Chickens

[Paddy]

Has anyone experience of keeping chickens for home egg production?
What are the pros and cons?
I have access to free chickens, I have loads of space and a large barn in BG.

[d000hg]

We have done a few years now. Pros: lovely fresh eggs, and chickens are fairly low-maintenance and quite entertaining; comical and can be quite friendly.
Cons: you have to clean them out and deal with them attacking each other, you have to follow Defra rules which means you might have to provide a fully enclosed run if we have another resurgence of bird flu... we only just last week emerged from chickens legally having to be kept 'indoors' for several months to the extent farmers could no longer describe eggs as 'free range'.

If you have plenty of space and are quite outdoorsy they are fun. You can let them run around the garden when you're outside but be aware of predators - nobody likes dealing with the results of a fox attack - and they can attract rats too. We certainly enjoy them.

[WTFH]

What he said.

[northernladuk]

We have done a few years now. Pros: lovely fresh eggs, and chickens are fairly low-maintenance and quite entertaining; comical and can be quite friendly.
Cons: you have to clean them out and deal with them attacking each other, you have to follow Defra rules which means you might have to provide a fully enclosed run if we have another resurgence of bird flu... we only just last week emerged from chickens legally having to be kept 'indoors' for several months to the extent farmers could no longer describe eggs as 'free range'.

If you have plenty of space and are quite outdoorsy they are fun. You can let them run around the garden when you're outside but be aware of predators - nobody likes dealing with the results of a fox attack - and they can attract rats too. We certainly enjoy them.

This is absolutely spot on. Loved our 3 chickens. Got them from a school that grew the chicks as a class experiment but didn't want to keep them as chickens so very used to people and being handled. Very entertaining as d000hg says.

[d000hg]

This is absolutely spot on. Loved our 3 chickens. Got them from a school that grew the chicks as a class experiment but didn't want to keep them as chickens

That's where our first ones came from actually - some company sold the school a 'kit' including eggs and incubators for an exorbitant price and then offered to 'remove' the chicks once they were getting beyond the cute phase. Mrs d000hg being a softie persuaded me to save them. This was when we lived in our city town-house while waiting on the sale to go through on our current rural property, so they spent a couple of months living in our garage with a heat-lamp!

[Paddy]

We have done a few years now. Pros: lovely fresh eggs, and chickens are fairly low-maintenance and quite entertaining; comical and can be quite friendly.
Cons: you have to clean them out and deal with them attacking each other, you have to follow Defra rules which means you might have to provide a fully enclosed run if we have another resurgence of bird flu... we only just last week emerged from chickens legally having to be kept 'indoors' for several months to the extent farmers could no longer describe eggs as 'free range'.

If you have plenty of space and are quite outdoorsy they are fun. You can let them run around the garden when you're outside but be aware of predators - nobody likes dealing with the results of a fox attack - and they can attract rats too. We certainly enjoy them.

Thanks, this is most useful.

[WTFH]

ours used to be ex-battery, got them from the British Hen Welfare Trust.

[d000hg]

Thanks, this is most useful.

Very welcome. If you look around there are a wealth of chicken enthusiast forums like https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/ and https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...rule-the-roost and it can be worth getting a book as there's all sort of odd things to know about.

[northernladuk]

Very welcome. If you look around there are a wealth of chicken enthusiast forums like https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/ and https://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gr...rule-the-roost and it can be worth getting a book as there's all sort of odd things to know about.

And can't fault the gear from Omlet.co.uk. Not the cheapest but was eggcellent...

[WTFH]

And can't fault the gear from Omlet.co.uk. Not the cheapest but was eggcellent...

We used to have two of these: https://www.solwayrecycling.co.uk/sh...try/hen-houses