The top 5 things to know before you decide to have chickens in your life!
Everybody is doing it! From London to Llandudno chickens are appearing in back gardens, squawking and scratching and sometimes kicking up a stink!
They need care!
Chickens are not just feathery garden ornaments. If you ever closely studied the number of ways chickens can die, you might carefully re-consider any decision to take them on. I prefer to alert you as, with knowledge ahead of the game, you do have a fair chance of successfully keeping hens. The problems are varied and probably have a place in a future blog but if you take the approach that essentially, it’s an ongoing fight against the many and varied parasites and pests you are on the right track.
Make sure they have shade in the heat and cover in the rain; ensure water is clean and fresh, and food not allowed to grow mouldy. If you don’t have the luxury of rolling acres you will need to think about what you will use in their run as in no time the ground will be bare earth.
By all means let them in the garden but don’t be annoyed when they dig up seedlings, spread the borders on to the lawn and eat most of the things you think look pretty. Oh.. and keep the coop and run clean or they will smell..
They need protection
It’s not just the mini pests that are a problem, the much bigger, and furry, four legged ones are another battle-front to consider. You will need fox and badger proof fencing and you’ll need to train the family dog. Chicks can be snatched by birds of prey – and by cats so don’t let them out unprotected too young. Some areas have crafty mink on the prowl and stoats and ferrets have also been known to have a go at chooks. You might pay up to £40-£50 for a handsome hen but to a predator it’s a chance for lunch so never scrimp on the perimeters of your chicken area, it will only end in tears!
It can be a long-term commitment
My mother-in-law had a cockerel that lived till it was 13. Chickens can, with the right care, live into their teens and I’ve had many reach 7 or 8. Old chickens don’t lay many eggs if at all. Make sure when you take on a hen it’s for life, as although they don’t all live that long, they can and after years of service, entertainment and fun, make sure you are able to be there for them when the end comes, in whatever form that might be.
They like friends
Maybe you think you only need one egg a day (or more accurately speaking in every 36 hours) so you only need one hen, I hope you don’t decide this. I can only write from years of observation but chickens love ‘hanging out’ with other chickens, they chat, they really do! A solitary hen is a sad sight so you are letting yourself in for a flock, not a hen…
Chicks and cockerels
In a moment of madness, you may decide (for sentimental, or educational reasons) to buy chicks, or even hatch your own eggs, after all you can get everything on the internet now, can’t you?
It’s so exciting, your incubator arrives, you study the instructions, you procure eggs…
The chicks are beautiful, fluffy and cute! Not only can you start to produce eggs, you will have done it with hens that you raised yourself! Hmmm, thing is, we know life does not always go with our plans. What will you do with the 3 male chickens that you didn’t plan on and will not be welcomed by people who live nearby? By the time they are 3-5 months old and all loudly crowing to welcome the dawn (and dusk) your previously friendly neighbours may be complaining, banging on your door and indeed you may also be fed up with noise of chicken early alarm calls ..?
Avoid this scenario. If you want backyard hens buy sexed point of lay (or at least off heat) stock, life will be much easier.
I have homed cockerels abandoned in lay-bys in cardboard boxes, scared and in poor condition it’s not their fault.
Leave the cockerels to the professionals or those in isolated areas and enjoy happy, much quieter, hens. As you will now be seeing there is enough to worry about already without the complications of taking on cockerels.
Good luck!
The 5 top reasons why you need chickens in your life!
Author Jill Wilson
Jill is the co-founder of Georges Chicken Remedies, ‘We make scents for chickens!’