Getting chickens next week!

[ChickenBeginner]

Hello fellow chicken keepers,

We are due to get our first birds next week. Just 3, and they will be pets rather than needing to earn their keep. Eggs will be a bonus, mainly they are to be therapeutic for my ASD son. He adores them and spends 2 days a week on a therapy farm where poultry care is his most favourite thing. Being cuddled up with chickens, ducks and turkeys helps him so much with his emotions and communication. It’s incredible to watch.

We have a eglu go coop, delivery of the run is delayed, so we are building one as a temporary measure. Birds are to be 2 cuckoo marans and 1 blue marans.

They will be able to free range the garden when we are home and supervising. We are home-based most of the week, so they will get lots of attention and freedom.

We are very excited, I’m a bit apprehensive.
Top tips? Advice?

Thanks

A metal bin or waterproof box with a lid is handy to keep food in overnight to discourage vermin. We also tried lots of different feeders and ended up getting little pots that clip onto the fencing for food, grit and water. It stays cleaner and they don't have to squabble if they have one each.
Branches on the ground to perch on and an added bonus when they're moved and there are bugs underneath.
They like a dust bath and we use an old metal bathtub that we found in the field next door. It's filled with dry earth, sand and some wood ash from our log burner.
Probably the thing I wished I'd known was not to use second hand hen houses. I bought one on EBay and it was riddled with mites so we had to burn it.

My honest advice would be that if you value the appearance of your garden, have a nice lawn or plants, do not let them free range. Section off a part of the garden for them completely.

After about a year of our hens being here our garden looked like the barren surface of the moon lawn all gone, holes dug everywhere, they poo non stop, in the summer it was a quagmire of poo and flies so we couldn't have the back door open because of the flies and smells.

You may think you can clean up their poo, but it's liquid and they pretty much eat and shit all day so it's non stop.

So I'd say section off part of the garden away from the doors/your seating area.

Also a friend has temporary netting/fencing that she moves around the garden, that we're going to get to extend their roaming area. They made their main coop (4m square) muddy eventually and we had a big bulk bag of wood chips delivered which has made it smarter and less messy!

Get a decent metal bin to keep food in. If you are buying it in small amounts an old bread bin is good. Metal water containers and feeders are good as they knock plastic over.
Ours really love strawberries. If they are free range they trash the garden looking for bugs, you won't have any slugs and snails left.
Make sure you keep an eye on the defra website as if there is an outbreak of bird flu they have to be kept in.

Hi @ChickenBeginner - we have therapy chickens too! They have been a great success but actually more for me than DS. He spent 2-3 years terrified of them after one pecked his finger. Now (aged 10) he's getting more confident with them which is lovely to see. I can't recommend chicken keeping enough and I think 3 is the perfect number to start with.

I have eglu coops and I think they are great, but the runs are on the small side, though if you are letting them free range that shouldn't be a problem. They can be garden wreckers, especially in winter, so I prefer to fence an area off for them, the perfect lawns on the omlet website are not to be believed! If the run area turns into a swamp in winter, then put down some woodchip because that really helps. It has to be chipped wood (preferably hardwood) and not bark, we had some from a local tree surgeon.

Any specific questions? Mine love a perch or perching in a tree with low branches. So exciting.

Hi, thanks for all your replies.
I’m feeling quite reassured that most of the things you mentioned are all issues we’ve read about / discussed.
We built the coop yesterday, and made our temporary run. It doesn’t look big enough to me, but it won’t be for long, as the bigger one is due in 2 weeks time and our scruffy garden will be theirs to roam in. Luckily all our veggies are grown in the front garden and allotment.

What did you use to transport them home in?
I was anticipating using our plastic cat carrier. Is this madness?
It’s a fairly small one, and the books say nothing too big as they will be too loose and uncomfortable on the journey. The suggested cardboard box with holes is another possibility, but I thought that was a bit more flimsy.
It’s only about 30 minutes. I don’t want the breeder to laugh at us and refuse to hand the birds over!

Cat carrier is fine. Bit of newspaper to go in the bottom. I assume they are young/point of lay in which case it will be the right size, but for transporting adults I use one cat box per 2 chickens.

The breeder won't laugh at you! I got told off for handling the chickens incorrectly when I went to pick up mine. You sound well prepared.

Thanks for the reassurance.
Yes they are Point-Of-Lay. 3 birds. Son wants to sit in the back of the car with them seatbelted in to talk to them on the way home!

We have our girls. Just let them out for the first morning. Eating, drinking and exploring. Lovely to watch them.

Oh that just sounds wonderful! I absolutely dream of having chickens again, growing up we always had 2/3. I love listening to their conversations! Has your son named them?

At the moment they are Blue, Batman and The Other One!

Hopefully they are only temporary names.

Don't let them free range if you like your garden. They will eat all your flowers and bedding plants and pop everywhere. You need to fence if a particular area for them to free range in. Otherwise your garden will be ruined. I also had 3 so that is enough to do some damage!

You also need a poo disposal process! If they are on lawn, you can collect with the lawn mower. We compost this, together with the poo from the Eglu, and we upgraded the compost system.

How lovely, they will bring you such joy ☺️

Top tip - pick the poo up regularly during the day. I used to scoop it into a small metal bucket and then put it in compost bin at the end of the day. Get one with a lid if possible.

Look out for minute red mites in the summer. We have them this year and they are hard to get rid of. Don’t believe the eglu site as my friend bought one and still got mites.
If you have a farming shop buy your fed etc from there as cheaper and choice and the carry every thing else you need.

Blue and Batman sound fine you will get another name as you learn the characters of them. We free ranged our first hens for a year or so and soon learnt to section some off. We bought the fencing but it doesn’t give enough poles. We put more over the top to stop them flying over.
Yes, to wood chip from tree surgeon. It is great after the grass has gone.
Buy tarpaulin from eBay for inevitable lockdown next winter. I got some with ring holes for about £13 for about 3m x4m to cover over the net fencing.
Don’t wash the poo off the eggs. Buy something that you can know roughly how old the eggs are. I bought mine from the NT it is great.

Tell your son they like being read to. We had a ‘take a photo of you reading in an unusual place’. The chicken is actually looking at the book - much hilarity from the Yr 6’s.
A fact for him - hens can recognise up to 100 faces so will soon learn who he is.

Enjoy them 🐓