Keeping chickens (for eggs)

longshanks

deisemum do the cats not bother the hens?

deisemum

longshanks wrote: »

deisemum do the cats not bother the hens?

No the cats give them a wide berth. When we initially got the hens one hen just flapped her wings and both cats shot off in all directions but once they got over the shock they crept up for a nosey, hiding behind a head of cabbage. The hens were in their run so were safe. When we did let the hens have the run of the garden the cats got the odd peck and keep well back from them. The cats are very wary of the hens and I reckon the hens would win if it came to it.

If the hens feel threatened they start clucking like mad and they keep together.

ToxicPaddy

I am absolutely fascinated by all of this to be honest, would never even have considered the whole keeping hens thing, but fresh eggs everyday definitely would be a serious consideration if I was living somewhere I could have hens..

Deisemum, you seem to be a fairly decent setup there, cats cabbages and hens..

Something I may consider in the future..

deisemum

ToxicPaddy wrote: »

I am absolutely fascinated by all of this to be honest, would never even have considered the whole keeping hens thing, but fresh eggs everyday definitely would be a serious consideration if I was living somewhere I could have hens..

Deisemum, you seem to be a fairly decent setup there, cats cabbages and hens..

Something I may consider in the future..

Ah once you start eating your own home produce you're hooked. I only started growing things this time last year after I attended the Beer making talk at the local GIY (www.giyireland.com). DH now makes home brew

This year I'm planning on growing more varieties, hopefully we'll be eating our first lot of new potatoes in the next few weeks, salad stuff is coming along, I've got lots of different things on windowsills waiting to be hardened off and planted out but it's still cold especially at night.

I'm going to grow extra of somethings so I can add variety to the hens diet. If I'm cooking potatoes, rice, pasta, or veg I just cook a bit extra and give it to the hens, also left over fruit such as apples, melon, grapes go down a treat, they love all that sort of stuff. The colour of the yolks is striking compared to the majority of battery and even free range eggs that you get in shops and often food dye is in the hen food to give that bit of colour to start with.

Also free range doesn't mean that hens ever step outside the shed they're kept in, it just means they have access to going outside and that's usually a very small opening into a small area and the majority of hens cannot get out due to crowding and also to a few hens blocking the exit.

Sam Kade

deisemum wrote: »

They're very cheap to keep, a bag of layers pellets costs around €12 and lasts about 10 weeks

€12 is a rip off I am paying €7.5 for a 25kg bag of layers pellets.

deadman walking

where are you getting the 25kg bag for that price? what else do you feed them? i am trying to get some chicken wire at the moment to build the run befpre i get the chickens.i was looking at some cuckoo marans the other day thatb are just up the road from me, theyb seem like good birds,six weeks old and six euro each:D

dazed+confused

Black Dog wrote: »

I have four hens and two ducks and keep them in a Eglu.

One word of warning about the Eglu - the basic model has a very small "run" and when we bought it we got two extra sections to give them a bit more room and, in my mind, it was a good decision as otherwise they would be very, very confined which appeared very unnatural to me. When I am out in the garden I leave them out to wander about. My neighbour has two dogs which can come into my garden with ease and so I cannot leave the birds outside unattended.

Otherwise, our experience with the Eglu has been very positive. It is very easy to assemble and, most importantly, very easy to clean out.

Black Dog, Do the hens and ducks get on ok together in the same coop? I have 5 hens at the minute and would love to get a couple of ducks.

Black Dog

They get on perfectly well though at the moment one of the hens, a bantham, is broody and is always in a really foul mood and picks on the ducks, just makes a run at them and they run out of the way. No damage done. Otherwise, no bother whatsoever.

dazed+confused

Deadly, I'm definitely going to get a few ducks then. I think my pen would be more suited to them anyway as the ground has very poor drainage and is a bit boggy.

Do you have anywhere for the ducks to have a bit of a paddle? I've seen plenty of ducks that are kept without a pond, but it seems a bit mean.

deisemum

I know some people use old baby baths or paddling pools for their ducks.

dazed+confused

deisemum wrote: »

I know some people use old baby baths or paddling pools for their ducks.

I was just reading on a site there that things like this are ideal because you can change the water easily. I know from experience that ducks are way smellier than hens so this is important.


Can anyone tell me if domestic ducks are excessively noisy? I live in a housing estate, my neighbours don't mind the odd bit of clucking from my hens (and they love when I drop over some free range eggs) but I don't want to push my luck by getting anything louder.
I'd love to get a breeding pair of khaki campbells, are drakes any louder than ducks?

deisemum

Here's an unusual egg story in today's newspaper, an egg within an egg

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/its-no-yolk-as-shellshocked-farmer-finds-egg-inside-egg-2176149.html?from=dailynews

Sam Kade

deadman walking wrote: »

where are you getting the 25kg bag for that price? what else do you feed them? i am trying to get some chicken wire at the moment to build the run befpre i get the chickens.i was looking at some cuckoo marans the other day thatb are just up the road from me, theyb seem like good birds,six weeks old and six euro each:D

I get the pellets from Dairygold co-op. I used to let them roam free to eat grass worms etc but that came to an end about a week ago when a fox killed a hen in the yard. They have been housed since and are getting cabbage leaves and pellets until I have time to build a run for them. Hybrids is what I have, they can lay more than pure breeds. I paid €8 each for them as point of lay pullets.

Black Dog

Dazed and Confused,

Apologies for delay in replying but I have been without broadband since yesterday.

Re ducks and pond: I have a child's sandpit in the run and have it full of water. When I leave them out they make a bulletline for the garden pond and spend most of their time in there.

Ducks are not noisy at all; obviously a bit of quacking but certainly nothing to annoy the neighbours.

I'm not sure if keeping the ducks on a boggy area is the best - I have no particular information on which to base this but imagine having them on ground which is permanently wet might not be the best. On the other hand, they may enjoy it greatly and will certainly make plenty of holes in the ground.

deisemum

Sam Kade wrote: »

I get the pellets from Dairygold co-op. I used to let them roam free to eat grass worms etc but that came to an end about a week ago when a fox killed a hen in the yard. They have been housed since and are getting cabbage leaves and pellets until I have time to build a run for them. Hybrids is what I have, they can lay more than pure breeds. I paid €8 each for them as point of lay pullets.

Where's the Dairygold co-op?

dazed+confused

I've had simliar advice already actually. Although wild ducks thrive in swampy conditions domesticated breeds will suffer from the same foot infections that hens get if kept on wet ground. I dug the pen right down when I was building it and put in plenty of sand and gravel to help with drainage but it still gets boggy so I went down to the local builders merchants and bought corrugated perpex sheeting to cover the whole pen, it was a great solution.

Cabaal

Just curious, I know you can just put down woodchip and the like and keep the hen house in the one position but I note other hen houses can be moved around.

If you say moved it around on a lawn or just left chickens out of the run and around your garden from time to time what type of damage are they likely to do to the lawn?

Cabaal

deisemum wrote: »

Where's the Dairygold co-op?

Nearest one to Waterford appears to be Cahir or in Macroom Cork

Black Dog

Cabaal,

I move our hen house and run every week. It has a "footprint" of about 6feet X 24feet. All over the winter I put down a layer of straw to help protect the grass under the run but at the end of each week the grass would be eaten bare where the run had been. It is about 8 weeks before the run comes back onto the same place so this give the ground some time to recover though, obviously, it doesn't recover over the winter period when there is no/very little grass growth.

When left out about the garden they do little or no damage - rooting about in the beds, making dust baths etc. The ducks will munch their way through vast amounts of lettuce and spinach. I grow two beds of "cut and come again" lettuce which recovers from their munching to provide more leaves for them to munch. Netting keeps them out of veg beds which I want to protect.

Cabaal

Black Dog wrote: »

Cabaal,

I move our hen house and run every week. It has a "footprint" of about 6feet X 24feet. All over the winter I put down a layer of straw to help protect the grass under the run but at the end of each week the grass would be eaten bare where the run had been. It is about 8 weeks before the run comes back onto the same place so this give the ground some time to recover though, obviously, it doesn't recover over the winter period when there is no/very little grass growth.

When left out about the garden they do little or no damage - rooting about in the beds, making dust baths etc. The ducks will munch their way through vast amounts of lettuce and spinach. I grow two beds of "cut and come again" lettuce which recovers from their munching to provide more leaves for them to munch. Netting keeps them out of veg beds which I want to protect.

Thanks for the helpful response, I was thinking they'd remove alot of grass if you had a hen house on the spot.

I guess having the hen house in the one place is the best situation and then leave them out now and then around the whole garden.

Sam Kade

Cabaal wrote: »

Nearest one to Waterford appears to be Cahir or in Macroom Cork

Dairygold outlets are in Cork, Limerick and Tipperary. Mitchlestown would be closer to Waterford than Macroom.

Any Co-op would be around that price Glanbia, Kerry etc.

dazed+confused

Cabaal wrote: »

Just curious, I know you can just put down woodchip and the like and keep the hen house in the one position but I note other hen houses can be moved around.

If you say moved it around on a lawn or just left chickens out of the run and around your garden from time to time what type of damage are they likely to do to the lawn?

I have had let my hens loose in the grden all week becuase of the good weather and they have nothing but good (apart from squeezing under the fence into next door). If you watch them in action they eat an incredible amount of slugs and snails. The two new brown hens I got a month ago are really cheeky and have no problem exploring the house or the shed if you leave the door open.

deisemum

My hens are getting through a lot of water on these warm days. We had to fill their drinker 3 times yesterday. A hen could easily drink a litre of water on a warm day.

So far I've only seen a couple of slugs and snails which I flung to the hens and haven't lost any young seedlings yet though I've probably jinxed that now. You should see how they get hold of a snail and keep bashing the shell to break it.

dazed+confused

I've lost a few lettuce seedlings in the greenhouse, so I set a few beer traps which are already working wonders.

Cabaal

dazed+confused wrote: »

If you watch them in action they eat an incredible amount of slugs and snails. .

this would be very much a good thing in my garden, for some reason one half of my garden is infested with slugs.

I have reduced them this year by using Nemasys but if hens will enjoy them then more the better

patakadarragh

Hi,
I breed and hatch raise etc. chickens...just a note on the eglu....i would reccomend you avoid it..it gets too hot in summer with little ventilation also way too small.....the reccomended space per hen is 10 foot sq (if they are to be confined in a run)...i build arks out of timber and they are much more spacious etc.......also on the question of getting chicks...you can get pre sexed chicks from

http://www.rockhousepoultry.com/page_1232802589310.html

Also i reccomend you get hybrids for eggs these hens are bred in hatcheries and are sexed at day old and shipped out too wholesalers....the hybrids lay many more eggs than the purebreds i breed...also they tend to be friendlier and easier going although be warned hybrids will only lay for 3 years possibly more.

They should be fed layers pellets supplemented with barley and maize for top condition also they must be treated for lice and mites.

Bring and buy poultry sales are well worth a visit.
I think there should be a poultry forum on this site asthere appears to be many enthusiasts on this site.

I would be happy to give anyone advice via pm.
good luck with your hens.!!!!!

Darragh

deisemum

Darragh how often should hens be treated for mites and lice? I haven't treated my ladies yet but I've tried to have a look and didn't notice anything.

Also what's the best way to do it?

patakadarragh

Ok have you ever seen the frontline spray for dogs?Just spray the base of their feathers at their necks and along their backs.

That imo is very good stuff every 6 months or if you see small white clumps at the base of their feathers.Dose all new birds and keep them in quarantine before letting them into your flock.So many diseases going around.....look out for swollen eyes and gurgling.

deisemum

patakadarragh wrote: »

Ok have you ever seen the frontline spray for dogs?Just spray the base of their feathers at their necks and along their backs.

That imo is very good stuff every 6 months or if you see small white clumps at the base of their feathers.Dose all new birds and keep them in quarantine before letting them into your flock.So many diseases going around.....look out for swollen eyes and gurgling.

Oh I know that stuff. I'll give it a try, should be fun!!! I use the spot-on stuff on my cats, it also worms them.

Do they need worming? I used to know all that stuff nearly 30 years ago.

My hens look very healthy so far.

Thanks

patakadarragh

Yeah wormed twice a year with flubenvet wormer...vet should be able to get it for you.

Hope this helps!