't have anyone we could ask to let them out once it starts to get light.

Thanks
Sue

steady__eddie

Welcome Sue, I used to be in the same position as you are contemplating now, but mine were confined to barracks between Monday and Friday during the dark part of the year. I would let them out for a while when I returned from work on an evening and they would return to the roost unaided as the light diminished.
Every morning I would empty the droppings board, scatter some corn in the run and most importantly, ensure that they had some unfrozen water. In the middle of winter this took about 5 minutes and went unobserved by them as they snuggled up on their perches for another hour or so until dawn broke.
They always had some cabbage leaves or other green remnants to keep them amused pecking at during the day.
I'm sure that they looked forward to weekends as much as I did so that they could have a couple of days out.