We just bought a coop and now need to build a pen-thingy, then all we have to do is buy some food and go get some chickens. I guess. Does anyone here keep chickens? Or hopes to get some too? I thought a general chicken-chat thread might be interesting.

I'm hoping to get four little hens - with fluffy bottoms and fluffy legs to make tasty eggs for us.

Drop a PM to petrat : she knows a lot about this

Torri flute and Lottie would also be good people to ask.

Also, there is an allotment forum www.allotment.org.uk that has a very active chicken forum

Make sure the pen is secure. We have an electric netting fence round ours and OH or I check the battery every day. Once it failed and a very terrible sight greeted our eyes the next morning. Mr Enharmonic was so upset that he took to the bed and couldn't go to work.

On a more positive note, just looking at our lovely hens cheers me up and the eggs are incomparable to those you buy in the shops as they are so much fresher.
Good luck with it all. what breed are you going to get?

I keep hens! They're great, though not laying at all at the moment. My husband keeps saying they're going to get broken neck syndrome.

Our run is made from panels from here

http://www.littleacre-direct.co.uk/acatalog/Run_Panels.html

We have five panels to make the sides (our chicken house is the sixth side) plus the rigid roofing. We have a large garden so this makes it easy to move the run round and give the grass a chance to regrow. Touch wood, we've not had any fox attacks or evidence of them at all, in spite of our garden backing onto a field. I never let ours out unless we're in the garden with them, but i know some people have had hens snatched by Mr Fox from right under their noses. One of our died two days after she arrived so I got that trauma over with early on!

The Practical Poultry forum

http://www.kelseyinfo.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl

is fantastic. If you have any kind of problem someone will always know the answer. There's loads of advice about building a run and what to put in.

We feed ours pellets. We tried giving them a more natural diet but they turned their noses up and demanded pellets! My girls are very fussy and won't eat half the things normal chickens eat, but they just love a frog, and fight over them if they find one.

The only problems we've had are with parasites. Many pesticides aren't licensed for chickens so you're supposed to take the hen to the vet to get them prescribed. Or you can lie in Pets at Home and say it's for your cat. Hmm. One of our girls is very susceptible but the others sem more resistant.

You will love your hens. I found it very stressful when we first had them (a bit like having a new baby!) but you'll soon get a routine of your own going. And I just love the fluffy bottoms! Enjoy!

We had chickens. Lovely clucky fluffy bottomed girls who ate all the veg patch but gave loveylovely scrummy eggs every day.

And now we don't... , but we have a very very fat and satisfied fox

Keeping out Mr fox is the most important thing. Do not underestimate his resourcefulness. In our case he got over a 6 foot fence, and pushed aside big rocks as obstacles, then pulled down the flap to the coop and got in.

Horrid horrid horrid.

But don't be put off - get your little clucking lovelies and keep them very safe and you will be very happy you did! Omelettes, and buns and pancakes and egg sarniesare on you!

I sense something fowl in the air...

I know a few people that keep chickens, as said above, you can't beat fresh eggs! Someone I know keeps geese and those eggs are lovely too!

I've got 10 hens. They really are individual characters (all have names) and give us entertainment as well as eggs. There's another thread somewhere all about chickens. Anyway, if anybody has questions about hens, do feel free to send me a PM!

I'd love to keep chickens, but am not allowed to.. Mr PG has put his foot down.....said I can have anything else BUT... (I'm still working on it) His arguement is they are hard work and messy and smelly. Along with the fact we have a terrier and a homicidal cat Lots of our neighbours round her do and I hear them crowing over the fields..

My hairdresser has chickens, geese and ducks.. so I often get a few duck eggs along with my cut and blow dry

Chickens!!!

I have kept chickens for nearly the last 10 years. I started with ducks a few years ago too

From a poiultry expert... If your chickens tend to lay thier eggs in the morning, then you should feed them in the mid afternoon, as that is when the egg is first formed inside the chicken, and for the best eggs - and more eggs, the hens crop should be ideally full of lovely fat corn or layers pellets. As we enter autumn/winter layers pellets are needed more and seem to encourage the hens to lay. Though, if offered at the same time as corn in another feeder, the hens will not eat it, so mixing it all up is the best way, then they don't know!!

Because I live on a farm, my chickens are mostly very free range. They have a stable to live in at night which has a paddock attached to it, but mostly they sleep on top of hay bales, up trees etc.

Top breeds in my opinion are ISA browns - very good layers, and incredibly friendly - they are constantly wandering into the house and we have had to use a toddler stair gate to stop them coming in - we kept finding that they were laying eggs in the dog's bed!!

Bottom breeds in terms of egg laying are silkies - they are fluffy all over, very cute, and at most, lovely and tame, but they will lay one egg, then get broody and sit on all the eggs that all your other chickens lay!! They make very good parents though if you want to breed later!!

I'd always wanted chickens, but my parents said no (this was a short while after the bird-flu scare, and then it sort of got forgotten). Anyway, we now have an adorable (but very naughty) kitten!

I spoke about chickens for ages, telling my mum all about them - thinking that she would never in a million years let me have chickens, so I didn't even bother asking if I could have some, then one day on the way to school she just said - "why don't you just get some ###### chickens" and so I did, and she bought me several books to go with it. I think she only ever read the diseases section and was quite horrified!!

I should learn to keep my mouth shut! I've just said "People keep chickens!" to my daughter. She's now out in the garden plotting the hen coop run thing.

Are they really that easy to keep? How can I convince her they are a nightmare?

Perhaps the fact we're having chicken for dinner might help...

Tell her that they are nasty, smelly things who will eat your lettuces and terrorise the district cats, poop on your lawns and eat all manner of beetles and bugs that will then make their way into the eggs! That should convince her otherwise.

I do like hens and chickens. I just don't want live ones in my garden. They are better in a casserole dish. .

Cheers Henry. Couldn't agree more..but I'd go for a pint and a vindaloo rather than casserole.

Chickens are easy-peasy to look after! Mine live in a compound, securely wire fenced, which has a 1940's above ground concrete air raid shelter in it. They sleep in there at night and are the safest hens in the UK.

All we do is let them out in the morning, scatter some feed/corn/pellets/scrap lettuce/greens/almost anything for them to eat and make sure their water is topped up. We then go to work, come home and collect the eggs, and close the shelter door when they have gone in.

Once a week, a quick sweep round and replace some of the bedding in the shelter.

None for the pot, as my wife is vegetarian, so they literally die of old age (up to 15 depending on breed).

Hurrah for chickens

Sorry to bring up a very old thread but at very short notice I have had to foster two chickens!

They'll be staying here until Spring.

They have a coop which is quite small but there is also a little 'house' bit with a nesting box at the back. I can't let them out unfortunately because the ground is covered in snow, we have six dogs and live near a road, I'm worried about foxes although I don't think there are any round here just badgers.

Any advice please?

The are given ad-lib layers pellets, lettuce, apple but they won't eat the corn. They're not laying. I am changing their water 2-3 times a day because it keeps freezing

They've only been here a week but their earthy bit is covered in ###### and today I'm going to take out all the bedding and sawdust and put down fresh. I'm not sure if I can get the ###### off the earth because it's all frozen.

We don't have a big garden and now the run is frozen to the ground so I can't move it about anyway.

Will they be warm enough?

They will be warm enough.

Chickens are remarkably hardy. I've even heard of chickens roosting outside in the current low temperatures and being covered in thick frost in the morning! As long as they're dry they don't mind the cold.

I pick the poos out of the run every day. I like the cold weather as it's just a matter of pinging the frozen poos into the bucket (after prising them off the grass sometimes, I have to admit!) rather than scraping off smelly squashy ######. I pick the poos out of their house every day too. Even those freeze once the hens have been up for a few minutes. Lettuce is supposed to be bad for hens (gives them the runs!). They may be used to just pellets or mash but they all have their little preferences. My original hens wouldn't touch banana but the current lot will kill for it. They'll lay when they're ready. The move or the weather ot the time of year might all have a bearing on that.

Have fun!

Oh I can't believe they edited that word... I didn't use a naughty one honest, just a really silly one (p o o ).

I quite like them I talk to them and they chatter back

Mine are still laying. We get long thin eggs now its bitterly cold. I guess it's to do with the chicken feeling Reluctant (?).

I give my chickens some boiled value pasta or rice for breakfast. I like to think it warms them up for the day. I've tried porridge (made with water) but they didn't like it. The days are so short at the moment I think it wise to get as many calories into the birds as I can in the time available.

I agree. Mine get porridge in the morning, and a handful of wheat to fill their tummies before bed. Given that they go to bed at about four and don't get up until 8.30 I don't know how they last the night. They burst out in the morning like corks from a bottle, at least the girls do. My cockerel shows his face about five minutes later looking a bit groggy. I wonder if he stays up late playing computer games like my real teenage boys!

We have insulated the inside of the chicken house with polystyrene, which has made it much warmer and dryer. (It's a 1940's concrete above ground air raid shelter). I have also installed an electric warming pad which their water stands on to stop it freezing. As a reward for us, they have started to lay again!

The first time we had chickens I worried about them being cold until my husband pointed out that they are covered in feather duvet from their toes to their beaks.

The water being defrosted is very important. I also give them something warm to eat in frosty weather - often just scraps and old slices of bread mashed up with hot water. They won't be finding any food for themselves when the ground is frozen so their grain ration goes up too. My current chickens are pure breeds and seem very fussy - they don't like the snow at all and often stay in the shed completely, or if they come out it's just to make their way round to the stables and stand in there for a change!