Hey.... Lets keep Chickens..!

crimson.addict

what are kitchen scraps?

I dont have chickens YET but it just confuses me. what is the difference in giving chickens veg you have bought them and veg left over from dinner? Its all just veg right?

spirit

HeatherintheHills wrote: »

I hang cabbages on a string but love your hanging basket idea Spirit. :T

You can also get those bird feeder things in Q&B or Housebase, I picked one up when they were reduced around this time last year. it's just the right size and shape to put a whole corn cob in again to hang up ...... goes looking for photo

Gigervamp

crimson.addict wrote: »

what are kitchen scraps?

I dont have chickens YET but it just confuses me. what is the difference in giving chickens veg you have bought them and veg left over from dinner? Its all just veg right?

Technically, if any of the food has been in your kitchen, even if bought specifically for the chooks, it's illegal to feed it to them.

HeatherintheHills

Gigervamp wrote: »

Technically, if any of the food has been in your kitchen, even if bought specifically for the chooks, it's illegal to feed it to them.

Reminder to self to carry the next bag of layer's mash right round the end of the street to get it from the front to the back of my terraced house without carrying it through the kitchen. :rotfl:

TBH, I think the DEFRA site says this

Following the outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in 2001, the Government introduced a ban on the feeding to animals of catering waste that contains or has been in contact with animal by-products (ABPs). This ban was subsequently reflected by the EU Animal By-Products Regulation and became mandatory in all Member States.

The animal by-products bit is key, I think.

Gigervamp

Sorry to be pedantic, but:

It is illegal to feed chickens with waste food from your kitchen, including vegetable scraps.

You cannot feed any kind of catering waste to farmed animals. Catering
waste is defined as all waste food, whether raw or cooked, including used
cooking oils (UCO), which arise in premises such as:

• Household kitchens

No mention there of animal by-products.

I understand why they have this law, but I do wish it was more aimed at commercial farmers rather than a blanket law that includes people like us on here.

It's not easy to adhere to the letter of the law if you've got a poorly chicken living in the kitchen for instance. And, unless you openly admit it, I would imagine it's pretty much impossible to police. There are about 500,000 backyard chicken keepers in the UK now and I bet most of them feed scraps.

It's a bit of a bugbear of mine! :rotfl:

HeatherintheHills

Wow! Thanks for that Giger :A

I know you are looking at registration and have looked at the subject in far more depth than I have, I'm very grateful for your guidance.

Now I'm really bothered about this though. I went onto the DEFRA website to find out the feeding do's and don't's for domestic poultry keepers and followed all the relevant links I could find. I came up with the bits I quoted, so the DEFRA sites (old and new) mislead me in a pretty serious way. I wonder how many others have come to the same incorrect conclusions after reading the website?

Oh well, if their own website is misleading at least it gives a sort of defence if DEFRA did come after us for feeding poorly chooks in our kitchens.

Gigervamp

Yeah, the DEFRA website is a pain! Even when I know what I'm looking for, I have trouble finding it. It's the same on my council website. I know that there is information on there about keeping chickens and not feeding them scraps as I've seen it, but do you think I can find it now? <rolls eyes>

spirit

do you mean this page?

http://www.defra.gov.uk/food-farm/animals/poultry/

or this one

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Environmentandgreenerliving/Smallholders/DG_189309

for those people who didn't know, you don't have to get permission from the council to keep chickens as per the 1950 allotment act. this act includes all land not just allotments.

Abolition of contractual restrictions on keeping hens and rabbits.E+W
(1)Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in any lease or tenancy or in any covenant, contract or undertaking relating to the use to be made of any land, it shall be lawful for the occupier of any land to keep, otherwise than by way of trade or business, hens or rabbits in any place on the land and to erect or place and maintain such buildings or structures on the land as reasonably necessary for that purpose:
Provided that nothing in this subsection shall authorise any hens or rabbits to be kept in such a place or in such a manner as to be prejudicial to health or a nuisance or affect the operation of any enactment.

steady__eddie

I am finding this element of the thread most interesting, not because it affects me because I am banned for life from keeping any chucks by she who thinks she must be obeyed but due to the legal complexities involved.
"hens or rabbits ", if the strict letter of the law is applied then folks cannot keep cockerels without permission ? IMO that's a bit sexist, I can only assume that it must be to protect people who rely on more orthodox alarm clocks ?
I wonder if the European commissioner for animal sexual equality is aware of this situation ?

Beetlemama

steady__eddie wrote: »

"hens or rabbits ", if the strict letter of the law is applied then folks cannot keep cockerels without permission ?

We emailed the council and asked them if we needed to do anything before we got a cockerel (we already had him, he was suppose to be a hen but started crowing! so we thought we'd better find out quick) and they said there is no restriction at all, but in cases where cockerels have been reported for noise nuisance, the owners are usually asked to keep them shut inside until a reasonable time of day - so we don't let ours out until after 8am.

Often when I've mentioned we have a cockerel people have told me I need a licence to keep him, but it's not true.

He's crowing now, he's always knows when we are talking or thinking about him, it's weird.