Home grown chickens to eat? (Merged Discussion)

MaximumImpact

Just to check. 20 birds, laying approx 6 eggs per week each, and you only total 2 dozen??? I make it nearer 10 dozen, surely????

You'll be very lucky to get 6 eggs a week form a chicken. It's best to work on at maximum of 40% production rate and even that can be dependant on the breed of chicken.

ampersand

Well done betterlife -

Store the feed you buy in a tightly lidded container - metal- if you can.
You'll be astounded by the ingenuity of four-foots getting in and plundering, and more riskily, fouling, your girls' munch.
############
Because rog2 is modest - I'm bumping[not for the first time;) ] this lovely piece he wrote quite a while back:
(just tootles off to find it)

Kerriebaby

Am on a bit of a "save as much money as we can, grow/make/recycle what we can" venture..Have just been to wilkos and bought some lettuce seeds, trays and some tomatos in pots, so have got them on the window sill atm. Got me thinking about other things we could do.

I was thinking about having a couple of chickens in the garden, we do use a lot of eggs ( I make a lot of food from scratch, plus the dogs have 1-2 eggs per week ) How hard is it to keep them, how expensive are they to keep? Our garden is not huge, so I was looking at one of those eglus, although I do have an empty rabbit hutch....could I convert that ( in the name of money saving! )

arkonite_babe

There are two threads currently which may be of interest to you

Home Grown Chickens To Eat
and
ooops I've done it again, more chickens

You should find some answers there, if not, post again and I'm sure someone will pass on their wisdom

*edited to add*
There's also hen house corner over on the Old Style board

poppet

Keeping chickens dosnt have to be expensive nor time consuming.

Essentially as long as you provide food and water and secure fox-proof housing, then they will take car of themselves on the whole.

Yes you could convert your rabbit hutch, its raised off the ground i presume - helps in the battle against mr fox, but you would need to concider if the hens would need a ramp to get to bed at night, a ramp can be easily knocked up with a suitable bit of wood.

Sleeping/laying
I also presume that the hutch would be for sleeping/egg laying purposes only and that you wouldn't be keeping them inside the hutch all all day, unlikely to be enough room for that. Our hens have the run of the garden during the day and they trot off and put themselves back to bed at night - all we have to do is close the door at dusk.

Eglu
I have seen these advertised and they look good, funky colours and easy to hose down when cleaning. But boy are they expensive!

Bedding
You'll need some sort of bedding, straw for example, we use sawdust and shredded paper becasue it breaks down on the compost heap(mountain) easier.

Food
Layers pellets or layers mash will help promote egg production. Layers mash or pellets on its own is fine, some pople like to add a handful of corn to the mix too or even veggie peelings and fruit bits and bobs.
A bag of layers stuff costs me about £6 and about the same for corn. Two bags of these last me ages and ive got 10 hens, 1 cockeral and a breeding pair of turkeys.

Water
A bowl of water will do, but they'll probably kick it over or poop in it, so might be an idea to get a special water feeder. Plastic ones are cheaper than galvanised.

Eggs
egg production is dependent of daylight hours and age. A chick will grow to look like a proper fully grown chicken quite radily but will not lay her first egg untill she has had her first moult, which i have found to be around the 6 month mark. So when you buy a chicken dont presume she will lay striaghtaway, make sure you buy "point of lay" which means she is at the point of coming into her first laying season.
Or you could get some rescued battery hens which will quite probably lay for you straightaway. Some of my rescue hens have laid all year round for me regardless of daylight hours - which i suppose is all down to them being conditioned to lay prolifically?
During the laying season you can expect one egg a day per hen.

Like the other poster said there are quite a few threads on here talking about chickens - have a search and see what you come up with.
Good luck

GT60

Here is aonther thread http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=514220 and i talked about some home made food

Lotus-eater

poppet wrote: »

I have seen these advertised and they look good, funky colours and easy to hose down when cleaning. But boy are they expensive!

Water
A bowl of water will do, but they'll probably kick it over or poop in it, so might be an idea to get a special water feeder. Plastic ones are cheaper than galvanised.

Just like to add. I don't like eglus, I'm sure loads of people do, but I don't like the idea, too hot and too cold.

Plastic feeders and water holders are cheaper than the galvanised ones, but the metal ones last many many years longer, could be a false saving.

Steve_Groves

I did some calculations for my parents who got 4 chickens last year to answer the question as to whether it was saving them money.

If you compare eggs produced by your chickens against quality eggs from the supermarket then homegrown eggs will cost you more but not significantly more.

This was done on the basis that my father made the hen house and run so only a small outlay at start and spreading it over 2 years.

My parents also grow their own veg and by moving the run round the garden, the chickens eat any leftover plants and do a good first pass at clearing the area of weeds. Their favourite foods seem to be purple sproating, salad leaves, snails and spagetti.

Kerriebaby wrote: »

Am on a bit of a "save as much money as we can, grow/make/recycle what we can" venture..Have just been to wilkos and bought some lettuce seeds, trays and some tomatos in pots, so have got them on the window sill atm. Got me thinking about other things we could do.

I was thinking about having a couple of chickens in the garden, we do use a lot of eggs ( I make a lot of food from scratch, plus the dogs have 1-2 eggs per week ) How hard is it to keep them, how expensive are they to keep? Our garden is not huge, so I was looking at one of those eglus, although I do have an empty rabbit hutch....could I convert that ( in the name of money saving! )

rog2

MaximumImpact wrote: »

You'll be very lucky to get 6 eggs a week form a chicken. It's best to work on at maximum of 40% production rate and even that can be dependant on the breed of chicken.

We have three ex-battery hens - they are now about 18 months old - and we get three eggs most days (even in current/recent weather). Possibly two days a week we will only get two eggs.
I am not sure of the exact breed of our hens - they seem like a cross between 'Rode Island Reds' and some other 'brown'.

betterlife

hi everyone thanks for advice, i have changed my mind though and we are picking up 2 ducks on saturday! khaki campbells cant wait. have bought a 2nd hand plastic dog kennel today its perfect just need to make a door for it. top of garden is nearly fenced off and getting organised. im so excited ,this breed is very egg productive and as im getting a male aswell i can have ducklings.