chickens - pros & cons

[BaryMerry]

Ok, I'm really seriously considering keeping chickens but I keep to-ing and fro-ing and have a tendency to overthink things... so I need some of you with real-life experience to help me decide.

I need your opinions on the good and the bad of having chickens, and whether my expections are realistic. Aspects I think I would enjoy:

the fresh eggs
the 'company' in the garden (we have a largeish garden and I would let them free-range a bit, especially if I was knocking about in the garden)
looking after the birds (the only other pets we have are fish!)

But some of the things which I have reservations about:

Rats - are they a certainty?
Early mornings - do you have to get up at stupid o'clock in the summer?
The smell - will my garden become a less pleasant place to sit??

FWIW I would plan to keep them in a fixed run in one of my borders, rather than moving around the grass. There is a gap in the planting along the back wall and it's getting to the point now where I either need to fill it with shrubs or chooks - I want to make a decision so I can get on with it!

Rats are not a certainty. Not unlikely, but can be kept away by being super-conscientious about food, etc.

Early mornings - if the house is a reasonable size then you can easily leave them indoors in the morning until usual getting-up-for-work time. It's also possible to get automatic pop-hole openers for the hen house.

The smell - depends partly on size of area vs quantity of poo left lying, but largely on how good you are about clearing up uneaten food - spilt poultry pellets mixed into the run really smell REVOLTING if left wet for a while, much worse than chicken poo.

I'd recommend bantams. Pekin bantams in particular are fab (biased opinion!).

1. They're v small, so their poos are small and therefore disappear easily. 4 pekins kept In the same size of housing and run as 4 hybrids will be much less cleaning out.... though if they spill the food hopper, that STINKS when wet. The run and house is fine, but spilled food does smell nasty of left.
2. Smaller chooks = less garden destruction, esp if you choose "feathered leg" varieties.
3. Eggs are smaller, obviously, but if 1 banty is half the size of a hybrid, then the egg is likely to be two-thirds the size (depending on breed!).
4. They are nice pets for littlies, as they are physically easier to hold if you have tiny hands.

BUT:

1. All are noisy when they lay eggs.
2. Small bantams are very easy pray - an easy meal for martens, stoats, rats, and birds of prey, etc. Depends where you live though, as foxes will easily kill any poultry.

I would hugely recommend a group of 4 or so bantams, in a reasonably spacious house with attached run, allowed to free-range when you're around.