Chickens - Why keep them?

We love keeping chickens, we have layers and meat birds.

Our layers are Barnevelder, Cuckoo Maran, Jersy Giant(supposed to be a meat bird but we like them so much they seem to have skipped catagories) & a few faithful brown hybrids.

Our meat birds are a mix (at the moment we are growing on bought 1 week old chicks) 20 of those & are hatching out another 12 eggs from our own birds.

Reasons to keep chickens:

Chicken provide you with eggs and meat for your family & we take pleasure in the fact that our animals have & had a wonderful life.

Chickens can be quite pretty, find a breed that you like to look at after all they can be with you for quite a while. They can have great personalities, as well as being quite funny - to this day we have a wee layer who sounds very surprised and indignant every time she lays an egg.

Educational too - Our kids are amazed at the chickens laying eggs for us every day. They are learning about caring for animals & how birds can behave, as well as where our eggs come from.

Thought I'd write a little bit about this, lately I have been told that a lot of people are getting out of chickens - The main reason we are hearing is that they are dirty so lets have a look at that:

Yep chickens do poo (quite a lot actually - as they don't pee - their system mix's the two together)

They will poo anywhere, on a table, at your front door & so far I haven't seen them blush about it!!!

Why this is actually wonderful:

Their poo is Nitrogen rich - Rot this down on your compost heap & you flower/veg beds will love you for it.

What to do about it:

There are a couple of things that we do

1 we keep straw on the bottom of their coop, this is regularly taken out & chucked on the compost heap. We have also used shredded paper.

2 Fresh ground is really important, keep moving your net or if you only have a couple & have a wee run move it across your lawn (your lawn will thank you for it)

You may have noticed that I mentioned 2 ways of fencing your hens:

• Electric Netting - This is something that we use all the time & so far no losses to foxes, I would highly recommend it. When you use netting you must also clip their wings so that they don't fly over it.

• Run - again brilliant for keeping your hens in check

I would recommend that you have one or the 2 of the above - you cannot leave your hens free about the place even for a quick run to the shops!!Foxes love having a chicken dinner (as do we) & once they know there are hens in an area the will check your defences on a regular basis. I do not blame the fox for this it's up to us to prevent any losses. By the way I am also speaking about dogs here, even your friendliest family dog is more than capable of taking a bite when your not around - so exercise caution. (Or cat)

Now for when they are out & about:

Do not feed them at your front door (Ahem!!! - This will result in your hens staying at your front & looking longingly at it for some tasty scraps that could come their way & the result a lot of unwelcome little "packages" on your door step) Not that we'd know anything about that!!!

If it's a back garden it might still be worth having them blocked from certain areas.

Other than that take sensible precautions.

Welcome to the the wonderful world of chicken keeping!!! Happy Clucking.

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