Keeping hens and ducks chat.

Horseygirl123

queen_of_cheap wrote: »

Has anyone made a hotbed with all the manure?

I did, although I didn't realise at the time. I had a few offcuts of sleepers left over from a job so my OH used them as a retaining wall to make a flower bed at the bottom of the garden. I used what compost I'd got which only quarter filled it. Then I tipped a few bags of rotted horsemuck and chicken manure which almost filled it and finally added some garden soil. I planted a mixture of dahlias, antirrhinums, cosmos, marigolds and nicotianas. Oh my goodness, they are about four foot high! My neighbour asks if I feed them with Miracle Grow. I think the mix is a bit more potent than that:)

Better_Days

ali-t wrote: »

Have any of you bought or made a swing for your chickens? My partner is going to make one after I saw the eglu one and we looked at some footage of chickens using them. He previously made them an activity gym type thing which was a frame with cds hanging from it after we saw that in a hen keeping magazine. It apparently curbs boredom but ours wouldn't play with it or climb on it yet they loving jumping on the logs we have in their area.


https://www.omlet.co.uk/shop/chicken_keeping/the_chicken_swing

No but the BHWT sell them too http://shop.bhwt.org.uk/products/chicken-swing

Can't really justify the cost, but I would love to see my hens trying one out.

I gave them half a watermelon today. They loved it.

Better_Days

Oh and if like me you can't resist hen photos - browse the BHWT Galleries of spoilt hens http://www.bhwt.org.uk/topics/galleries/

edwink

We always put our chicken poo in our compost bins and have several full compost bins ready in advance to put on our veg beds. The compost bins that are not ready are still put to good use. When they are full to the top we add a little of last years homemade compost and plant our pumpkins and outdoor cucumbers in them. Wow!!! You should see them grow. By the time the pumpkins are ready to harvest the contents of the compost bin has sunk down so much only half the compost bin is full. That leaves us enough room in it for adding more chicken poo etc. over the winter months. We add newspaper, used kitchen towels and straw to the compost bins too to bulk it out!!!!

We still run out of space for growing our veg every year though!!

Hope everyone's are ok in this awful weather. Mine are soaking wet and look like starved pigeons!! Bless!!!!!!!

Edwink x

Dizzy_Ditzy

We have had absolutely ZERO rain today!

My broody is definitely broody again :mad: we have been chucking her out of the nest box in the morning and reopening it again in the evening and she's straight back in there.

Bigger problem is that we have had a fox trying to get at them :mad: :mad: we got some pallets to make new compost bins and stacked them up alongside the run. Turns out, Mr Fox has been using it to get on top of the run. The thing about it is that it has probably been going on for a few nights but we have only just spotted it. I had to replace one of the rope string things which hold the tarpaulins to the run yesterday, and today it was snapped. This was a brand new out of the packet rope thing, and there hasn't been any wind to do that amount of damage.

I am mortified that our naivety put our girls in danger. We never for one second even considered it would go like that. I just think us very lucky that the fox couldn't get a good grip on the roof.

edwink

queen_of_cheap wrote: »

Bigger problem is that we have had a fox trying to get at them :mad: :mad: we got some pallets to make new compost bins and stacked them up alongside the run. Turns out, Mr Fox has been using it to get on top of the run. The thing about it is that it has probably been going on for a few nights but we have only just spotted it. I had to replace one of the rope string things which hold the tarpaulins to the run yesterday, and today it was snapped. This was a brand new out of the packet rope thing, and there hasn't been any wind to do that amount of damage.

I am mortified that our naivety put our girls in danger. We never for one second even considered it would go like that. I just think us very lucky that the fox couldn't get a good grip on the roof.

HI Queen of Cheap

I do hope that you have not had any further problems. Sadly this sort of thing happens all the time. So please do not blame yourself!! Your girls are safe now and that is all that matters.

One way to stop foxes going near your chicken coop is to put some male urine in a bucket or a suitable container. Then soak some old towels or some rags like towelling that will hold their moisture and place them around the fencing in your garden to stop the fox attempting to come in. Apparently this is a good deterrent especially to male foxes as male foxes will always scent mark. Having male urine around your fencing will make the male foxes believe that, that area belongs to another male fox so should stay away.

Also another way which will help is to hang an old t-shirt that has been worn for some time by a male. That t-shirt will then have male odours on it. Hang the t-shirt around the boundary of the coup or just hang it over a boundary fence. This will also help to keep foxes out especially the male foxes.

And last but not least you could also collect some male urine in a bucket and tip the contents around the boundary fences or your garden. Of course the rain will wash this away in time. So you may have to keep doing this for a bit.

We did the above when we noticed that we had a fox sitting outside our boundary fences. (Touch wood). We have not seen him since.

If anyone else has any ideas to help Queen of Cheap I hope you will take the time to share them.

Edwink x

Dizzy_Ditzy

Thank you Edwink

My hen is proper, proper broody. She needs a stint in broody jail but I'm scared that doing that will attract even more of the foxes attention

I will get his lordship to do the biz :cool:

ali-t

I cant remember where i read it but hair is also apparently a good deterrant. Apparently if you put hair in something like the leg of a pair of tights and put it near the coop it deters foxes. Apparently the more variety of bair the better so a visit to your hairdresser might be kn order to beg for a bag of offcuts.

Horseygirl123

My patch of land where I keep my chickens and horses is right in the middle of pheasant shooting country so I haven't had problems with foxes so far as the gamekeepers are constantly on the lookout.

By coincidence, a young friend of mine who does a few jobs around the place, is the grandson of a former gamekeeper of the same estate. He is always wanting a tinkle - mostly due to the cuppas he's always drinking - and uses different places as his granddad told him the smell of male urine deters foxes.

I've got the chicken coops within an electrified enclosure. Gamekeepers will tell you that foxes will cage a joint with their noses close to the ground. If they get a belt it will normally put them off for good. Next doors dog got a belt and she shakes even just walking past my gate.

My friend put an electrified wire just six inches above the ground all the way round an enclosed chicken coop at a neighbours house as a fox had climbed over the security panels and killed all the chickens. So far the fox hasn't returned.

I do think that urban foxes are far braver and craftier than their rural cousins though.

Horseygirl123

I've got a couple of questions for those of you who keep cockerels if you don't mind.

I bought six Isa Browns about three years ago. They have always free ranged and would usually be right at the bottom of the fields all day. Then the cockerels unexpectedly arrived one night and some weeks later I bought six new girls.


Now they don't wander much at all which seems a shame and instead tend to congregate up on the yard. I wondered whether the cockerels sort of 'forbids' them to wander off. They're only bantams so probably couldn't keep up:)

And secondly, does it put you off eating the eggs knowing they've been fertilised. I keep imagining I'm seeing things when I crack an egg. And do you still give them away as normal?