come and tell me about chickens...

[dilbertina]

right, chicken house on way (well sitting in garage ready to surprise me on christmas day!)

so...

chickens -
what's best place to get them?
Do different breeds have different temperaments? really?! Have seen some that are reputedly "good with children" "friendly" etc is this guff?
I am planning on getting 2 - should they be same breed? Will they be able to understand each other otherwise?!

Would it be best to wait till weather warms up a bit before getting them?

any advice much appreciated!

Where do you live? I got mine from Cotswold Chickens in Banbury, which is very good, my aunt got hers from Southmead Poultry in the East, also good.

Different breeds - definitely different temperaments. I have 2 Bovan Goldlines (similar to Isa Brown/Isa Warren) - very friendly, excellent layers. I also have a Speckeldy which is lovely, and a Black Rock which is a beatiful hardy chicken, but not quite so friendly - she's the one who'll peck you! Anything with leghorn ancestry will be skittish (White Stars etc), though you will get white eggs.

No need to get 2 the same breed. You might think about getting 3 instead of 2, as they like company, and if you have 2 and one dies, the other would be lonely. 3 is a nice number I think.

Yes, I would wait until the spring to get them as they may have lived in barns, and it would be a bit of a shock to go straight out into the cold.

Have a look at my blog here - if you start from the beginning there's some stuff about getting started.

ooh sorry - that would have been useful! am in sussex - not far from brighton.

will check out your blog!

As t/shell says - 3 better than 2. And yes, temperaments really do vary - as does egg laying, we have some good laying Light & Silver Sussex hens and other breeds that give me one measly egg a week. My hens are so highly fenced in (used to be free range but too many foxes now) that I don't worry about flighty breeds ie. they fly off - or at least they half fly-half jump over the fence and then get eaten or lost.

I'm in Sussex/Kent area and would recommend Mumbles Farm in Borough Green, Kent. If they have any hens around the POL age, then buy them now, they may not lay until it warms up in the Spring but they'll be well settled in by then.

I pay between £5 - £10 for a standard breed btw.

Handlemecarefully gets her chickens from near the South Coast - bump the thread later, she might be around this evening.

Does anyone keep chickens in London? Is it allowed?

This is where my aunt goes.

Also, it's not totally straightforward to add 1 more chicken if you decide later you want another - go for 3 straight away.