to consider a few Chickens (and am I underestimating how much work they are?)

[St0pTryingT0MakeFetchHappen]

Blatant post for traffic. We have recently moved into a house with a large enclosed garden and plenty of room for a big chicken run. My thought was that once we are settled (perhaps Spring next year) we might get 2 or 3 chickens, primarily for eggs. They would have the chicken run, plus I would like to give them limited forays into the vegetable patch/main garden to organically pest control slugs/snails etc. I have no experience of chickens (although I am quite familiar with goats/alpacas). So... am I being a hopeless romantic? Is there a good book ( Chickens for Dummies?) Are there any major pitfalls?

Please tell me your chicken secrets!

You may be underestimating the rats - they follow the food.

i read somewhere that when hens moult all their energy goes into replenishing feathers rather than egg production * and we definitely found that ours had cycles when they moulted (almost to the point they looked almost oven ready!) , and during that period they laid no eggs, once their feathers came back they looked much healthier, and started laying again altho the older they got the smaller and less frequent the eggs became.

• thats my simplified way of understanding it. Its possibly more scientific!

Yes, that's right Skinnychip, they do go off lay when refeathering. Quite common for them to not lay in winter (it's meant to be to do with daylight hours) although a lot of our ex bats still laid. Hate to panic anyone, but when ours had stopped laying for a while we eventually discovered a rats nest nearby full of egg shells - that was once we'd got all the feed secure in metal rat proof bins, so they turned to a different source of food! That's when we rehomed them.

We have 6 hybrids (brown laying hens) and 2 bantams at our allotment. Our run is secure against foxes so they let themselves in and out.

Feedwise, 2 bags of pellets costing about a tenner from local feed shop, lasts about 8 weeks. A sack of grit lasts 6 months. They also have allotment scraps and the odd naughty left overs of bread, veg etc (it's naughty because defra rules say you shouldnt feed them anything that has been in your kitchen).

Our run is part slabbed (as soon as we find some more freebies it will all be done). In the winter the bits that aren't are a muddy mess. So would definitely say some kind of hard standing, and ideally a roof on a run at home. It's not so bad at the allotment though.

I do let them free range when I don't have things growing they can hurt. So from October onwards until around May, but only when I am there.

Rats are an ongoing issue. I use hung vermin proof feeders which does seem to work as I know from the amount that's getting eaten if we have rats making the most of the buffet. But we are on an allotment with other allotmenters keeping chooks so not much I can do about that except try and keep them out of my feed.

Personally I love them. They all have different personalities, are the nosiest pets we have, always wanting to follow us around and interfere. They know the sound of my car, know me and my husband and can see if I have a bag of treats before I even get in the gate.

They are funny to watch, easy and cheap to keep and the eggs are lovely. I go once a day to check and feed them. I clean them out once a week. Takes about half an hour, maybe 40 mins in winter when I am cleaning the slabs and putting fresh straw down on the slabs.

As a general rule, expect eggs from valentines day to bonfire night. Outside of that period the light levels can be too low for them to lay.

Having said that we have had a couple of winters where some of ours laid all the way through and one winter when the weather was paticularly severe and they were in a barn with artificial light they all kept laying right through.