Finally got my chickens!

[Goldberry]

Am excited to be able at last to join your noble ranks as a chicken keeper. My girls arrived this morning and they are lovely! They are a bit shy yet and have spent the whole afternoon hiding in their house. I am impatient to see a bit more of them! What can I do to tempt them out?

Congratulations!

scatter a trail of raisins leading from their house. Raisins are very useful for getting chickens to do what you want....

what sort are they?

Give them a couple of days to settle and they'll be out in their own good time!

Whay type did you get?

Ooh raisins. I have shedloads of those. I've got three chooks - a bluey-grey one, a Columbine and one which the seller called a Nera - black with gold feathers round the neck. My money is on the grey one to be the boss. She ventured out briefly into the run and made what sounded like rather impatient noises at the others .

my three started off with the big thick one being in charge and the two little ones gradually ran rings round her and now she is totally at the bottom of the heap.
watching them sort out the pecking order is fascinating.
presumably none of them are laying yet?

I don't know if they are laying yet. We bought them at point of lay. They are apparently 16 weeks old. Presumably even if they were laying, they wouldn't lay for us until they'd settled in fully?

when I got mine (late Feb last year) they started within a week, but that was warmer weather.

Mine won't eat raisins. Or corn. They do anything for meal worms though. My blue/grey one is in charge, and is mean.

Not too many raisins - it might rot their teeth.

Oh how lovely - no they may be a bit shy and scared for a while - they probably won't lay now until spring......

Thanks everyone. They STILL haven't really ventured out. Mind you, it is sooo cold. But I would have thought they might actually need to eat something eventually...?

Oh congrats on your arrivals :) beware the addiction starts here!

Thank you florencerusty! They have finally emerged from their house and, on their first foray into the garden, hopped straight over dh's carefully-erected protective fence around the veg patch .

Oh WOW! A whole forum for chickens or chooks as we mostly call them here. LOL I have 5 girls in the yard and love them all, but hadn't really found anyone else to chat with.

Congrats on your chucks, you will have so much fun with them, I have 3 & adore them !! They love salad, cherry tomatoes, cooked potatoes, grapes and wild bird seed. It is such fun to throw a tomatoe in their run & watch them squabble over it BTW, Sparrow3 join the Omlet Forum too & you will find soooo many people to chicken chat with!!

The Nera - full name Bovans Nera will be lovely - their eggs are perfect - honestly, each one will look exactly the same as the one before - it's uncanny
We had 2 in the originals - one became boss straight away, and the other just follwed around - when the boss died, the Silverlink took over - the other Nera just carried on - totally docile, totally calm.

Hello
I want chickens, nearly there.
where is the omlet forum?
is it on the eglu website?

Charlie (chicken stalker)

Hi Charlie,
Yep its on the omlet website (new so not sure how to do links)
the is also practical poultry for loads of good advice.

Sadly I had a fox attack in the summer and now just have Betty the Cochin and jack Duckworth the little call duck.

Waiting until spring to expand my brood and get an electric fence.

there's a really good forum on the allotment website:

www.poultry.allotment.org.uk/