I've got chickens!

lauralla

:j I got 3 12 week old bantams last weekend! They are settling down nicely in their new home, although are very shy and a bit nervous and mostly stay in their house, only coming into the run for food and water!
They are so cute! I have called them Greta (Garbo), Bridgitte (Bardot) and Doris (Day)!

kippers

I've thought about having chickens time after time. Are they hard work?

lauralla

No! All I do is give them some food (dry pellets) and some grit and change the water each day. They need cleaning out every few days because they are spending so much time in their little house, but its only sawdust on newspapers, so just I just pull the paper out, tip the dirty stuff on the compost heap and put in some more sawdust - sprinkle a few shakes of mite powder over the sawdust and that's it.
I check on them lots and I'm trying to get them used to me slowly, but otherwise they are the easiest pets to look after ever!

Of course, they are only babies at the moment, I've never had chickens before, but I don't think they will get any more difficult - I guess that I will find out though!

kippers

Sounds great. How long will it be until you get eggs from your chicks?

Quasar

They will be very affectionate and will try to follow you everywhere. They will also be happy to eat any table scraps, carrot tops and whatever else. Chickens are well known for eating anything, so their keep should cost you very little.

Back in the farm where I grew up, my grandma would feed our chickens all the bread crumbs and leftovers from our table- except meat and any other animal food as it's not natural for chicken to eat that.

beadysam

Don't forget their poo is fab for composting, and when you've added all you can to your composter offer it to your neighbours or on freecycle!

ixwood

Be very careful about foxes. I've seen the hole one left in some chicken wire on telly.

And they're very agile. They can easily jump over a 5 or 6` barrier, which you assume would be high enough.

lauralla

I think that chickens start to lay around 20 weeks of age. I presume that bantams are the same?! The younger the chickens the cheaper they are to buy, though some breeds can't be sexed until a certain age, so you have to decide whether you want boys or girls and then which breeds you want!