Hey.... Lets keep Chickens..!

Penelope_Penguin

cindiedunkley wrote: »

I got my four chickens on Sunday and I am so excited. They are really beautiful birds, four different breeds.

Do you happen to know which breeds, and do you have any pics

As this has fallen from the front page of OS, I'll add it to the exisitng chicken thread so that you can join in with other hen keepers :T

Penny. x

ljonski

ellas9602- the best deterrent v mr Fox is what i make myself. i.e. plenty of tostesterone male urine that i liberally spread around the compound on a daily basis. it is also an excellent disenfectant :cool:

KittyBoo_2

What a great idea.
Perhaps I can persuade my grown up son to go up there in the mornings.:rotfl:

steady__eddie

Some people have also posted that it's pretty good at greening your lawn up as well when diluted to the correct strength. One poster apparently uses it as a fertiliser on his tomatoes ! I'm quite happy with the taste of my gardeners delight so I'll give that one a miss for now.
It's refreshing to learn that us men do have our uses, (contrary to what I'm constantly being told). :rotfl:

TheBees

This is a new forum for us as we've never had chickens before. After thinking it over for nearly a year and talking ourselves out of it, the chap that rehomes battery hens rang out of the blue last Friday and asked if we were still interested. The children (15 & 12) nagged us all weeked and persuaded us that they would take full responsibility for them so in two days time we will be going to collect 2, possibly 3 young ladies.:j

I'm excited and nervous at the same time - chickens aren't going to be as easy as our cat George who comes and goes through the cat flap when he feels like it and miaows when he's hungry! We hope he won't be freaked out by the new arrivals - has anyone any experience of a cat and chickens?

We've bought a wooden coop, enclosed in a run and they will also have access to a larger run where the old trampoline was situated when we've put wire round that. We'll be covering the ground with bark as grass will not grow there. I've got a bag of pellets for ex battery hens, some grit and water and feed containers. We're planning to put shredded paper in the nesting box. What should we put on the base of the coop? A layer of newspaper and more shredded paper?

Any advice for us newbies would be much appreciated.:rotfl:

twiglet98

I did have paper sacks on the floor of my hen house, with hemp bedding (Aubiose) on top, but the sacks were a haven for red mites. Now a thick layer of bedding goes straight on the floor, with a shake of Diatomaceous Earth, and though I'll never be truly confident we've eradicated mites, it's working better without the paper base layer.

I pick up the poo every day, from the house, grass run and garden, using a small bucket and cat litter scoop, it goes in the compost bin with kitchen and garden waste and has made fantastic compost for the vegetable patch!

xnatalie81x

Please can someone help me! My hens have stopped laying - ALL 3 OF THEM - has been about a week now but i thought i would leave them to it and just check every day....... i just thought as they are bubbas and this is their first ever taste of cold that they were a bit annoyed. BUT - still no eggies

I care for them lots - they are spoilt they have a massive house for bed (well an old rabbit one that they go in) and a 4x6 'cage' i have built that includes perches and their water and food. I treat them to kitchen scraps and the neighbours and i pick em a load of weeds and grass to munch on - in addition to their poultry food, corn and the shell stuff ( i mix it all together for them) - i also chat to them every morning when i go down to feed them and call them 'my girls'

I feel like a hen mum failure. I even lined their house with a polybag to keep warmth in a bit and doubled their sawdust or snuggly nights. I may even get mum to knit hen blankets (ha ha ok maybe not that bit) but please can someone tell me why they have stopped. They are about 5/6mths old i think

Frugaldom

Natalie, hens etc need 14 hours of daylight to keep them producing eggs, winter months there's no way of them getting that, so egg production falls. They also stop laying when they moult. The only reason battery hens or barn kept hens lay as many eggs is because they are given extra light. It isn't anything you are doing wrong, just nature playing its part.

Congratulations to those who are just starting out with their hens. I ended up slabbing my small runs so they were easier for cleaning and hosing out, otherwise they'd have them like mud baths in a matter of days here.

skipton

TheBees wrote: »

This is a new forum for us as we've never had chickens before. After thinking it over for nearly a year and talking ourselves out of it, the chap that rehomes battery hens rang out of the blue last Friday and asked if we were still interested. The children (15 & 12) nagged us all weeked and persuaded us that they would take full responsibility for them so in two days time we will be going to collect 2, possibly 3 young ladies.:j

I'm excited and nervous at the same time - chickens aren't going to be as easy as our cat George who comes and goes through the cat flap when he feels like it and miaows when he's hungry! We hope he won't be freaked out by the new arrivals - has anyone any experience of a cat and chickens?

We've bought a wooden coop, enclosed in a run and they will also have access to a larger run where the old trampoline was situated when we've put wire round that. We'll be covering the ground with bark as grass will not grow there. I've got a bag of pellets for ex battery hens, some grit and water and feed containers. We're planning to put shredded paper in the nesting box. What should we put on the base of the coop? A layer of newspaper and more shredded paper?

Any advice for us newbies would be much appreciated.:rotfl:

The only problems I found with using shredded paper in the nest was the girls often walked it out into the run so it blew around and one of my girls started eating it which can cause an impacted crop.

Good luck with your new girls. You'll soon want to get more!!!!

twiglet98

xnatalie81x wrote: »

I care for them lots - they are spoilt they have a massive house for bed (well an old rabbit one that they go in) and a 4x6 'cage' i have built that includes perches and their water and food. I treat them to kitchen scraps and the neighbours and i pick em a load of weeds and grass to munch on - in addition to their poultry food, corn and the shell stuff ( i mix it all together for them) - i also chat to them every morning when i go down to feed them and call them 'my girls'

QUOTE]

It's probably better not to mix their corn and layers feed (meal or pellets) - the layers ration is a complete balanced diet, the corn is more of a treat and they need only a small amount, a spoonful per bird is ample, just to fill their crops before they go in at dusk. If it's mixed with the layers feed they will often pick the corn out first, and their diet becomes unbalanced as corn does not have specified proportions of protein, vitamins and minerals. They also need grit, which helps grind their food as they don't have teeth, in addition to the oyster shell which is a calcium-rich supplement to help their eggs form good shells, they digest oyster shell but don't digest grit.

They will have a break from laying now there are fewer hours of daylight, though one of ours laid her first egg on Christmas Day and regularly through the rest of the winter and spring, stopping for a broody break to hatch some chicks in August and has just started laying again on alternate days!