Beginners guide to keeping Chickens

Building the chicken house and run was all done in a bit of a rush as when I ordered the chickens they were going to be arriving in 2 weeks. Well thoses 2 weeks have now passed and I am off to collect them today. Luckily at a car boot I got hold of a large basket with a metal grille front that is perfect for collecting them and it was a bargain at only £3.

I read what I could about what to do when introducing chickens to the house for the first time. So I closed the pop hole and put the birds in the house, they were obviously pretty stressed but I opened the door after about 2-3 hours and they stayed in the house for another 30-40 minutes before they plucked up the courage to come out. As soon as they did come out they quickly started scratching around and feeding.

I forgot to mention they were “Goldline” (2) hens and I had no idea how long we would have to wait before they started laying. I was really pleased that evening at dusk they both went into the house good as gold.

Soon after introducing the first 2 (Goldline) chickens we decided a total of four chickens would be just the right number for us. Once you start keeping chickens you start to realise just how many local suppliers there are of both chickens and feed etc. that I had not even noticed beofre and sure enough only 2 miles away was a local breeder that had quite a few different breeds of chicken for sale.

We arranged to pop over and collect 2 White sussex point of lay hens. As a total newcomer to keeping chickens I had not even thought about vaccination when I collected the first 2 but I soon relaised that it is important to make sure that your supplier follows a strict vaccination program to make sure you are buying good healthy stock, our supplier uses the following program..

Age              Disease                                     Advised vaccine                    Route of administration   
   
Day 1            Mareks                                         Hatchery Injection                Injection  

Day 3-5       Salmonella enteriditis             Gallivac Se                                 Drinking water  

Day 17-19  Salmonella enteriditis             Gallivac Se                                 Drinking water 
 
Day 25         Infectious Bursal Disease      Intervet – Gumboro D78      Drinking Water  
 
Week 8         Avian Rhinotracheitis            Merial Nemovac                       Spray

Week 10            “Inactivated ND/IB/
                           Egg Drop Syndrome”            Intervet IBMulti+ND+EDS    Injection   

Week 13          Avian Encephalomyelitis   Lohmann Avipro AE               Drinking Water   

Week 14 to      “Inactivated ND/IB/
transfer             Egg Drop Syndrome”          Intervet IBMulti+ND+EDS    Injection   

I checked with the supplier of our first 2 chickens and they told me that thay were vaccinated but could not give this level of detail so we will have to wait and see what happens.

Bringing them home…. 
I wish we had gone to collect them a little earlier as by the time we got home it was late afternoon and there was very little time to shut them in the chicken house to acclimatise so when it started to get dark the two goldlines roosted in the house good as gold and the white sussex were nowhere to be seen.

As it was getting dark we looked high and low and eventually found both of them roosting in two different trees. Over the next few evenings  we went through the ritual of searching the trees to find them a putting them in the hen house. After about 5 days they got the idea and have roosted in the chicken house ever since but if I decide to introduce any more to the flock they will spend 2-3 house shut in the house before I let them out just to make sure I don’t have to go through all that hassle again.