Keeping Chickens - how easy is it?

[satc2bringiton]

Me and DH are thinking about getting 4 chickens for the back garden.

Have spoken to the council & neighbours and they are fine with it. We have also been doing lots of reading online.

Would love a idea from people in RL that already have some.

Are they easy to clean out etc?

youve inspired me, am watching an eglu on ebay, am shocked at the prices though. still very high compared to new, and most out of my area. still, ill keep my eye out. when i get one ill get my chucks!

we have bought one of these we are planning 3 or 4 hens.

We just built ours - was much cheaper than an eglu! It's fairly basic, but they like it.

I paid £300 for a classic Eglu and run extension which was 6 months old and would have cost £400 new.
Got it via the marketplace on the Omlet site - if you buy there you won't have the same chance of a bargain as on Ebay but it might be easier to find one in your area (and most of the ones I've seen on Ebay have actually gone for about the same price in the end anyway).

LilyB - we got FIL (cabinet maker) to build ours - luxury chicken accomodation for the cost of the materials

homemade are the best imo!

We found a tin shed in our woods with a concrete floor..put racks in it and fruit boxes ..not terribly'country living' but free and highly effective!

I would love to have chickens but the poo thing has always put me off. And we grow fruit and veg in the garden - and they would distroy it wouldn't they?

if you grow fruit and veg then you need the poo for your compost heap!

My veg garden is fenced off from the girls - actually, the girls are mainly in their fenced run at the end of the garden. Once the lawn is robust enough for them not to scratch holes, they tootle out to sunbathe on it.

They were housed on the veg garden over the winter. Amazing growth of stuff this season and much fewer pests.

My mum's kept chickens for years. They're easy and brilliant fun too, and there's nothing quite like the fresh eggs you get.

Do you know where you're getting them from? You can always get rescue chickens - battery farms tend to slaughter the birds after 20 weeks-ish even though they've got another five years of laying left in them.

The family on River Cottage did it the other day and the battered old chickens looked so thankful for some nice outdoor space!

Is The Urban Hen a load of tripe, then? Reading that put me off hugely; talks about (extremely essential) 20 minutes of maintenance twice a day, every day, plus more maintenance jobs weekly and even more monthly.

I couldn't see how it could possibly be economical with the supplies described as essential.

It also sounded like hours of drudgery and work, high costs, high stress of finding a chicken sitter if you ever want to go away, stress of what to do to prevent mites, just to get the same quality eggs I could easily buy for 60p/half dozen (DH workmate supplies from her free-range hens, I assume as a huge labour of love?).

If you need some reassurance about keeping hens in the garden, go on a course. We run a one day full guide to keeping them and you get a farmhouse lunch thrown in. It is a great day out too and everyone who has been has gone away filled with confidence about how much fun keeping chickens is www.mumbleysfarmhouse.co.uk

Just found this website for all you new to keeping chickens. Looks a nice site. www.thechickenexchange.com has some good articles.

We've two weeks into having our delightful new chickens. They're safe in their aviary which I spent considerable time, effort and money on.

However, the fox comes daily and does a number 2 next to the aviary. No signs of the fox trying to get in but I'd rather put something in place to stop the fox using my garden as their toilet.

Any ideas?

We are in suburbia..