HOME & GARDEN: Keeping Chickens

Every day, more and more people are becoming aware of just where their food is coming from and are working towards being just a little more self-sufficient.  Nicky of ColourItGreen tells us all about the realities of keeping chickens on her small holding.

It’s now very fashionable to have a few chickens in your back garden and with very good reason.  They are funny, entertaining birds, they can become very tame and each have their own characteristics. If that was not enough, you also get fresh eggs from happy hens. In return for the entertainment and eggs, you have to give them some comforts – namely a house to sleep and lay eggs in, an outside area, food and protection.

There are many different types of housing available to buy, from dayglo plastic to traditional style. Or you can make your own; we have made them out of old garden sheds, pallet wood and have just finished converting an old trailer into a hen house! Chickens don’t mind the cold and, in fact, it is important that their housing has lots of ventilation, but they do need somewhere dry to perch. Chickens are happy if they get some outdoor space, which can either be a run large enough for their needs, or a smaller run with some free-ranging whilst you are there. It can be very pleasant gardening or playing outside, with hens for company – but be aware they won't necessarily respect your plants or your picnic table.

Once they are used to their new home, the chickens will take themselves to bed at dusk and it is best to shut them in, to give them a little more protection from foxes, badgers and dogs. 

The easiest food to give them is layers pellets, which can be bought from feed merchants, pet stores and some garden centres. The pellets are made with all the right ingredients, including calcium, which is the best for laying hens. It is eating their greens that makes those egg yolks so gloriously yellow and they love to graze – or hang a cabbage up in their run to peck at. Our hens love blackberries and we have been known to let them perch on our arms to help them reach the higher ones! 

So where to get your new chickens from? 

The choices are: 

• Buy young commercial hybrid hens – these will be the cheapest and best layers.
• Sign up for some retired battery hens - there are various charities offering these – they wont lay so many eggs, but you give a happy life to a chicken who did not have a great start, but often you have to agree to keep them for the whole of their life.
• Go for traditional breeds – not so much the egg laying machines that are modern hybrids, but very attractive birds, some say they live longer and you can have different breeds giving you different coloured eggs – buying traditional breeds helps to keep these breeds going.

We keep a variety of traditional breeds, as we like all their different colouring and the eggs range from blue, speckled to dark brown. 

The only other thing to consider is whether you want to keep a cockerel. Hens can make a little noise – particularly a pride filled song when they have laid an egg, but cockerels are very noisy and that crow sounds a lot worse at dawn! So, not really ideal in an urban garden, unless you particularly want to fall out with your neighbours….

A cockerel is not necessary for eggs – hens will lay them anyway, but if you want to hatch chicks, a cockerel is obviously needed! We keep two (in different runs, they fight if kept together), as we rear birds for the table and they are entertaining as they show off and dance to woo their ladies. Alternatively, hatching eggs are available to buy and will even survive the postal system if packed properly. They can be slipped under a broody hen - traditional breeds are more likely to go broody than modern hybrids – or you can use an incubator.

Watching chicks hatch has to be one of the most heart warming experiences and there is nothing more cheery than a day old chick, but you do have to have a long term plan for the resulting chickens and cockerels. Did I mention how noisy a cockerel can be…? now imagine several together all trying to out crow each other….

I’m sure that if we gave up the smallholding, I would always want to keep a few chickens in the back garden, just because I enjoy their antics, their gentle chicken behaviour (a bad day can seem so much better after spending time with the hens) and those wonderful eggs.

Once you have tried fresh eggs from your own contented chickens, there is no going back!