[Closed] Tell me about keeping chickens....

Get ducks instead... way more fun and entertaining.
*You only need a small plastic pond / paddling pool for certain breeds as they dont actually swim all that much and more just to wash themselves and have a quick flap around in the water.

They destroy grass and plants like a plague of locusts. Your garden will look like a desolate waste ground within weeks. They attract urban foxes. They were probably responsible for my mates wife leaving him and moving abroad.

You wanted talking out of it, right?

We are just waiting for the British Hen Welfare Trust to start rehoming again, gonna put our names down for 4 retiree's. Will hopefully be ordering an Ark at the end of the week ready for the girls. Any tips greatfully received here too.

Get some geese instead for the home security win.

They destroy grass and plants like a plague of locusts. Your garden will look like a desolate waste ground within weeks.

All depends what size the garden is and how it is arranged. We have a large garden with massive borders and they don't ruin it at all. Wouldn't even know we had chickens and at one point we had 15 of them

I had 3, Margret Peckett, Eggwina Currie and Maggie Scratcher. They shat everywhere and ate everything. Maggie Scratcher never even layed eggs. Funny as **** though, used to bully the dog too.

We have a decent sized garden and we are considering 2 or 3 chickens.

I guess the ground immediately beneath the run might get ruined but when they are running free we should be fine.

Ducks have a certain appeal too. Not sure about asbo geese though......

2 or 3 chickens.

I guess the ground immediately beneath the run might get ruined but when they are running free we should be fine.

This. We've had 2-4 chickens at a time in a largeish garden and that was our experience.

Ducks on the other hand... we had 1, and all I can say is get a duck if you want your garden to be covered in 1000's of squishy duck "eggs"....

We had 6 chickens and 2 ducks. Certainly wouldn’t have ducks again. I sunk a kids sand pit into the pen to have a splash about in, which was fun watching but the water needs changing every day and it bloody stinks. Noisy as well.
Chickens were no trouble really once they’d settled in so we could let them out of the pen into the garden. They weren’t really interested in the plants, just the slugs and snails which they’d chase each other for. The eggs of course, were fantastic.

My parents have kept hens for about the last 20 years. They have a large pen at the end of the garden so they don't get to destroy the veg and flower beds. Very little work (though dipping their legs for mites is always fun). You do need to keep on top of the food storage to avoid rats but that's about it. If you have the space it's a great experience and the eggs are better than you can imagine. They've had loads of breeds over the years so we have a good idea of which are the most productive (like Marans etc. currently they have hybrids I think).

We’ve got 6 and let them roam around the garden during the day. It’s a good sized garden and fairly natural (ok unkempt) so, other than a fair bit of poo on the lawn they aren’t any trouble. They were my son’s idea and I wasn’t too keen at first, but they have a lot of character. It’s fun watching the rescue ones go from pitiful specimens to plump and healthy.

We’ve had them for a few years now and no fox problems yet although I know we have foxes in the village. We do have a dog though who is out in the garden a fair bit and I’ve heard that the smell of a dog keeps foxes away. Not sure if that is true, but no problems so far. We did lose one to what we think might have been a pine marten (based on the way it was killed) and a couple have died of natural causes.

Overall they are pretty easy to keep. They have a decent sized run so we can leave them locked up when we are away. Only need food and water topped up once a week, but it’s usually easy enough to find someone who will pop round to check on them and collect the eggs most days.

I have 6, well 7 but ones decided to move in with next door's chickens. They're no problems as long as you accept they'll mess up your flower beds (do a good job of weeding them though) and they do poo everywhere but it's not particularly offensive poo and it dissolves away relatively quick.

You can get batteries or point of lays. We have the latter and they seem a bit better adjusted than next door's ex battery hens, but they're all good. You should get no less than 3 I'd say. 4-6 is a decent flock and produces more eggs than you can eat.

We've just got rid of our chickens after 5 years.
Great at first, but they sh*t everywhere. They are forever coming into the house, so much so that we used to keep the doors shut all the time in stinking hot weather.
They are noisy. They do make little clucking sounds, but they can be as noisy as cockerels when they want to be,
I thinks it's cruel to keep them in a run, so they were free range all the day time.They scratch at any bit of ground, we've got a small line of gravel at the side of the house, they loved digging that up to find any bugs in it. They peck at any young shoots growing. My onions were ruined by them this year, despite having wire around them, they crawled through a tiny gap to get at them. That was the last straw.
They need cleaning out every week without fail, as their sh*t stinks and attracts thousands of flies. They're fine at first, you put up with it, but it is constant work tidying up after them.
We've now got 5 ducks, which are fine. They can be a bit noisy, they do dig the grass up a bit, but they generally don't dig the garden up. They are comical, pretty stupid creatures, but they are not at all friendly, they always run away when I go outside, whereas the chickens would run to me. I brought some up in an incubator once, even those birds were very standoffish, whereas you'd think they'd be domesticated after being brought up inside the house, but they werent.

I had to peruse one of our Chickens 'arsegina' yesterday to see if she was egg bound. As something of a townie, my new country style life is certainly an eye opener! Ours are on my gf's family farm, so a bit different to in a typical back garden. So far they've been fairly low maintenance.

We have kept chickens for 30 years, only 3 now there's less of us at home to keep a good supply of eggs (always nicer than bought ones). Fortunately we have a big garden so they have their own large fenced Stalag Luft area and don't strip it of everything. Learnt a lot over the years.
Don't let out in the main garden as they eat and dig up a lot, shit everywhere and then loiter trying to get in the back door etc. Brown hybrids at point of lay are cheap and good for 2 or 3 years then usually stop laying. Rescue ones we've had are hit and miss, we've had some real nasty psycho ones. Best ones we have had, and still have, are definite breeds from a nice farm near us, cost more but are healthy, lay regularly and live longer*. Just seem happier friendlier chickens with distinct characters.

Clip their wings, well one wing, if your fence isn't that high or covered over the top else they'll get away in the neighbouring trees and bushes to roost. Shut away at night and when they first start laying keep them in their house for longer than usual in the morning so they see it as the place to lay rather than finding other places outside (which you might miss or other things will get to first). Don't put scraps down or overfill an open feeder you'll get rats, get a rat proof feeder, they soon learn how to peck at it. Keep their water clean and regularly topped up. Have a decent fence / mesh wire for their area dug in a foot and remember to do the gate area (had a fox go under here before) . *A stoat is virtually unstoppable for ripping their heads off and killing them all, just pot luck if this happens - happened about 3 times over the years.

Overall it can be great keeping chickens with minimal maintenance. Easy for me to say though, mrs mainly looks after them! They are mini dinosaurs.

Chickens are the Best!
We had 7 ex batts that were deemed past their economic usefulness at 2 years old. They still layed an egg a day each for the next few years. And they tasted better than you can ever imagine!
Dogs will keep foxes away. We had a den of foxes in the woods, less than 100 yds from the chooks and they never went anywhere near them, maybe cos of the Jack Russell who regarded them as Her dinner, and one did meet that fate... If you have a dog ensure they're not hungry. It can be a pain to keep them separated. The other dog was fine though and would just keep an eye on them.
In winter they had porridge for breakfast, and mangos from LIDL year round. otherwise they ate scraps and loved earthworms, so if you start digging you'll get mobbed!
Their shit is pure gold for gardeners. Just about the best fertilizer you can get!

I’m interested in keeping too.

Genuine question, Does anyone know why the eggs taste better? Especially in the case of an ex-battery hen as above. Is it just freshness or the hens condition?

“and I’ve heard that the smell of a dog keeps foxes away. Not sure if that is true, “
We had 200+free range chickens, they lived with 3 farm collies in among them, foxes were a regular problem, they only stay away while the dogs are out ime.
Our dogs slept in the byre with the cows and calves, once they went to bed at night it would only be 20 mins before you could expect to see a fox.

Genuine question, Does anyone know why the eggs taste better?

What they are fed probably has a bearing on it. Plus they are your own eggs so people think they are better just because.

I’ve wanted to keep chickens for several years. mrs p says our (very small) back yard is too tiny... guidance generally seems to be three is the minimum number you should have... so what’s the thoughts on minimum area?