Chicken run

[vicky whitworth]

Sorry, not really a period property question but I know there are many chicken keepers out there. We want to keep a couple of ex-battery chickens and have no experience of chicken keeping apart from reading a lot of books. We're rural and foxes are a problem and I'm after advice about chicken houses and runs. We need something practical and completely enclosed as we're out at work and will need the chickens to be safe during the day, and then after dark until we get home to shut their door. So we need a walk-in run, but should it have a roof? And how can we make it look reasonably in keeping with the cottage but not twee?
Our chicken keeping started badly when a friend bought three ex-battery chickens for us last weekend and said she would hold on to them until we got a run sorted. Tuesday night the fox ate the lot. We never even got to see them but they cost us £1.50. :lol:

 

[MdB]

Can I suggest that you pay a little bit more than 50p per bird and get a rare bread chicken instead of an ex battery. Battery hens have been breed to produce large quantities of eggs or large quantities of breast meat which isn't in the birds best interest and they definitely aren't rare.

(and don't get a cockerel!)

 

[Lime]

When my wife kept chickens many years ago they didn't have a house.
They roosted in trees.
Just before dark they'd gather around the cock whereupon he'd flutter/hop up into a tree (quite tall trees too) and all the others would follow.
They roosted outside no matter what the weather, rain, snow, wind, you name it.
They seemed very happy with the situation and it appeared a very natural thing to do.

 

[vicky whitworth]

MdB, are you saying that it's not a good idea to rescue chickens coming out of battery farms because that consigns them to a further life of suffering? I thought I'd be giving them a happier life after what they had been through. My husband is the one who is keen to have chickens. I think we'd only be having them for eggs and not meat. I'm a vegetarian.

We're having a bad week on the animal front having had our dear old kitty put to sleep on Monday. We'd had her 13 years. So that's our two kitties passed on in a period of seven months. Life's so hard sometimes. Mind you if you have to go, on a blanket in front of the Aga looked pretty peaceful to me.

 

[CatherineB]

Oh dear, I am sorry to hear about your cats, Vicky. Our two are 12 and showing their age, breaking only into a fast trot when being chased by DD2 (who, at 8 years, is old enough to know better!)...

 

[MdB]

MdB, are you saying that it's not a good idea to rescue chickens coming out of battery farms because that consigns them to a further life of suffering?

Yes, I guess I am saying that in some cases. I am definitely saying that for meat chickens but these are unlikely to be available for rescue. Some are so front heavy that they can hardly walk.

Egg producers I believe are replaced after the first year (?) as that is their peak output and I guess this is what you are talking about and I think they are less of a genetic freak.

I thought I'd be giving them a happier life after what they had been through.

A worthy idea and one I can't disagree with. However, if you get a rare breed you will be increasing the population of that breed which has to be a good thing too. I guess my point of posting was to make you think about these things - I'm not sure what the best idea is myself.

 

[JoceAndChris]

If you'd like to rescue ex batts then that's a very sweet thing to do, but there are so many beautiful rare breed birds out there who are garden ornaments really. Look at the Cochins, the Brahmas, the Orpingtons if you like huge teddy bear birds, or perhaps the silver spangled Appenzellers if you'd like a woodpecker type bird who'll roost in trees. Pure breeds are a bit iffy about laying lots of eggs though - I haven't had an egg out of my Orpingtons since August, the annual moult just stops it. Mind you, my cream legbars are laying lovely pale blue eggs, absolutely delicious!


For your run and housing needs, the best solution in my opinion is a small, portable house on wheels from flytesofancy.co.uk, surrounded by an electric fence. I think an enclosed run is a waste of time. The fence is all we use for protection and it works a treat. It creates a lovely big area for them to free range in and be safe.

However, you may not have space for such an arrangement in which case you'll need a mesh run that claims to be anti fox. - again www.flytesofancy.co.uk make excellent products.

We made one out of weld mesh ( being careful to create a 2 foot buried skirt of mesh so that foxes can't dig under and in). The roof is just thick nylon netting. It's fox proof, but ugly, so at some point I'll get rid as the electric poultry netting is really all you need, and much cheaper than the cost of this giant run.

I'll see if I can find some pics. You'll love keeping chickens I'm sure, they're terribly sweet and funny.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Ps I'm so sorry to read about your cats. ((()))

 

[philpjuk100]

We bought three ex batts about two years ago,they were a little "scruffy" but soon looked better,one got ill and died and another died overnight when we had her for a year but we had no idea how old they were,the remaining one is still with us,she is "stroppy" and comes to the back door and demands food!She gives us an egg a day and crows like a cockrel to let us know that there is an egg waiting for us.We now have four hens,they have a run that they do not really use and a hut for the night but during the day they wander around the village.We have had neibours tell us that our chucks have been "gardening" in their borders but the hens send them a doz eggs as an apology!We have had no fox trouble but lost a beautiful sussex to a staffordshire bull terrier.They can be rewarding but also a bit of a tie.phil.

 

[vicky whitworth]

Thank you for your sympathy on the cat front. House seems empty without her. Plan was to go to Cats' Protection today and see if another stole our hearts but I fell over when out running yesterday (because if it's going to be a s**t week it goes for it big time) and have badly sprained my ankle and can't walk - hence all the recent posting - so a new kitty will have to wait.

Jose, those hen houses took a treat. I might just invest in one. Strikes me that hen keeping could get expensive. :roll: Was also thinking about a couple of sheep for the orchard. The farmer has three in there at the moment and a right mangy trio they are. One is hobbling worse than I am and another seems to be missing its ears.

 

[Moo]

Vicky, if you go into this site - http://www.chat.allotment.org.uk/ and scroll down a bit, you'll come to a forum all about poultry where you might find some useful information.

 

[philpjuk100]

It can be a bit upsetting collecting hens from the battery farm,the egg place we collected ours from had them all crammed in an old stable with no sign of any feed or water,some were missing large amounts of feathers,the farmer grabbed three for us and stuffed them in our box and then said"you were just in time,I`ve a chap coming this afternoon for the rest for dog food" we wanted to take the lot! There are hen "adoption agencys"which may be easier to deal with.phil.

 

[Tom]

I always get mine through these guys...The British Hen Welfare Trust http://www.bhwt.org.uk/

 

[philpjuk100]

Yes that sounds a better place to get them from,here is a pic of our original three off exploring!

 

[skier-hughes]

We've lost 3 lots of chickens to foxes, so gave up on free range and built a run made out of 2nd hand heras builders security fencing, very cheap, ugly but very good at it's job. Our run is 3 panels long by 2 panels wide with more panels on the top.
I'm not sure about poulty wire fencing, the fozes round here jump over our 4'6" stock fence which is topped with an electric wire.
We also have a shed for them to roost and lay in and a small dog run which gives us our door access.

 

[Tom]

We haven't lost any of our free range poultry (chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese) to foxes in the 15 years we've been here. However, our dogs live out and are free range 24/7. The fox comes into the next field but never on our land...our dogs would kill it! It's great because all our poultry are totally free range and never penned up. Most roost in the crewyard, some in the trees. The geese and ducks often sleep in the paddock. I know I'm fortunate in this respect and I appreciate my dogs doing a good job

Even if your dogs aren't out all the time, allowing them to 'mark' you boundary can help deter foxes. Not a foolproof method but it does help.

 

[Penners]

a rare bread chicken

Rare indeed. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen one.

Do they tend to be wholemeal or Mother's Pride?

:wink:

 

[MdB]

(I am so glad I found that)

 

[Mr.Miniver]

I don't keep chickens myself but our neighbours have a pen that is about 2m h x 3m x 3m with a coop within. It has a roof of I think fruit cage type nylon mesh and it's planted with shrubs [I think chickens are naturally woodland birds as the previous poster with his tree roosting hens pointed out]. The hens looks really happy and potter about under the shrubs abd trees digging about and perching on some timber rails that have been provided.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Lots of people do keep them in the same spot in this way but you have to be pretty rigorous at mucking out and using the medicines or you'll end up with sick birds that need to be culled. They're very prone to disease and parasites - use Stalosan and Diatom with each bed change, Flubenvet for worms, Frontline spray for parasites, and don't keep them on wood shavings as you get fungal build up.

Personally I think it's cruel to keep them penned like this and after spending £500 on our giant run, and a few weeks constructing it, and then installing the birds, it broke my heart. They live to find insects and they don't find any, really, if they live in a permanent run. They carry on scratching and pecking, but it's fruitless, and I can't watch it.

The other factor with Large Fowl birds, especially the Orpingtons I keep, is that they're prone to obesity and heart attacks at 2 years old so do really need to free range to stay healthy.


So then I let them out to free range over our acre and they were just killed ( in the daytime) by foxes and dogs. ( That foxes only hunt at night is a myth put about by foxes to lull you into a false sense of security).

After that we put up the electric poultry netting, taking a 50m by 10m section of the garden around their shed.

When the fox ( more often dogs here though) runs up to the fence he gets a shock on his nose, it's quite a thwack as I discovered once when I had bare feet in the summer. He doesn't think "oh, I'll just clear this electric fence in one jump" - he runs away! We are absolutely overrun with foxes and dogs here as the chicken enclosure borders a public footpath and in a year this electric netting has never let us down, despite the lure of 15 plump chickens wandering about behind it. The only way I can see the netting failing is if it collapsed, greenery grew up against it or the power failed, but as I take very good care of it and check it daily and keep it free of grass and leaves weekly I can't see this happening.

I do typically spend dusk with them though, cleaning and clearing and changing drinkers, then shutting the pop holes, so that might be a factor, and then they typically get let out after sunrise. I just wish I'd known about the electric netting before I wasted £500 on a run.

Still, it's all pretty sorted now, a happy flock who get a diet of grass, table scraps, grain and insects, and who feel protected by their husband. There's nothing like the sight of a hen being cuddled by her husband, and letting them have chicks is just the sweetest thing. Next year I plan to develop a growers' enclosure and do sale of chicks, no one breeds lemon millefleur sablepoots in Lincolnshire, and they're fabulous little things who happily live in a small town garden.