Home grown chickens to eat? (Merged Discussion)

KAAT_LADY

I would love some chickens, but I dont think the cats would, well maybe they would to play with, I could always keep them in a large pen, or let them have the run of the veggie garden, but would they eat the veg

At the moment we feed the snails to the fish and they love them

supersavy

We have some chickens and ducks that live in a large tall pen with strawberry netting over the top to stop the foxes. They have a little flap door into a shed so they can snuggle up at night.

Ours eat all our leftovers, corn and layers pellets - it doesn't cost much to feed them and you probably save on buying eggs. You can usually buy them in big bags from a local farm pet shop e.g. the sort that sell horse stuff etc.

Great pets, the ducks are lovely pets too and really amusing to watch.

betterlife

okay, so i was brought up with mum and dad breeding chickens for eggs and meat and have always fancied the idea myself. but i was wondering if anyone could answer any of the following questions please.
1. if i bought chicks how old do the need to be to live in a normal little coop.
2. how old til they start laying eggs.
3. how many eggs ish does a chicken lay a week.
how often do you change there living area like from one spot of the garden to another.
what is the best age to put the chicken to sleep (putting it nicely) to use her for meat.
thanks x.

amcluesent

>put the chicken to sleep (putting it nicely) to use him for meat<

I thought egg-laying chickens were female?

betterlife

its because i have 3 boys i call everyone him lol

Kimitatsu

betterlife wrote: »

okay, so i was brought up with mum and dad breeding chickens for eggs and meat and have always fancied the idea myself. but i was wondering if anyone could answer any of the following questions please.
1. if i bought chicks how old do the need to be to live in a normal little coop.
2. how old til they start laying eggs.
3. how many eggs ish does a chicken lay a week.
how often do you change there living area like from one spot of the garden to another.
what is the best age to put the chicken to sleep (putting it nicely) to use her for meat.
thanks x.

By 6-8 weeks (depending on the breed) they are "off the heat" so can live in a coop once the weather warms up a bit. If you are having all youngsters then you need to keep an eye on them as they dont have a lot of common sense so you need to make sure they go in when it rains, get to be etc.

Again depends on the breed but the common concensus is about 18 weeks and we always work on the ratio of 6 eggs a week per bird- even chooks need a day off :rotfl: you will find though that in wet/cold conditions they tend to slow down, in the warm dry days of summer then they lay their little hearts out.

Ours are all free range so they tend to wander around the garden and the woods themselves - the gamekeeper keeps the foxes down and he is welcome to as many eggs as he likes in return although there are lots easier pickings than our chooks. As a rule of thumb though you need to move them once a week, more if it is really wet.

As for the last one, cant tell you to be hionest, we are too soft and our ladies tend to die of old age. We started with rescued ex battery chooks and it only seemed right that they lived their days out in peace. If we have males in the clutch then we tend to re-home them rather than rear them for meat.

HTH but feel free to ask if there is anything else you want to know

betterlife

thanks kimitatsa, wow what sort of place do you live in. sounds big! tbh i dont think we would end up killing them, its just ive always wanted to keep chickens for eggs, but my dad says it costs alot, its alot of work and not a great deal of return so i was thinking if i also had meat at the end maybe it would be more worth it. if you let them rome free in garden are they very messy (poo i mean) as i have 4 kids which play in the garden, i also grow veg but this area is sectioned off.

Kimitatsu

Its not that big - we just let them roam a bit and they tend to wander where they will lol! Thankfully we dont have many neighnours so no-one seems to mind!

It costs us about £20-£25 per month to feed 20 chooks and we can get up to 25 eggs a week out of that when they are in full flow.We feed ours in the winter on layers pellets, bird seed and flaked maize, in the summer its just pellets and seed. They will eat any leftover veg you have, any peelings, and if you ahve any old bread and milk that has gone off they will happily scoff that down too. If I costed it out it might not be worth it financially but the quality of the eggs makes it far more worthwhile. We do a fine trade in bartering our egss too, so its hard to put a monetory value on it.

As for the mess , they are pretty clean to be honest. At the moment its that muddy here I would be hard pushed to tell the difference but ours tend to not foul the grass. However the waste makes fantastic fertiliser!

Lotus-eater

You kill the chicken when it stops laying enough eggs for her to be economical. Dislocation of the neck is the best. You have to cook it like an older bird, can't remember now having not done it in a while, but you slow cook it I think, acountrylife.com has details on the forum about it.
When you do it depends on the breed, a purebred bird will lay not so heavily for years, while a hybrid will lay loads, but only for a couple of years.
Personally I wouldn't eat a rescue hen, but the others are very much on the table

Kimitatsu

Lotus-eater wrote: »

You kill the chicken when it stops laying enough eggs for her to be economical. Dislocation of the neck is the best. You have to cook it like an older bird, can't remember now having not done it in a while, but you slow cook it I think, acountrylife.com has details on the forum about it.
When you do it depends on the breed, a purebred bird will lay not so heavily for years, while a hybrid will lay loads, but only for a couple of years.
Personally I wouldn't eat a rescue hen, but the others are very much on the table

I think thats my thing - our ex batteries I wouldnt eat as they were pumped full of goodness knows what before we had them. But we have some orpingtons now and they live to be 5 or 6 laying well into old age so I wont say never!