The one thing we have done almost from the beginning is keep chickens. Up to now they have been mainly kept for eggs. Some times we buy a few cockerels to fatten up for meat. Sometimes one of the girls ends up in the pot, not often though for two reasons; They are pretty scrawny, and they are funny. Yes I mean funny ha ha, they provide endless entertainment, despite being fairly stupid they often have big personalities and some have huge egos. At the moment they are pretty much free range, having the run of the garden. We keep them out of the orchard and away from my veg patch though, as they happily destroy every thing in sight, and therein lies the problem. Our slightly hippy totally free range animal policy has proved to be impractical as probably any country dweller will tell you.
We did take on board some things, we generally don´t name our animals, dogs and cats excepted. You have to have certain frame of mind from the outset, generally animals must pay their way.We are not vegan so some will end up as a meal. A small holding, however small, is a farm, animals all have a job to do, sentimentality has to be kept to a minimum.
So back to chickens, the long term plan is to try and find duel purpose birds meat and eggs. This is a little out of sinc with our neighbours, all of whom eat chickens raised at home but tend to raise two varietities of bird and only eat cockerels (They do use old hens who no longer lay for making chicken stock.) Buying hens for eggs or cockerels for fattening up is easy here, There are plenty of shops selling young chickens and there is a livestock market 3 times a month.
Our current girls are a little long in thebeak and now lay infrequently so we have just bought three more who will join them shortly. In the spring we will add a new cockerel and start looking for a larger breed of bird. Steve has named the new chicken run Stonehenge and has it well under way.
This is Stonehenge under way, not a great photo,but its gives the idea.
We did take on board some things, we generally don´t name our animals, dogs and cats excepted. You have to have certain frame of mind from the outset, generally animals must pay their way.We are not vegan so some will end up as a meal. A small holding, however small, is a farm, animals all have a job to do, sentimentality has to be kept to a minimum.
So back to chickens, the long term plan is to try and find duel purpose birds meat and eggs. This is a little out of sinc with our neighbours, all of whom eat chickens raised at home but tend to raise two varietities of bird and only eat cockerels (They do use old hens who no longer lay for making chicken stock.) Buying hens for eggs or cockerels for fattening up is easy here, There are plenty of shops selling young chickens and there is a livestock market 3 times a month.
Our current girls are a little long in thebeak and now lay infrequently so we have just bought three more who will join them shortly. In the spring we will add a new cockerel and start looking for a larger breed of bird. Steve has named the new chicken run Stonehenge and has it well under way.
These are the new girls, living in the broody coop for the time being.
Three important rules for introducing new chickens into the flock.
1. Always introduce more than one at a time. A single bird will get badly bullied and may never integrate.
2. Always keep them separate for a few weeks, they may be ill(you don´t want your current flock infected) and they need time get used to you and their new environment. We gradually let them spend time with the other chickens in the daytime before putting them in the same coop.
3.Put them in with the others in the dark, and try and make other changes at the same time, clean the coop, introduce new toys, rocks, and a big bowl green veg to the run. This distracts the current flock and means than they have other things to focus on.
Remember chickens can be really mean.
I will let you know how it all goes.
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