Hey.... Lets keep Chickens..!

evacymru

I too keep chickens and old varieties which are laying at a reduced rate in their 4th/5th year. I have just 3 in a garden that is narrow and long but certainly not large! I cut down on the time spent cleaning them out by a method I've adapted that mixes the deep litter method with the standard shed method.

I have a good foot to eighteen inches of litter - those bales they sell for horses will do but if you live somewhere that has lots of trees and can collect and keep dry tree leaves at autumn, that is really good as they harbour the right bacteria!

Try to fill the shed with the litter at a warm time to encourage the bacteria to do its work. The bacteria will break down the droppings, keep odour to a minimum and should only need clearing out once a year - although I've found that the shop bought litter requires checking every few months for partial clearing. Anything you remove can go onto the compost heap.

At the end of the year, when you clear out the whole shed, you will have a wealth of already rotted poultry manure for your garden!

My chicks are going to retire gracefully, too! I will be getting a couple of young-uns to join them in the spring for more eggs.

evacymru

mgardner wrote:

I would really love a couple of chickens but only have a small garden now and am wondering if its safe (for the chicken) to let it out to wander a garden. Are any plants likely to be harmful for them. If so which ones?

I particularly like the idea of rescuing a couple of old battery hens which I have just been told about.

Also do Cats attack chickens. We have a couple of real bullys around here

Can anyone know of a site I can get selfbuild plans for a house and run.

Many thanks in advance Mary

Just seen your post! I have kept chickens in a very small garden and they were fine; I had to be careful to make sure they got out for a wander as much as possible. In reality, food and water is their greatest interest and if they have that, within reason, they're not fussed about space.
You will have to keep an eye on them and find ways to keep them off your favourite plants.

RHUBARB IS A BIG BIG NO-NO WITH CHICKENS!!!!! If they eat the leaves, it will make them ill and cause them pain and finally kill them.

superscotsman

Hey!...Let's all get bird flu!

mgardner

Many thanks for that I really didn't consider the rhubarb, although I know the leaves are poison to humans. Still its not a very big clump so I can move it into the front garden.

I did wonder about lupins but I think its only the seeds that can harm.

Also can anyone advise if a chicken can suffer from eating too many herbs etc. I have most of these.

Does a chicken only eat enough or will it go wild if let loose. Bit like me with the biscuit tin.

evacymru

They'll only feed until their crop is full ....unlike us! They have favourite things (melon seeds are always welcome) and other things they won't touch - a great deal of the herb garden actually has no appeal, except for scratching for insects around them.
Be careful about beetroot leaves - they love them but too many can turn the whites of the eggs pink! :rotfl:

evacymru

superscotsman wrote:

Hey!...Let's all get bird flu!

If only we were all as concerned about catching HIV/AIDS - and worrying about the milliions of people who are dieing from it! :rolleyes:

When the migrating African birds get the flu variant....and manage to fly all the way here with it .......and pass it to chickens......and it mutates (or we play with dead chickens or eat their flesh half cooked) then yes, we will all get bird 'flu. Until then, our chickens are no threat to us or anyone else.

mgardner

Thanks again really dont fancy pink eggs. Although my little Grandaughter might be intriged its her favorite colour, along with purple.

Unsure about the post for bird flu, its certainly one freebie I do not want.

Thought your reply was very true.

play2day

We have two black rock hens roaming our garden and they seem to do very little damage, unlike the ducks... They eat thier fill in the garden, clean up our leftovers and still have room for thier organic pellets!
Chickens make wonderful pets, they are funny, friendly and produce eggs and manure from our waste kitchen scraps.
I was hesitant before getting the chickens as I had read many horror stories but I can honestly say we have never had any regrets.

evacymru

Unsure about the post for bird flu, its certainly one freebie I do not want.

I understand that you might be worried about this but if you look at the statistics for being involved in a traffic accident or having a life threatening illnesses, the chances of getting avian 'flu are incredibly slim. If we do ever get to the stage of a pandemic, the virus will have mutated elsewhere and will be carried by humans and not birds - having or not having poultry will not make any difference as to whether you and yours get it - that will be down to quite different factors and all the backyard poultry will have been culled - long before then.

Sorry to sound depressing! What I find very sad is that media hype over this issue could lead to rash decisions to kill our wild bird population unnecessarily and our successors will have to live with that loss and its effect on the environment. A very sad prospect indeed.

We are nowhere near the virus mutating and leading to a pandemic - if we ever get there, it will be down to medical and scientific experts to tell us how to respond.

Wirenth

Marigold123 wrote:

Mine are black rocks too. I find them very hardy and not easy to fluster. They're far more likely to fluster us, and the number of times I have had my hands, feet and ankles pecked (and I mean really pecked) are uncountable! We raised them from 6 days old in an improvised run in my kitchen until they were big enough to keep themselves warm in an outdoor house, so they are familiar with humans to the point of contempt!

My garden isn't really big enough to allow them to roam freely without damage to the garden, but I let them anyway, because free-range, naturally-fed hens were always my aim. I just scrape the crap off the patio every few days and re-seed the lawn in stages in the Spring. They have eaten everything except the mint and the rosemary, and most of the grass gets eaten down to the ground during the winter, so that I have to give them extra greens, so I can't really comment on dangerous plants, as we don't really have any plants left, except in one fenced-off section that is supposed to be my vegetable patch.

We have a number of cats in the vicinity, but none of them have dared to even enter the garden since we acquired our chooks. If one is brave enough to peep over the fence the hens run over and shout loudly until the culprit sneaks away with an embarrassed look. Magpies and squirrels get the same treatment, and won't usually even dare the top of the fence.

Our own cat has learned to treat them with respect too. They have achieved a mutual stand-off, but every now and again one party or the other pretends to chase the other, but never quite dare to get close enough for a real confrontation. The cat does occasionally try to sleep in their nest box if she is outside on a cold day, but has never dared to try it in the evening when they are going to bed, as she I don't think she'd like to have to run the gauntlet of 3 indignant birds on the way back out.

Do make sure you teach any children not to put their faces near the hens. I know it sounds obvious, but I had to take my son, (who was 12 at the time), to hospital last year, with a tiny slice out of his cornea after attempting to win a staring match with the most aggressive of the three. (And this was AFTER my being very emphatic about not putting his face near them!) Fortunately it healed quickly and completely, as corneal injuries usually do, but it was extremely painful for my son, and very worrying for us at the time. He is now officially a dumbass, and says he won't try it again.

My four are absolute darlings and are very friendly. They don't peck at anything that isn't put near their beaks - put your fingers there and they think you are offering them food!

I can pick my girls up and tuck them underneath my arm without a squawk, peck, scratch or struggle....

And if they spot you through the living room window, they'll all come racing over to say hello.

Agree with Marigold123 with regards to the magpies and the squirrels - woe betide any vermin that try and land on the lawn when the girls are on the loose. And the cat mess problem seems to have stopped as well!

And the eggs! Yummy!

I just hope that the Ministry of Agriculture won't go bird-flu mad and start culling everything with feathers.

N.B. Marigold123 - I've been feeding mine via the food container to try and stop them from wasting it. Scattering has had no effect - they seem to prefer slugs at the moment! :eek: