Chickens

[Skean Dhude]

(5 February 2012, 01:03)uks Wrote: Try geese as a guard dog nasty little bug=ers.

When I was a kid the guy at the bottom of the road had a large orchard. Nice fruit and he had geese. I found out the hard way they were good guards. Took military type operations and much planning to get some fruit. Took some very sore nips from the little buggers.

(5 February 2012, 10:57)bigpaul Wrote: you dont need a cockerel if you have chickens for eggs, you only need a cockerel if your breeding for meat.

But chickens only last a few years. Even if you want them just for eggs you need to replace them and that is where a cockerel comes in.

[bigpaul]

(5 February 2012, 11:54)Skean Dhude Wrote:

(5 February 2012, 01:03)uks Wrote: Try geese as a guard dog nasty little bug=ers.

When I was a kid the guy at the bottom of the road had a large orchard. Nice fruit and he had geese. I found out the hard way they were good guards. Took military type operations and much planning to get some fruit. Took some very sore nips from the little buggers.

(5 February 2012, 10:57)bigpaul Wrote: you dont need a cockerel if you have chickens for eggs, you only need a cockerel if your breeding for meat.

But chickens only last a few years. Even if you want them just for eggs you need to replace them and that is where a cockerel comes in.

it may be cheaper to buy "point of lay" chicks than a cockerel.

[Timelord]

Had a friend who got chickens & ducks a few years back.. He will not be replacing the ducks as they quickly turned his garden to mud pate'.
the chickens do grub up the garden a bit, but nowhere near as destructive as the ducks or as dirty. Ducks need at least a small pool too.
Foxes is a big issue! Your outdoor run must be well enclosed and the night time quarters must be fox proof, including the floor. Standard chicken wire is not fox proof and they can easily chew through it. You need heavier duty wire mesh panels. Preferebly buried in the floor too. Foxes will dig under the pen edge and come up inside if able.
Make sure you never come home too late to herd the chickens/ducks etc in from the outer pen to their night time abodes. Dusk is the critical time. foxes will be more likely to hunt from then onwards.
1 fox will kill many or all birds in a hen house whilst only taking one, so it is a costly problem to have and not good if in a survival situation. Build the poultry run & house v.well or it is likely to occur at some point. once a fox scouts the place it will keep coming back and may bring friends. Foxes are adept climbers too, so really it is ideal to have a roofed & floored outdoor run, possibly adjacent to the hen house, as well as a well fenced garden. due to the mess and grubbing up done by the birds the grass areas will need time to recover. One way to do this is to have a movable outdoor run or a way of partioning half or sections off, so at least one area can be left to recover whilst the birds are in another.
Beware hungry 2 legged predators also in times of need.
TL.

[Carnebwen]

(7 February 2012, 01:36)Timelord Wrote: 1 fox will kill many or all birds in a hen house whilst only taking one

goddamn this....

When I was younger and lived in Cornwall we kept chickens, geese, guinea foul, rabbits and bees etc. Damn Foxes would do this alll the time. We'd lose an entire set of goslings (that we'd sell to the butchers) every now and again. Of course back then it was the 80s. So Im pretty sure that fox was either snared or shot. Along with any rats that also took thier fancy to our grain.

[Rootsman]

I kept chooks for a few years an last year i decided to knock it on the head due to being invaded by rats, but since getting rid of them i miss not having the many eggs they layed so ive rebuilt an extended my chicken run an modified the henhouse, so i am about to get more birds. Rhode reds are good layers (well, the ones i had were)an i had some large leghorns from chicks which produced some sizeable an delicious eggs.

I think the rat problem was helped by me chucking scraps of food an scratch feed into the run which was a ready meal for our rodent friends so they built their nests under the henhouse, lots of straw an warmth, thankfully they never started eating the eggs, but they started breeding out of control. So this time i'm gonna keep their food in grain hoppers and any scraps will be put into some kind of container that is accessable to the chooks but not scattered all over the deck an feeding every rat in the viscinity. I'm also gonna not have straw all over the floor of the run and only use it in the henhouse nesting boxes, so hopefully that will keep the population down an if not at least i will have another food source.

[mikebratcher69]

I've got 6 ex battery chooks... isa warrens. I think there cross bred with rhodes though I'm not entirely sure.
They've laid since the day I got them I paid £20 from the hen welfare trust who specialise in rehoming ex batts, but you can buy them for about a tenner each in most places anyway.
I usualy get about 4 eggs a day which is fine for us for eating and cake making and such.
/greedy little buggers though just like puppies, they'll eat as much as you give them...

[uks]

(13 February 2012, 00:07)Carnebwen Wrote: [quote='Timelord' pid='6959' dateline='1328574989']
1 fox will kill many or all birds in a hen house whilst only taking one

I disagree, all these city as-holes think that they are cute and cuddly thats why fox hunting was banned. Blo-dy city people coming out in the country and spoiling it.

[bigpaul]

(15 April 2012, 14:18)mikebratcher69 Wrote: I've got 6 ex battery chooks... isa warrens. I think there cross bred with rhodes though I'm not entirely sure.
They've laid since the day I got them I paid £20 from the hen welfare trust who specialise in rehoming ex batts, but you can buy them for about a tenner each in most places anyway.
I usualy get about 4 eggs a day which is fine for us for eating and cake making and such.
/greedy little buggers though just like puppies, they'll eat as much as you give them...

glad to hear their still ok Mike, sounds like their thriving on your TLC!

[Kenneth Eames]

Keep it up Mike you're doing well. Keep the info coming. Kenneth Eames.

[mikebratcher69]

cheerss boys, theve been digging holes all over the garden the last couple of days!! i just laid a new gravel path around their pen so i didnt get covered in mud when it rained, and the girls dug a fair portion of it back up when they were worm hunting. it was hilarious trying to dig the path out first, they sat on my spade as i was digging "helping" me dig. if ive let them out in the garden, they follow me about, they let me pick them up reluctantly now and i had the pleasure of triming off some stuck on poo today...