General Chat

Maybe these ones werent looked after properly then.I dont suppose the heat helped either...phew lol

My parents had some little chicks and they got eaten by rats. I was only about 5 so I dont know the ins and outs of it.

Marion

My cats usually sees the majority of them off Marion and I have a HUGE rabbit the size of a dog that scares the living daylights out of the rare ones who manage to make it through lol xx

I'm now picturing one of the nasty big rabbits/hares in watership down beating up a rat lol

Marion

LOL.xx

Muffy, have you thought about getting some rescued chickens?
There are places that collect redundant hens from the battery farm places and they apparently soon recover and learn to live naturally rather than in a cage sort of environment. Think they are free or cheap and you would be saving their lives.

Good luck,
Lizx

I've been keeping chooks here for 19 years.
The only sure cure for the fox problem is an electric wire at fox nose height - works all the time.
Interesting what you say about guinea fowl Ian,
the foxes took alll my females and my peahens because they insisted on laying clutches out in the paddock, - but the male guineas would chase foxes away. It sounds amazing , but I watched 3 of them chase a fox across 3 paddocks last year.

xxxx mick

The second hand battery hens or barn layers are a good idea - usuually you can pick up 18 month old hens very cheaply from your local egg farm.

Go for it Muffy,micks idea of [rescued] chickens is sound,and ,just think of all that chicken poo mixed in with your compost ,cor ,you would have giant veggies to go with your giant rabbit,wish i could have some chooks as well ,but don't have room [sniff]
Fred.

I have been looking after my sons 3 chooks for the last 3 weeks. We got 3 eggs per day at first. Then it was down to 2. We found one of them ways laying in a patch of long grass.

The only way to get 3 eggs was to leave them in the pen for most of the day.
The Golden retriever keeps the foxes away, but you have to watch she doesn't eat the chook food.

We are down to one hen and a cockerel plus our three pet ducks after a fox wiped out all of ours over the past year.We do put ours away as soon as it gets dusk but some of ours used to hop over the fence and wander around the orchard.We lost about 30 including some very pretty silkies.
It is great having fresh eggs and they have so much more colour and taste than shop bought, but will not replace our lost ones just so the b***** fox is kept in food.
We did walk our German Shepherd around to lay his scent but it didn't work.Hopefully the local farmers will soon have it sorted, then we might get some more.
If you do have a safe area for them , you should give it a go :))

xx Jill

Just seen about the poo mixed in with your compost-- you need to leave it quite awhile before using it on your garden as its too strong and can kill off some stuff

xx Jill

Start learning the word's Muffy lol.

Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken
Chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken,
Lay a little egg for me.
Chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken,
I want one for my tea.
I haven't had an egg since Easter,
And now it's half past three.
So, chick, chick, chick, chicken,
Lay a little egg for me

Thanks for all your replies.

I have to say I like the idea of rescuing the chickens I may try two from the friend of a friend as test pilots and if all goes well then I'll look into a rescuing others. xx

Hi Muffy. I've only read the first few posts so far, so at risk of repeating anything: here in Devon we have a wonderful lady, Jane, who rehomes ex-battery hens. It appears to be a growing trend (if that's the right word) now, to do that, and I'm all for it.

Have a read of this:-

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/3262109.stm - 28k

Glenys x

Thanks Glenys. Will do xx

About the hen poo in the compost, I haven't as yet used it for the garden, its still in the huge bins rotting away happily, when I turn it regularly it is loaded with worms, I haven't got a veggie patch any more, my hens have it lol, perhaps next year i may start another patch up, the gardens big enough.
I do have gardens either side of my large pond that we have Koi in, at the moment one is full of roses and sun flowers!

Does anyone know how long you have to leave chicken poo to rot before adding it to the garden, i know it's got a lot of amonia in and that will kill the plants if used fresh.

Gillie XX

hello muffy , there bbrilliant at recycling feed them all your raw veg waste including egg shells and some pellets then bag the doodys for next year compost, also if you feed ours cauliflower we get 4-6 oz double yolk eggs, if your worried about foxes have a humungus cage so there 99.8% frre range lol, we use straw for bedding or if you have a shredder thats even better, and get it off freecycle, sorry if this has all been said but i was eggsited

gillie im leaving mine 8 months could be wrong will wait and see the answerxx

hi, Muffy, a couple of basic points, ensure the henhouse is at least a foot off the ground, ie on legs/stilts. Next, when closing the hens up at night, make sure they are perched and not sitting on floor of house. In practice the floor shoud be latticed to allow air to circulate and also allow droppings to pass thru. If buying at 18 months, they will be good for about 2yrs, best to buy at "point of lay" about 6 months old. Hello Jill from Derek in France

Hi Muffy, I've kept hens for over 10 years. They don't smell if they are regularly cleaned out. Now quails smell awful.... anyway, we have about 20 hens in a big henhouse inside a wire enclosure that has a roof and is buried about a foot in the ground to stop foxes digging their way in, which they try to do. Yes, we have seen rats and have to deal with these. (Rat poison in a pipe the hens can't get into.) They are let out of their enclosure at lunchtime and free-range around the garden for the rest of the day, taking themselves to bed at dusk, when we shut the pen's door.

My girls and one boy are all different varieties so we have all different coloured eggs which are pretty - white, cream, light brown, dark brown, blue and olive and I'm about to buy some hens that lay a brick-red egg.

For rescued birds look on the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's "Chicken Out Campaign" website which gives you a link. Be warned that when these poor hens arrive they don't look very pretty to start with - my friend described hers as looking "oven-ready" as they had so few feathers. But now the feathers have grown back.