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Chicken keepers

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Could we have chickens in with guineapigs- large run- how many chickens do you keep?

2 replies

northernrefugee39 · 31/05/2008 15:12

We have a large walk in run for our 11 guineas, do you think they would happily co habit with a few chickens?
How many chickens do people keep? would four be enough for a family of 5? Four eggs a day?
Cleaning out? Are they easy? Do they take themselves to bed? Do they need a hutch with a perch?

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tortoiseSHELL · 31/05/2008 15:20

I wouldn't mix chickens with guinea pigs tbh - they eat different things, and the chooks could be quite mean to the piggies!

Chickens are REALLY easy to keep - we have 4, get 3-4 eggs a day which is MORE than enough for 5 of us!

Cleaning out - we clean them out totally about every 2-3 weeks (depending on how wet it has been) - I also scoop out poo from the house in the morning - takes 1 min. If you are clever with what sort of house/run they have then cleaning can be extremely easy - although I don't particularly like the eglu houses, they are very easy to clean - you just hose them down. Some houses have pull out trays that you can use to collect the poo and empty off in the morning.

Easy - extremely!

Going to bed - they see to that, when it gets dusky, then I shut their door to keep them in till a reasonable time!

Perches - yes. Their house should have perches which are the highest point of the house for sleeping on (although 1 of mine never perches, and another isn't keen. They will also need a nest box, which should be the darkest place in the house. For ease with the children it's useful to have an external nest box.

Have a look at my blog which has a few pics of our house and run which dh built - we have an enclosed house/run because we have LOTS of foxes. When we have to replace this flock, I want to build a new house and run more like this to give them a bit more space, and also I want to get a Brahma, which is a BIG chicken!

If you read through the blog, there's a fair bit on setting up in the first place, and the things we found hard.

northernrefugee39 · 31/05/2008 15:44

Oh wow, I've just whizzed through your blog and it looks wonderful. I love the leghorns.
Thanks so much, I feel very inspired..

I like the run you aspire to. It's similar to our guinea one, although the guineas's is about twice as big I think.

Shame you dont think it would work with them all together....but if the hens bully it would be a disater.

I'm going to work hard on my dh, who says we have too much livestock as it is... but the free eggs will persuade him I'm sure...

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