hens in a town garden

tedandbetty

Just wondering if anybody would know what breed to chickens would be best suited to keeping in a town Garden?
we have some space at the back that would suit a few small hens i would think.
and we have an old dog house that would be suitableas as a house for them.
what i would like is a small breed to hen that would lay eggs for us.

can anyone recommend such a breed and where would i get them in the cork area?

regards

Ted

babystrawberry

I thought hens did a lot of scratching the ground and rooting so i would think if you ahd a town garden they would eventaully go down to the earth on your lawn (i suppose this is depending on if you let them loose in teh garden or in a hatch .... hope fully not as would be very confined for them)

Would ahve to make sure neighbours cat doesnt get over teh wall and nab some ?

I was at the Cork Summer show there the other week and i thought i saw a fella selling chicks and ducklings.
You would possibly find them on donedeal or Buy and Sell ?

olaola

Just move the run around the garden, so they get a new patch everytime they've worn the grass away.

ems_12

My brother kept hens for a short while - he got them off a local farmer, who was happy to sell them on for a few bob.

One word of warning though is that they are slightly dirty/smelly:(, although we couldn't move our coop around so maybe that would help

flying _squirl

Hey thar! i think i might be able to help, just a few questions thoe, are you after chickens or hens (eating or eggs?) how big (roughly) is the space youve got? do you want a small breed of hen (means smaller eggs) or does that matter? and were you looking for rare breeds or just your standard hen/chicken?

westwicklow

What have you got in mind Flying Squirl?

flying _squirl

first off, sorry for the dire spelling, spellcheck in firefox has dissapeared.
ok, well if they were goin for hens and wanted a small breed ide recomend banthom hens. fully grown they're about the size of a pidgon. unfortunatly this also means their eggs are pritty small too. if they just wanted a few hens for the lulz ide say get some of your standard battery/red hens.
if your stuck for space get three hens and set up a small pen. ide recomend about 3x2 meters, that should keep em happy (with banthoms you could probibly get away with smaller). idealy a bigger one would be better but you could even get away with a much smaller one but they wouldnt be as happy (and then the egg quality drops, see battery reared hens' eggs).
weve got nine hens and a rooster outside in a pen roughly 9x5 meters made out of those fence things they put around building sites (painted green so they're not as ugly). the good thing about using these is that we can move em but thats not very practical in a small space.
idealy youd want to be able to move the pen during the year because they wont take long in scratching away all the grass n goods out of their patch but they will be happy with just the one spot. a good thing to note is that you can give em most of the green waste from the kitchen and even the cuttings from the lawn, they go mad for it.

hmm, i kinda wandering off here... ill stop till we find out more about what they want

time lord

Rhode Island reds. Wife swears by them.

SecretGarden

time lord wrote: »

Rhode Island reds. Wife swears by them.

I agree, Rhode Island Reds are great hens to lay and continue to do so for many years.

There is a general misconception that the common egg laying hybrid produced by hatcheries is a Rhode Island Red. NOT SO its a hybrid with RIR in it's ancestry. These birds lay an egg a day from about 26 wks old to about 75 - 80 weeks old - then they molt and begin to lay again after several months but not so prolifically. As hens are born with the eggs they will lay in their lifetime the hybrids are spent at a much younger age.

RIRs will continue to lay for several years and while the hybrids will begin to loose their looks after the first year the RIRs will continue to look pretty for several.

If you are looking for information in general on chickens, there is lots of really good stuff about breeds of hens and their characteristics in www.poulacapplepoultry.com

Happy Decision Making...

tedandbetty

thanks for your reply's guy and sorry for not posting back earlier.
what we are looking for is as follows.
a relatively small hen that can live happily in a small space.
i would like something diffeent to the common red hen you see in most places but not something that is so rare that you cannot get one!
for laying eggs as opposed to eating as my wife loves to bake and they could be handy for this too.

in short what we are looking for is as follows.

a small bird that looks nice in the garden and lays nice eggs.

regards

TED

flying _squirl

bantams are what you want then id say. they're not particularly rare, are quite small and some of the breeds are great to look at and you can get different colour eggs depending on the breed. google images will show you a quick sample of the mad varietys available.
bdw, a handy tip: generally you can tell the colour of the eggs by looking at the colour of their ears.

tedandbetty

flying _squirl wrote: »

bantams are what you want then id say. they're not particularly rare, are quite small and some of the breeds are great to look at and you can get different colour eggs depending on the breed. google images will show you a quick sample of the mad varietys available.
bdw, a handy tip: generally you can tell the colour of the eggs by looking at the colour of their ears.

when you say they are quite small i presume that they lay small eggs too?

are the eggs big enough to eat? or go baking with?

LisaO

I have bantams and large poultry & don't find the bantam eggs that much smaller. Plus, if you have maybe 2 or 3 hens & they are laying regularly you will end up with 12-20 eggs a week, so even if the eggs are on the small side, that's a lot of eggs!

You can get many different bantams & a lot of these are minature versions of larger poultry. Poultry with feathered feet tend to scratch about a bit less & so won't do so much damage to the ground.

Personally, I find the pekin bantams to be much friendlier than the some of the other varieties:

http://www.omlet.co.uk/breeds/breeds.php?breed_type=Chickens&breed=Pekin+Bantam

They come in some beautiful colours too.

Sussex bantams would be lovely too but no idea if you can even get them in Ireland.

SecretGarden

Speaking of bantams, does anyone know where I might be able to find some Buff Orpington Bantams, I saw some recently and would love to have a few.

flying _squirl

tedandbetty wrote: »

when you say they are quite small i presume that they lay small eggs too?

are the eggs big enough to eat? or go baking with?

LisaO prity much said it all. heres a quick picture of a bantam hamburg's egg beside a 2 euro for refrence (sorry about the quality, camera phone)



on a side note, if you've been eating shop bought eggs you'll notice a slightly different flavor (more... crisp? ) and the yolk tends to be a bit more orange

Sailor Boy

Hi as this is my first time of useing boards.ie i hope u'll forgive any mistakes,
i am realy interested in keeping chickens for eating and laying, however, I am concerned about the attract rats does the keeping of chicknes and our furey 4 legged friend go hand in hand

Sailor Boy

flying _squirl wrote: »

first off, sorry for the dire spelling, spellcheck in firefox has dissapeared.
ok, well if they were goin for hens and wanted a small breed ide recomend banthom hens. fully grown they're about the size of a pidgon. unfortunatly this also means their eggs are pritty small too. if they just wanted a few hens for the lulz ide say get some of your standard battery/red hens.
if your stuck for space get three hens and set up a small pen. ide recomend about 3x2 meters, that should keep em happy (with banthoms you could probibly get away with smaller). idealy a bigger one would be better but you could even get away with a much smaller one but they wouldnt be as happy (and then the egg quality drops, see battery reared hens' eggs).
weve got nine hens and a rooster outside in a pen roughly 9x5 meters made out of those fence things they put around building sites (painted green so they're not as ugly). the good thing about using these is that we can move em but thats not very practical in a small space.
idealy youd want to be able to move the pen during the year because they wont take long in scratching away all the grass n goods out of their patch but they will be happy with just the one spot. a good thing to note is that you can give em most of the green waste from the kitchen and even the cuttings from the lawn, they go mad for it.

hmm, i kinda wandering off here... ill stop till we find out more about what they want

Does the keeping of hens attract rats and if so is there anything can be done to avoide attracting vermin please

SecretGarden

Sailor Boy wrote: »

Hi as this is my first time of useing boards.ie i hope u'll forgive any mistakes,
i am realy interested in keeping chickens for eating and laying, however, I am concerned about the attract rats does the keeping of chicknes and our furey 4 legged friend go hand in hand

First off - rats are everywhere, whether they visit regularly or not is down to hygiene. If foraging is good in your patch then they will be back, if it's very good, they will move in, if they can find a suitable nesting area. It doesn't have to become a problem if the area is kept free from waste food and space is kept open with no place for them to hide safely.

Having said all of that; it's a good idea to keep a close eye for trails, worn patches, trampled grass, bare earth, these are their roadways. Regularly bait the area around your garden. (Baiting safely is another thread). This will serve as a population indicator and control.

They only go hand in hand if hygiene is poor and cover is provided, it doesn't have to become a problem if approached sensibly.

Good luck with your endeavour! It's worth all the effort.

Myroe

I am trying to find out if there are any people in the North West Donegal area who keep hens in their garden - especially if they live in a town.... I'm researching a possible tv story about how popular hens in gardens have become. If you are in this area or perhaps another board member is - it would be lovely to hear from you.

super_metroid

i have 2 hens in my garden

they are rhode island red

they are good egg layers

as a breed they are very hardy, quiet and tame

they won't make a lot of noise

white leghorns are another common breed, but they are more nervous and make more noise

one of my hens jumps up on my shoulder and sits there like a parrot, she is lovely and tame

wexford202

Hi there. Our hen was sitting on what we thought was a couple of eggs and out she came monday evening with 13 chicks. Yes 13.

I took a photo but you cannot see them all as there is too many to get them to pose.

As for rats. Get a cat. My cat lives in harmony with the kittens. If you feed in one area they will attract no more than any other pet or animal

See the photo attached

mugugey

Hiya Ted
I live in town and have 3 chickens and one rooster.
Two of the girls are Fenton Blues and the other is a Daisybelle.
The Fenton Blues have brown feathers but lay blue eggs and the Daisybelle is a beautiful black and silver with a few of those iridescent green feathers but she lays brown eggs! The eggs are definately big enough to bake with -I baked my own birthday cake last week with them !
We have had no problems with rats or mice but that might be because we have a dog too...?!
We got them from a lady down in Kilrush that we found on done deal and if you're in Cork (I think you said Cork?) then that wouldnt be too far for you to go to get them but I'm not sure if shes selling them anymore.
Hope this helps!

Meg