Chickens



Last Updated: July 2011

It took us a while to take the final decision to keep chickens, but once we had we couldn't understand why we hadn't done it sooner.


There are many, many books out there on the subject and most topical magazines regularly feature articles about starting with chickens. Add to this the vast array of  information on the Internet and it comes as little surprise that people get nervous about taking the plunge.The book we began with is Starting with Chickens by Katie Thear and whilst it gets some mixed reviews we would still recommend it as a good, basic starting place. I find it a little OTT on the different breeds but it still has a place on our shelves for reference.

We don't intend to even try to compete with or duplicate any publications, simply to share our experiences and snippets we have gleaned along the way.


Are chickens for you?
Happily, we've found that yes, they are.
We didn't set off on this adventure to make money, it was primarily the desire to have our own fresh eggs.
Quite apart from the eggs, the chickens have given us so much more in terms of entertainment, a sense of achievement, confidence to go on and try more, and a general good feeling about ourselves.

Where will they live?
It was surprisingly difficult for us to find a chicken house in Yorkshire but we eventually found  The Happy Hutch in Hull and we are very pleased with what we bought. The guys there are a friendly bunch and very helpful. 
This fitted 6 chickens quite nicely. It was orginally positioned here, under a holly tree to give a little more cover. We have since moved this small coop to another area.

With winter approaching along with a holiday we began to think about what would happen if the weather was bad, or if our "chick sitters" were delayed in a morning or needed to put the chicks to bed early in an evening. There wasn't room in this house to put water or feed in along with six chickens, so... we bought a shed...and made the chicks build it themselves.
                                                    
On the one hand it was a bit extravagant to have a shed for only 6 chicks. On the other hand it is ideal if we need to pop in food and water and lock them in . We can also prop the door open if the weather is bad to offer more shelter, not that any of our chickens ever go inside other than to lay their eggs, but it's an option.

Steve built a nest box on the side of the shed, made a pop hole and perches and I put net curtains at the window - yes, really!

It's not as wasteful as it sounds. We were planning to get more chickens both for eggs and for the table. Indeed, we did get ten more layers in Spring 2011.
The small house went into service as a permanent home for our original hens. They've given us so much that we shall give them a home for the rest of their natural, regardless of egg production.

The chicks have quite a large run and are pretty much free range, just confined to one part of the garden.

We started out with posts and chicken wire to enclose the run and on nice evenings we would let them out into the orchard whilst we sat and drank beer. Then we were given some of those big railing things they use on building sites so we extended the chicken area with those. They are really useful as they are easy to move around.

What breed shall we have?
Do you know how many breeds and cross breeds of chicken there are?! You won't find the answer here I'm afraid. It all came down to what we could get and, frankly, we were once again a bit snookered with what Yorkshire had to offer at the time.
We did visit Glencroft Poultry but that's not particularly close to us.
We considered having some ex-bats as people have taken to calling them but as Newbies we didn't feel it was appropriate to offer a home to hens who have suffered when we had little idea of how we would cope. So whilst Steve wanted his Black Rocks and Sussex, it came down to getting what we could locally. We ended up getting some pullets through word of mouth; 3 Warrens and 3 Amber Stars.

We picked them up in the late afternoon and brought them home in cardboard boxes lined with straw. We popped them straight into their new home and left them to settle overnight. They were all a little nervous about coming out the next morning but were soon exploring their new home and quickly got down to the business of establishing the pecking order.

In the Spring of 2011 we got 10 more Warrens and followed the same proceedure. We kept them seperate from our original girls so everything was fairly easy.

Food 
Good grief!  There's an awful lot of information about what to feed your chickens. And an awful lot of advice about additives and whatnot. I suspect that we have fallen into the trap of buying almost every additive known to chicken keepers at some point over the last couple of years. We have come to the conclusion that, just like us, all that is needed is a balanced diet and a supply of fresh water.

They get layers pellets every morning and corn in the evening.
We have small plant pots of grit and oyster shell near their feeder and we sprinkle some about now and then but we think they get enough grit from their own foraging. 
During the winter, if it's particularly cold, they get some porridge mid-morning as a treat.
They also get whatever we can give them from the garden and whatever they can find for themselves. Frogs and toads are popular and Steve saw one of them devour a baby bird once.

After a spell of soft shells from one of our chicks we tried Poultry Spice, Limestone Flour, cheese, baked eggshells, you name it, if someone recommended it, we tried it. Not all at the same time I hasten to add.We can't say that any one of them did the trick, although the Limestone Flour seemed to be most effective.

We add a garlic based product  Nopex to their water as a red mite deterrent and as a general health supplement and we worm them regularly with Verm-X which is a herbal wormer.

Care 
Our chicks get let out at first light every morning. We greet them before opening the pophole so they know it's us coming. I call them 'ladies', Steve calls them 'girls'. There's a mad rush to the feeder and then they usually come to see what we are doing. Every morning we have a quick check in the shed and  around the pen and perimeter to see that all is ok.
We always do quick poop scoop to get the larger pieces out.
We interact with them throughout the day and we handle them frequently. If we have not been in the garden, one of us will wander down around mid-day to check for eggs, let them have some bits from the garden and have a chat. We visit again in the evening to give them their corn. On warmer evenings we usually bide-a-while and enjoy a beer or two.
In their early days, getting them to bed was a trial. Like all youngsters they wanted to stay up late. Now, they're generally all tucked up by the time we go down to close the pophole. We always check to see they are all inside and that all is secure before leaving them.

We don't have a cleaning schedule. We refresh the straw and shavings as necessary and we do a real good clean out on the first warm, dry day in Spring and as late as we can in Autumn - plus others if we feel the need.

We only have two of our original six girls remaining.
We are currently building them a Retirement Pen so that we can move the ten new layers and possibly get a Breeding Trio.
We shall be looking at Light Sussex or Ixworths... at least that's what we said last time we discussed it.

You can follow our story through our Blog.