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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

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Original poster

Might not be the right place but...anyone want to have a chat about CHICKENS?

28 replies

Sixofone · 19/02/2008 12:58

I have just ordered an Eglu and 2 chickens from Omlet and am very excited - anyone have chickens? Any advice?

OP posts:

sparkybabe · 19/02/2008 13:27

My next-door neighbour has 4 chickens (used to be 6 ) and I can't wait for the patio to be finished so that I can have them too!

So you gor an eglu - what's it like? Next door has a huge run for hers, but I can't afford the space so was looking at eglus, but they are quite expensive, no? I'm not expecting the eggs to be free!

lottymadbird · 19/02/2008 13:57

We kept chickens for a few years (although they were common old garden french ones not posh ones so no advice on particular breeds).

The best advice i can give is to feed them your leftover spaghetti and watch them run round chasing each other for it (they seem to think they are a particularly delicious breed of worm), very amusing and good exercise for them !

Fencing important even in urban areas as there are a lot of foxes around, and make sure its buried in the ground because they will scratch their way out and its amazing what a small hole they can get out of.

If you are getting lots, get some good egg recipes you may be over-run !

nickytwotimes · 19/02/2008 14:00

I want chickens, but dh threatens to leave...

floaty · 19/02/2008 14:02

We are just thinking about chickens I think we are going to go for a hen -house thrippet with 2 hens one,can't decide between orpingtons ,speckledys or sussex,we want them to be pets as well and ds2 has mild/moderate SEN so they need to be pretty docile.anyone have any thoughts

jeremyspants · 19/02/2008 14:27

chickens are easier nicky...

floaty - orpingtons are big softies as are cochins.

floaty · 19/02/2008 20:18

People seem to have very split opinions on orpingtons ,are they OK to be in a run during the day as we have daytime foxes and if was out I wouldn't feel confident leaving them in the garden

tortoiseSHELL · 19/02/2008 20:22

We have 4 hens - they are lovely. We have a homemade coop (see here) - I think the eglu looks lovely but is very expensive imo!

We have ours on paving slabs which I would recommend for two reasons - foxes can't dig in, and you massively reduce the risk of parasitic infection of the ground, as the slabs can be periodically hosed down.

Orpingtons won't give a huge number of eggs, but are lovely birds. Speckeldys are beautiful, but the eggs are quite small ime. The friendliest of ours are the Bovan Goldlines - a modern brown hybrid - they each lay every day and are very very friendly! Our Black Rock lays beautiful eggs but is not averse to a little peck every so often!

Bluebelles are lovely, and tend to be quite docile (I would love a bluebelle!). Floaty - as long as the run is secure, they are fine - foxes are always going to come once you have chickens, but as long as they can't get in then the chickens are fine.

They really are the best pet!

tortoiseSHELL · 19/02/2008 20:23

(Note, if you want to see our coop, you have to go back to the beginning of the blog).

Original poster

Sixofone · 19/02/2008 21:27

tortoiseshell, I've bookmarked your blog to have a good look through later Yes the eglus are expensive and you will never recoup the cost, but am buying because am attraced to the idea of them being portable, and the resale value on Ebay(hopefully it won't come to that but just in case) is quite high.

I popped over to a friend's today who has got an Eglu and 3 chickens, all of which are battery rescues. They are fascinating creatures, one was sunning herself on the garden bench, while the other two came over to the back door for a chat!! Could have watched them for hours, very sociable. I have never been one for (sorry to offend anyone who owns them) 'pets that don't do anything' like rabbits and guinea pigs

I'm glad to have found some chicken owners and lovers on MN, thanks for the spaghetti tip Lotty!

OP posts:

tortoiseSHELL · 19/02/2008 21:39

There are some good chicken forums as well - the Practical Poultry one is good, and Omlet have a very chatty one as well. They are quite different - the PP one is good for info, but if you are keeping the chickens as primarily pets, then the Omlet owners are probably more like-minded.

jeremyspants · 20/02/2008 20:11

The best little hen we ever had was a bantam Pekin cochin called Jenny. She would happily sit on your lap and 'chatter' to you and was SO sweet when my dd was tiny ie never pecked.
She was also a really good layer and I could not recommend a more suitable hen IMO.

Are you getting a cockerel? I would not bother as they can be a royal pain some of them...

Teuch · 20/02/2008 20:14

We have chickens and ducks. The hens (10 of them, used to be 11 before Mr Mink visited) are orange, the ducks (9?) are brown...

They are free range but get closed in to their wee houses at night, get layer's meal and grain and lots of leftovers.

IN teh summer we have 4-5 duck eggs a day (the most delicious IMO) and 8-10 hen eggs.

Teuch · 20/02/2008 20:15

Oh...and no cockerel!

Original poster

Sixofone · 20/02/2008 21:00

So what do you DO with all your eggs then?! Only so many omelettes you can eat I suppose!

OP posts:

Teuch · 20/02/2008 21:20

give them to family, mostly. PIL run a B&B!

tortoiseSHELL · 20/02/2008 21:22

We have 4 eggs a day, and do lots of baking, making ice cream, giving eggs away (guess what the teachers at school are getting!), poached egg on toast, pancakes for the children....

floaty · 20/02/2008 22:12

Totoise shell,just off to look at your blog,do the chickens not mind being on concrete(afriad this is all new to me!)I don't mind too much if we don't get many eggs although a few would be nice .Starting to feel quite excited by it all now and ds2 will be thrilled

mistlethrush · 20/02/2008 22:25

I had bantams - and buff rocks were wonderful. I picked one chick out to lavish attention on - she was so tame that she chose to have a nap on my lap regularly, and if you were gardening she would always come to see what you were doing and whether there was anything to eat. WHen she had chicks, she brought them to me to look after while she had a bit of a rest! The buff rock cockerell was also lovely - very gentle to the hens, chicks and us (unlike some of the others) and he became very tame, even though he was unhandled when we got him at about 1yo.

tortoiseSHELL · 21/02/2008 08:03

We put wood chippings down on the slabs which means they can scratch around nicely, and it has the added bonus of keeping their nails short!

Original poster

Sixofone · 22/02/2008 19:16

Ok, so I've been and bought my bedding today. We are planning to make a permanent base like tortoiseshells for the Eglu. I was looking for Aubiose, as it is one recommended on the OMlet forums, but ended up with Easibed, which is like very small bits of woodchip. (Also a horse bedding).

Interested to know what other people are using as at £6 odd a bale it's not cheap?

OP posts:

StripeyKnickersSpottySocks · 23/02/2008 11:24

I just use ordinary sawdust for bedding.

Floaty - I've got a speckledy and have found that the eggs are slightly bigger than the average supermarket medium egg. She's very docile as well. I do think that the more you interact with your chickens the friendlier you are. She'll happily stand there and let you pick her up which is great if I need to catch her. Orpingtons have smaller eggs and being bigger chickens eat a lot more.

The friendliest chickens for kids are supposed to be pekin bantams but their eggs are small.

MehgaLegs · 23/02/2008 11:26

We upgraded our chicken collection slightly this week with the arrival of 50 rescue hens

We are only keeping 15 the others were collected yesterday but we were chicken sitting for the week.

What can I do with the 80+ eggs still sitting in my kitchen?

MehgaLegs · 23/02/2008 11:29

In my proper hen shed I use wood shavings from the local smallholder suppliers. A big bale costs about £7.00 and lasts for ages. I clean it out weekly but find only the area where they roost gets really dirty.

I tend to leave the clean areas for longer and give it a proper clean out once a month.

It even gets a hoover now and again with a very old vax

tortoiseSHELL · 23/02/2008 15:14

We have just gone over to using aubiose/easibed, and it is a lot better than the bark chippings we were using. Bark isn't good inside the coop, as you can get spores which give them respiratory problems. Sawdust is ok, as long as it is dust extracted. Wood chips are fine. The advantage of aubiose/easibed is that it lasts longer, absorbs the moisture well and is then compostable.

MegaLegs - at 80 eggs!!!!!

tortoiseSHELL · 23/02/2008 15:16

MegaLegs - if your dh is a tree surgeon you should get him to bring home his wood chippings for the hen coop! Every time anyone on our street has work done on a tree I go and beg for chippings.

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