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I've just got some. Can't stop watching them. They are rather fun.
24 hours in and two out of the four have laid already :O)
Happy days.
Tim
What's your preferred fox deterrent method?
great aren't they! although they will quickly **** your garden up if you let them free range 🙁
Ours are in a decent sized run but would clearly like to be out scratching about, just threw a sack of bark in there and they are loving that.
are you going to name them ... tikka , jalfrezi , korma and vindaloo 😆
My 3 are absolute egg machines! 3 eggs a day, almost without fail... even all the way through winter!
They are starting to piss me off a bit though; mostly in that I have to consider them when I want to go on holiday - arrange people to feed them etc.
Very fun to watch though, better than telly :o)
Dave
Fox method at present is locking them up at night and hoping for the best. The ark is secure with wire allround so it would take a determind Fox. They are also in a fenced off run but that would be easy enough for a fox to jump into if it wanted.
They are doing a good job of turning over a raised area of the back garden. Bet they'd love to roam over the veg beds! Going to do the bark later this week. Got some for free but I need to go and collect it.
Waddle, Rusty, Ethel and Maude. (Rusty was my sons choice, the rest were pre-named)
We are the second owners due to someones change of circumstances. They were upset to see them go but will be visiting often.
Do Margo and Jerry live next door now Tom, sorry Tim?
:O)
Thank you Luke!
listen as well, the constant chatter they have is a great noise
Indeed they do. They are dust bathing at the moment.
Bark - commonly recommended not to use bark and instead to use wood chips as bark can contain fungus.
just googled "bark for chicken runs?" it, bugger, better scrap it out tonight and chuck it on the garden and get some woodchips.
Still they've had 8 months since we rescued them as ex battery's, better than most of their bretheren.
Or sistren even?!
Our chicken coop a couple of weeks ago 🙁 .......
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They were living on borrowed time 'cos it wasn't the first time my son forgot to lock them up at night.
BTW Timbur, are you still pulling pints in the Arms? We'll be up for my sister's wedding after Easter and are staying just across the road from your pub. Please ensure that you order some extra casks of Harveys for early May. We'll talk chickens then 😉
Keep them hens secure.
Thats poo fella.
Left the Arms before Christmas as the Mrs took a full time job that was earning more money than I could in the pub. I needed to get out :O)
I don't think the quality of the beer will have changed though. Still good when I popped back in a few weeks back.
Email me if you want to go riding when your back. Might be able to duck out for a few hours :O)
Email me if you want to go riding when your back. Might be able to [b]duck [/b]out for a few hours :O)
Pun intended?
I'm not coming from home but from Italy so might not have a bike with me. I'll see if I can shoehorn one into the back of the car. Might be rigid folder with slicks though.
I try!
See what you can do. I'm child care 3 days a week but have 2 days to fill (and avoid diy!)
Tim
You just need one of my spare cockerels now..... cheaper than an alarm clock and never fails to go off on time/fail due to power cut, etc.
This has motivated me! My 4 chickens arrive by the weekend! I can't wait and the kids change their names on a daily basis, we're very excited 🙂
We're vigin chook keepers, any tips greatly received!
What are you getting? Ex-batts are funny when they 1st arrive - no idea what to do with all the space but soon learn.
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teagirl, don't be too worried if they don't start laying immediately... mine didn't lay in the first 3 months that I had them - now I couldn't stem the flow if I tried!
Oh, and you'll get over poo squeamishness pretty damn quickly!
Dave
we've had ours (5) since last summer most days we get 5 egg without fail even when the dogs have been chasing them round the garden !
Garden has suffered tho 150ft x 18 ft of lawn completely stripped of grass ! they get 4-5 hrs of free roam in the garden a day.
You'll also find they are really nosey, given the chance they'll come in the house and explore !
We've found them before making there way upstairs when the back door has been left open.
They're not bothered about 2 big dogs loose in the garden ! or a 3 year old ! he's our best chicken chatcher !
Good luck you'll love them !
We have a pair of Warren's and My God have they trashed our lawn! Two eggs a day, pretty much without fail. As yet no vermin problems although I have had a cat looking pretty interested.
We have 6. They range up to about 300 metres away. If I were you I'd get an automatic door closer. We have had ours 4 years and it's never failed. The fox has never got near our girls at nighttime although we have lost two in broad daylight once. This despite there being foxes in the woods & we've seen them out plenty.
C
The other thing is get the man of the house to pi$$ around the hen-house. It's supposed to mark the territory and ward off the foxes. Don't know if it's working but I still do it!
C
Mudshark - we're getting crossed Black Rocks and Rhode Island Reds, could've had some Marans but couldn't wait another 3 months, just 2 excited!
Alfabus - Cheers, but I'm impatient!
What do you guys use as flooring in the coop, got straw for nesting but any tips for the timber floor? And how often do you give their housing a really good scrub to get rid/reduce potential of mites etc
I use wood shavings on the floor of the house - I got a big bail from a farm supply place. I only treat for mites when I see evidence of them - I have Diatom and Poultry Shield which worked well for me when I had a big red mite infestation.
We use to keep chickens years ago but after getting rats the second time got rid of them. Must admit a fresh egg in the morning was sadly missed, though you'll soon end up with more eggs than you know what to do with 😀
Dust free shavings are best for the bedding - £6.00 a bale from the farm supplies place and lasts ages the same as they sell for horses!
Straw can contain spores and is not good if it gets damp but on the other hand if theres too much dust in the shavings it can give them breathing problems.
Thanks Leahstaff and mudshark. I'll follow your advice.
My milkman has advised me to get a terrier to keep the rats down...... so that'd be Spouse, 3 kids, 3 dogs, 4 chooks and a goldfish and what I really want is a pig!!
We get shavings from the local joiners shop for nothing/next-to-nothing.
Best advice we were given was to creosote the shed once a year to kill the mites and stop them re-appearing. What we do is in summer when the girls are out is the set to at 7am and spray the shed inside and out, especially any cracks where mites might be. Then leave all the doors open and by mid day the smell has subsided (a bit!!). The oil in the creosote stops the mites in their tracks and prevents them coming back. Once you have seen the pain caused by red mites you'll never let them even have a chance of coming back.
C
Make sure you use real creosote - hard to find?
Best to use dust extracted wood shavings as the dust can cause problems; straw is fine it's hay that can cause problems with spores.
Thanks guys, I feel like I've hijacked the thread! Ooops, sorry timbur!
I'm on the shavings case tomorrow, and grit shopping
I've got 3 chickens in an eglu, got it 2nd hand so didn't cost the earth.
They're fun to watch, my 5 year old gets his small camping chair out & sits wathcing them!
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Meet my boy George. He's got free range of the bottom of our garden and a harem of 5 ladies to keep him busy.
Chickens = time thieves. Nice way to spend a few minutes and a cuppa, stood watching them rootle around...
We have 4 hybrids ( 1 Black rock, sole survivor of first intake, and 3 Rhode/Light sussex crosses ). They are in a Forsham ark, house upstairs and run below, which stands on a piece of weldmesh and gets moved to new location on the lawn every 3-5 days. Lawn gets scarified and manured all in one go and grows better than ever. We have local foxes, but with run and weldmesh they can't get in and the birds take themselves up to bed at night.
you realy, realy, realy do need one of these
[url= http://www.chicken-house.co.uk/acatalog/VSBb_Automatic_Door_Opener.html ]http://www.chicken-house.co.uk/acatalog/VSBb_Automatic_Door_Opener.html[/url]
(unles you sit at home every evening wioth nothing to do)
C
I wish you could get an auto pop hole opener for the eglu. If I get up late, they are bashing the door down!
This is a coop I helped a friend build in Portland Oregon following instructions from Chris King. It was a work in progress when this picture was taken. We had to line the base, walls and roof with chicken wire to keep predators out.
Sadly a runaway dog claimed one of the chickens when they were out during the day.
Our chickens live here. Clearly someone else uses it to sleep in the daytime!
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It's a 4 egg day today :O)
bit early in the day to do a count yet.......
😳
I'm new to this remember!
Second the VSb opener - bleedin brilliant piece of kit. 4 x AA batteries last over a year as far as i can tell and it works perfectly. The only minor issue is that in the height of summer it gets light so early that your chickens may get let out at about 4am when the foxes will still be around. You can get over this by attaching a simple timer to the VSB which overrides the light sensor in the morning, but not at night.
you can see the opener in this pics of my home made hen house (old garage doors that were hanging around.
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Another recommendation is to get a feeder like this:
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You can get them off ebay for about £15 but I made this for about £6, including the barrel and a pheasant feeder spring. It takes about 30kg of feed and stops wild birds and rats getting at the food.
Another fox deterent is the electric netting which I think also works brilliantly. My two dogs have both been zapped by it and won't go anywhere neer the fence now! A bit pricey (like the VSB) but it will hold its value really well and you can always sell it on ebay for very little loss.
With this setup (and a very good 35ltr galvanised drinker) we've been able to leave our 6 chickens alone for a couple of weeks at a time with just someone popping in every other day to collect the eggs.
How does that feeder work?
This is a feeder I made which must hold 40 to 60kg - it's hard to get at as inside the pen but have to watch for evidence of rats trying to get to it.
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Not got a good pic of the drinker but it's 30 litres; I use Vanodine V18 to stop it going green.
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Mudshark: That's the drinker.... best I've come across so far. How does the Vanodine V18 work?
The feeder is basically a 25kg chutney barrel with a 1" hole drilled in the bottom. Over this hole you fit the pheasant feeder spring - the pellets go down into the spring and when the chickens peck it a few pellets fall out. They get the idea very quickly. The springs are deigned to work with wheat and so are coiled a bit tightly for layers pellets, but you simply stretch the spring out a bit to open it up and allow the pellets to come out.
Legs are just 3 bits of 2x2 bolted onto the side of the drum. fill and forget 🙂
other thing I forgot to mention was another vote for real full fat creosote on the hen house. personally I like the smell and the fact that it melts red mite on contact is just perfect. need to reapply it some time soon.
Vanodine V18; don't know how it works but it's safe for the chickens - good for them even - but stops algae and whatever growing, contains iodine maybe.
I like that feeder of yours. Mine was made from an old desk.
Better pic of the drinker - costs £27 from my local supplier though I got for a lot less than that before the pound got hit; actually that's one of the few things I had to pay for along with mesh for the pen and hinges for the house - the rest was scavenged.
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all these thigns on stilts look like they ought to come with instructions to 'light blue touch paper and stand well back'
Some great ideas here :O)
Cheers
Tim
Same drinker except I have the galvanised version - managed to get a second hand one for about £16. I second the 'using scavenged bits' theory - with the exception of the VSB (£60 ebay) and the netting/energiser (£70 ebay), both of which I could sell on for about the same money), I've spent very little indeed.
I've toyed with chicken ownership but I'm still undecided. I'm sure I heard a while back that you need permission from the council in urban areas, is that true?
Doubtfull. Mrs SB was unsure about it and now wouldn't be without them!
I'd just get a couple and see how you go. There should be no probem as long as you're not in a tennanted property that has a clause like that in the tennancy agreement
C
It's possible that there's a clause in the deeds about livestock but unlikely. Other than that the council would only be interested if you keep too many or have a too large house for them - I believe 50 chickens is the max and the house can't be 2 stories.
Edit - Some info here:
http://www.nfumutual.co.uk/lifestyle/keeping-chickens.htm
re: councils - you really need to check. Also worth going through your deeds regardless of whether it's ex/current council or not. In ours for example there is a random clause expressly forbidding us to keep pigs.
ive got 38 hens/cockrels now had about 45 until the fox came for the last time... we have a big range of breeds from light sussex to buff orpington's we've even got one that lays baby blue eggs the best fox deterrent is to get a gun and ex battery hens are cr@p there ex for a reason because they have been used to the limits and are on the brink of death 😯
Mine says no chickens. But it also says no caravans and campers vans and we've had those on the street for years!
My neighbours have given us the thumbs up and other neighbours have had chickens for a couple of years.
So Taka, what do you do with all those eggs? Been tinkering with the idea of getting a load more, but not sure about the logistics.
Are you using electric netting/what sort of area do they have to roam about in?
We've had two (a Neera and a Goldline) for the last year or so and they are little egg laying machines. One a day each for pretty much every day over winter!
However... when they were allowed to fully roam the garden, they ruined two veg beds and the lawn, so now they only get let out when supervised (every night) and we extended their run to say sorry. They really are characters though. Next time you have leftover spagetti, give them a handful and see what they do. Ours think it's worms and spend the next five minutes going mental around their run with a beakful.
Talking about bark though, ours have had that as their run floor for a year and no problems. We do change it every weekend though.
ex battery hens are cr@p there ex for a reason because they have been used to the limits and are on the brink of death
Well not always as I still have an ex-batt that I've had since Aug '08 and she still lays an egg a day. She is an exception though; and POLs are the best option of course. But I really enjoyed watching the ex-batts change once getting some space and ground to play with.
Our deeds say no livestock, but apparently chickens don't count as livestock. (That's what I'm sticking to.)
At our old house, they used to get up on the garden wall to sunbathe, without us realising. It was only when we were moving that we mentioned having chickens to the lady over the road and she went to get her husband to prove she wasn't going crazy and seeing chickens on walls 🙂
I used to have chickens, loved 'em. One in particular used to enjoy being picked up and taken for a walk. She liked to drink tea out of a saucer. Try singing to them, they will sing back.
On the no chickens covenant. It's not criminal law, it's civil law, and enforcement of it depends on the covenantor still being alive, and caring enough to do something about it. Have another look at your title deeds, you may be ok.
4 more eggs today :O)
Just do it!
Mine are eating brussel sprout leaves and purple sprouting brocolli leaves at present and loving it.
Chucking snails in is always good for a laugh too.
Slugs. They will learn to enjoy them!
sharkbait - either eat them mainly the ones from the less rated hens like the light Sussex or incubate the bigger more expensive reeds like the buff orpington's some of them roam about the fields when they feel like it and others are in a big run which is about 25ft square with a chicken wire fence that's about 6ft high foxes can jump over it if they wanted to
Great excitement at Harry Towers! 4 girls arrive in the morning, children actually helping prepare chicken house! Great tips on chicken care on STW site 😀
Excellent. They really are ace. You'll never waste so much time doing nothing as you will enjoying the company of chickens.
Bet you don't sleep tonight!
You def. won't sleep tomorrow night worrying about them.
List of names exceeds 20, got to reduce to 4! Raining like stink here, hope the shed's watertight. Can't wait 🙂
Amazing! Eating out of my hand and laid 2 eggs on the 5th day of living here! I'm chuffed 😀
I got a small-ish (500ml) screw top food container from Sainsburys for grain.
Once trained, I can shake the pot & they come running, which is a funny sight!
It makes them easier to get in if I go out!