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Hello Forumites! However well-intentioned, for the safety of other users we ask that you refrain from seeking or offering medical advice. This includes recommendations for medicines, procedures or over-the-counter remedies. Posts or threads found to be in breach of this rule will be removed.Cheap eggs - Keep some chickens!
Magentasue
Posts: 4,229 Forumite
This follows on from another thread asking which is best, cheap eggs or free range. Well, with a couple of hens in your back garden, you can have both!
What you need
1) a small shed or coop for them to sleep in at night and lay eggs in during the day
2) food and water put out every day
3) letting out in the morning and locking in at night
4) somewhere to peck around during the day. The more space the better but you can get away with a small space if you move them around. It needs to be secure to protect them from foxes etc.
5) Someone to do all the above when you're not around.
You don't need a cockerel or a lot of time. They're not noisy (well, they're quieter than kids!) and they won't smell if you clean them out every week or two.
Eggs
We have five hens and get about two dozen eggs a week. Most hens lay an egg most days during the summer. As they get older they less fewer eggs and you can have a drop in supply in the winter. All for a bag of pellets costing about a fiver! Ours cost £8.50 becuase they're organic but they have lasted almost three months because I cook up potato peelings and oats for them - which they prefer!
They are amazingly entertaining. I wasn't expecting to find them so interesting.. Watching ex-battery hens learn to walk is a real experience. Same as watching them sprint down the garden when the kids throw left over pasta for them.
Downside? They've ruined the grass this winter. They are destructive. They hopped over the fence and trashed our veg patch but now we've moved it and fenced it off properly. They are keen gardeners, what they don't eat, they damage by scratching around. They love to dig around and bath in the dust. Only established shrubs, rose bushes and mint have survived.
The way I look at is that I don't want to support the egg industry, free range or battery, any more than I have to. But now I'm hooked anyway!
What you need
1) a small shed or coop for them to sleep in at night and lay eggs in during the day
2) food and water put out every day
3) letting out in the morning and locking in at night
4) somewhere to peck around during the day. The more space the better but you can get away with a small space if you move them around. It needs to be secure to protect them from foxes etc.
5) Someone to do all the above when you're not around.
You don't need a cockerel or a lot of time. They're not noisy (well, they're quieter than kids!) and they won't smell if you clean them out every week or two.
Eggs
We have five hens and get about two dozen eggs a week. Most hens lay an egg most days during the summer. As they get older they less fewer eggs and you can have a drop in supply in the winter. All for a bag of pellets costing about a fiver! Ours cost £8.50 becuase they're organic but they have lasted almost three months because I cook up potato peelings and oats for them - which they prefer!
They are amazingly entertaining. I wasn't expecting to find them so interesting.. Watching ex-battery hens learn to walk is a real experience. Same as watching them sprint down the garden when the kids throw left over pasta for them.
Downside? They've ruined the grass this winter. They are destructive. They hopped over the fence and trashed our veg patch but now we've moved it and fenced it off properly. They are keen gardeners, what they don't eat, they damage by scratching around. They love to dig around and bath in the dust. Only established shrubs, rose bushes and mint have survived.
The way I look at is that I don't want to support the egg industry, free range or battery, any more than I have to. But now I'm hooked anyway!
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Comments
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I'm hoping to get mine this summer. I need to build the henhouse first as the price of ready made ones is astronomical. I've had loads of advice from the city farm and they've given me the number of a guy I can buy my hens from.Organised people are just too lazy to look for things
F U Fund currently at £2500 -
What do they need for bedding in the coop? Straw? Also (gulp) what do you do when they get too old to be of use for laying? (Nooooooooo I could never do THAT! :eek:)
Finally, do they get ill and need to be taken to a vet? Could be an interesting journey
.
Finally finally - where do you get them from? Did you "liberate" your ex-battery ones?
I haven't bogged off yet, and I ain't no babe
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Bogof_Babe wrote:What do they need for bedding in the coop? Straw?
We put wood shavings on the floor and straw under the perch and in the nest boxes. Mucky straw gets put on the compost heap every week and once a month the whole lot gets hoiked out and put on the heap. Costs about £7.50 for straw and shavings, lasts three or four months.
Also (gulp) what do you do when they get too old to be of use for laying? (Nooooooooo I could never do THAT! :eek:)
Me neither! We lost one of our ex-batteries this winter. She was the weakest and stopped eating one day, died the next morning. I don't think they last more than two winters. The others we have are Black Rocks and they're supposed to lay for several years.The idea was that if any stop laying they can freeload so long as the others are laying.:p
Finally, do they get ill and need to be taken to a vet? Could be an interesting journey.
There have been a couple of minor ailments that we dealt with ourselves. Our vet isn't up on poultry but did give us some worming powder. When Jemima stopped eating and stood looking miserable, we rang the vet the following morning and he was going to see her but she died while we were making the call.
Finally finally - where do you get them from? Did you "liberate" your ex-battery ones?
We got our Black Rocks from a breeder and the ex-batteries came from an egg farm someone put us on to. They sell them at 50p a hen after they've laid for a year or so. He walked out of the shed holding three hens by their legs upside down, swinging them as he walked :eek:!!
Another four eggs today!0 -
Keeping your own hens is a great idea, but alas not everybody can do it for lots of different reasons, but you can help by getting your eggs straight from the farm. We get ALL our eggs from a local farmer and you can see the hens peckingand clucking about and wandering all over a huge field. :T
If i was a hen i would be happy to live there , the eggs cost 75p for 6 large and the color of the yolks never fails to impress, plus they taste delicious, and when used for making yorkshire puddings the results are spectacular :j
If you can, please buy from somewhere where you can see the hens,
just realised this is a bit off topic, :rolleyes: sorry.Not ashamed to say ABBA are Great :j0 -
I agree Dunkyboy - if I have to buy eggs again, I'll buy them where I can see the hens. Hens are such busy creatures, living in a cage or shed must be hell for them. Keeping them in the garden isn't for everyone but if you've got a corner you can spare for them, you can avoid being part of the cruelty. After all, keeping a couple of hens is really Old Style! When loads of people did it, we didn't have battery farms (I think!).0
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Last summer MrRotty bought me two chickens for our 10th wedding anniversary. We got them from Omlet. They come with a polycarbonate 'eglu' and fox-proof run, and the whole thing is ideal if you live in a town and don't have loads of room. We get two eggs a day, and they eat all my fruit and veg peelings. Plus, the droppings make fantastic fertilizer for veggies!
Oh, and they make wonderful pets...Daphne and Velma are tame and like to be cuddled.
edited to erase errors! :rolleyes:0 -
aren't hens quite dear to buy?
not a newbie now: but still be gentle with me
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jennyjo wrote:aren't hens quite dear to buy?
My Black Rocks cost £6.50 each, the ex-batteries 50p each!0 -
MrsRotty wrote:Last summer MrRotty bought me two chickens for our 10th wedding anniversary. We got them from Omlet. They come with a polycarbonate 'eglu' and fox-proof run, and the whole thing is ideal if you live in a town and don't have loads of room. We get two eggs a day, and they eat all my fruit and veg peelings. Plus, the droppings make fantastic fertilizer for veggies!
Oh, and they make wonderful pets...Daphne and Velma are tame and like to be cuddled.
edited to erase errors! :rolleyes:
We have an Eglu too - I um and ahed for ages as I thought they were very expensive but after considering what I'd have to spend in terms of monaey, time and expertise (of which I have none) in building a house and run, it didn't seem so expensive afterall.
My hens are called Zippy Curry and Georgie Satay and they're great gardeners.... :rotfl:I have the mind of a criminal genius. I keep it in the freezer next to Mother....0 -
It all seemed expensive when we first looked at them, but I have saved - since August I haven't bought a single egg, and with two children we get thru' a lot of eggs! Plus there's the bonus of knowing exactly where the eggs are from, and what the chooks are fed on...0
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