Hey.... Lets keep Chickens..!

skipton

Hi Eyeore. I have a Gingernut ranger and she is such a sweetie. She loves sunbathing and is always first to find a sunny spot. I have 2 eglus for 7 chickens and quite often they all pile into one. I then have to persuade them to go into the empty one( the eglus are facing into a larger run).
Don't worry if you get chickenitis........2 are never enough. lol

Hi Giger,
Hope you are better. Sorry to hear about the fox. We had one last week. he came back a few times but the Magpies chased him off. (repayment for pinched pellets when the run has been left open for FR) I lost one of my girls too.

Eyeore

Hi Skipton,

So sorry to hear you lost one of your girls too. Fingers crossed you don't lose any more.

Well three weeks in and they are very funny! No eggs yet so fingers crossed in the next few weeks. Our Ginger one, Clarissa, is very friendly and quite happily sits on my knee and is rather partial to a bit of corn, they get so excited when they see the snack bowl! Jennifer seems to be a bit mad and is not keen on being stroked yet. Hilarious! Am totally hooked :-)

Gigervamp

They do have different personalities. One girl we had liked being stroked on her chest and if you stopped, she'd peck you until you started again!
The araucanas are very friendly, and being bantams, like perching on shoulders or head whilst chatting away to you.
When we got our second lot, a couple of bluebelles, Agatha was the chatty friendly one who followed me everywhere, all the time telling me about her day, and her sister Tabitha was the quiet one, but you could see that she watched everything.
Our cream legbars, Dolly and Toots, have calmed down a bit now after 3 years, but they were mad as a box of frogs and ran away from you if you went near them, squawking and flapping their wings and running into each other!

Our runner duck, Duckiepoos, has a wicked sense of humour. She likes dibbling her beak into unsuspecting cockerels bum feathers. That makes them jump feet into the air and I swear I hear her sniggering!

Watching the chickens and ducks doing their thing and how they interact with each other is better than any reality tv show or soap, and it's very relaxing.

Eyeore

Oh Gigervamp, that really made me laugh, your gang sound brilliant! the poor cockerels!

skipton

I quite agree Giger, better than TV any day. If I'm feeling down, 5 mins with my gang of girls usually makes me laugh and always lifts my spirits. Do you still post on utube?

They are loving the early blackberries and elderberries at present, having helped themselves to the wild raspberries last month.

Gigervamp

Hubby hasn't filmed the chooks for a while now.

Eyeore

Hi all,

We had our first egg today! Woo hoo:j

Not sure who laid it but they are both so lovely and after a horrid day at work it was the best thing to come home to! :T

MandM90

Yesterday we went to a local farm to collect a Speckled Star (a grey Maran/Plymouth Rock...so beautiful!), Gold Star (Rhode Island/Light Sussex) and a Chesire Blue, who might just give us some little blue eggies.

Right now they're in a coop and run I bought second hand for £60. The neighbour gave us EVERYTHING we needed, except feed (water feeders, feeders, grit, grit feeder, cleaner, mite powder, chicken books). So, very moneysaving...except now I'm considering buying a 6ft tall walk in run for them, so we can be sure they're 100% secure, and we can walk in easily!

boredjellybean

We used to keep chickens & I adored the eggs & the fact they ate nearly all of my scraps, I'd like to keep them again but we're short on space, I've seen that you can keep them in these egloo's but is that enough, if they were in a smaller space how often/long would you let them out ???

MandM90

Can anyone recommend a reasonable feed? The Farmer sold us 20kg of Marriages for £9. No idea how long that'll last for three hens, or where to go for good quality feed!

With kitchen scraps, do you just feed them as much as you produce, or limit scraps so they eat more pellets?