Beginners guide to keeping Chickens

Keeping Chickens

admin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:41:27 +0000

This blog is a record of a total novice’s decision’s and experiences as I start to keep chickens.

Chickens First ???

admin — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:59:31 +0000

A few weeks ago we brought a book about keeping chickens and I started to research what was required. Once we had looked at all the different breeds of chicken we spent quite a lot of time pretty much liking most of them and not really making any decisions. We happened to be travelling back to Newmarket and I had made a wrong turn and pulled into a turning area and noticed a sign saying “point of Lay Hens” knocked on the door and 5 minutes later we had agreed to collect 2 GoldLine hens 2 weeks later.

Design & Build the chicken house

admin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 22:18:29 +0000

We decided that we would locate the chickens at the bottom of our garden. There is fairly long line of conifers all the way along the back of the garden which we preceeded to trim away the lower branches and expose an area approx 10 -12 feet wide and probably 50 ft long. we are planning on 2-4 chickens so they had planty of room.

I looked for specific plans for a chicken house on the internet and was disappointed with what I found so proceeded to gather together all the wood I had stacked here and there and design my own. The only criteria I had in my mind was that it needed to be fiarly easy to clean and bid enough to allow us to expand our flock should we want to.

This is what I came up with:

Chicken house design

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 06:47:41 +0000

In response to some questions I have been asked here are some more details on the house I built.

Getting the chickens

admin — Sat, 09 May 2009 09:17:30 +0000

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.

Adding chickens to the hen house

admin — Sat, 09 May 2009 13:32:55 +0000

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.

Adding more chickens to an existing flock…

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:27:41 +0000

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.

Wing Clipping?

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:54:46 +0000

I originally had hoped that I would not have to clip my chickens wings but after numerous attempts to stop them flying over the fence I gave in and clipped them. My fence is 4 feet high and a couple of the chickens did fly over for the first 2-3 weeks but eventually this got less and less except for just one of them which got in the habit of flying over pretty much every day. As installing a taller fence would have been costly and not really practical clipping the chickens wings was the only answer.

Broody hen

admin — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 08:26:29 +0000

For the last week or so one of the hens has become broody and is constantly sitting on a nest. I have read a few things about ways you can stop them being broody one of which is to place a bucket or cardbaord box over them for 24 hours. Although I am sure this would not harm the chicken I decided it was not an approach I would like to take.

To try and encourage then hen to snap out of its broody frame of mind I have split the nesting boxes into 3 sperate comparments rather than on large box. This was more for the other hens to esure the broody hen did not put them off. I remove the broody hen every day from the nesting box and try to keep her out as long as posible but as soon as she gets the chance to go back she does. Not sure if this approach will work we will just have to wait and see. If anyone knows a better way of dealing with this please let me know.

Broody no more…

admin — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:38:50 +0000

I finally managed to stop the hen being broody. Well to be honest I don’t know if it stopped naturally or it was what I did that stopped it.

For about three weeks I had been taking the broody hen out of the nesting box in the morning and putting her the other side of the fence for most of the day so she could not go back in. But of course every evening when I let her back in she raced straight back into the house and sat broody once again.

I assume that every evening this was undoing any good i was doing during the day so after about three weeks i decided to modify the house to add a lock out panel for the nesting boxes every evening.

After 2 days and 2 nights of doing this she is back to her normal self so I think it might have done the trick but as I said earlier maybe she would have snapped out of it anyway. When it happens again I will get a better idea of it’s effectiveness.