Chickens

We have recently become owners of 3 hens, that now live in our back garden. I have always hated how supermarkets sell eggs from caged hens (or battery hens to speak the truth), and being on a budget often feel we can't afford to buy the free range ones, so we have solved that by not needing to buy them now, plus the chickens are a constant source of fascination to my 2 year old!

i've got 5 girls now they are just starting to lay again
i've also got two ducks coming too

I would love some chooks but unfortunately Mr Fox would as well x

We love, love, love our chickens. All E's friends adore coming round to collect the eggs.

I so want ducks too but we would have to give up quite a bit of the veg patch to get a pond in - the chickens are in the fruit cage so they don't really take up any space but no room in there for a pond. Boo hoo

Axx

i have wanted some chickens for ages! were going to move soon so i can get some

I love my chickens, they are very comical and part of the family plus they eat the scraps and give us fabulous eggs in return

I love the idea of chickens but I can't get my head around the financial side of it. Surely it costs more to keep chickens for the week than it does to buy a dozen organic eggs.

Sorry I realise some may take offence to this post, nut I promise I do not go into graphic detail!!!


I think that depends on what you buy really. You can make our own coop pretty easily and chicken wire is pretty cheap. The cheapest food for them is around £5 for 20kg.. and then some scraps from the kitchen if you wanted to. OR.. you can buy a £350 quid eglu, use organic feed at £12 for 20kg.. and feed them hot muesli for breakfast There is quite often a chicken coop on free cycle round here too.. remember, it doesn't have to be a wooden a frame.. and they don't need an acre of land. They don't even need a garden lawn, you can put them on wood chip.. although personally I like seeing them rooting through the grass But you'll be surprised how many ways there of keeping them!

The nice thing is, they can be as cheap as you like, or expensive as you want. The chooks themselves, if you can get some ex bat's will cost you a quid each. Yup so the first few weeks you might be out of pocket, but they soon break even for you

I've just bought 24 fertile eggs.. which were £10.. a fully automatic (r-com 20) incubator for £150 and a brooder (brinsea ecoglow) £35 (a fake momma hen), a sack of organic chick crumb (cos it doesn't have the medications in, and I don't anything nasty going into them!!) £10 .. for the chance to fill up our freezer this yr with our own home grown chooks.

The price of the incubator and the brooder I'll get back by putting them back on eBay when I've finished with them, the cost of feeding them and housing them for the er 84 days is around £25. You could start taking into account the cost of the freezer space when they are in there.. but personally, for me, doing this is about going through the whole process of what an eye opening into just how much work goes into food production. We have decided we wont buy any chicken produce this yr, only eat our own chickens. If however we run out, or the percentage hatch rate was not enough for us, we will know next yr to increase the starting numbers. I have done this before on the farm, but I used to buy day old chooks.. I never incubated them myself, so this will be quite nice going from the very start!

So this yr, veg/most fruit and our own chickens.... we are on a roll

ps.. I have the webcam up ready .. for the hatching of the chooks, which I'll put up on the little gumnut website

Thanks Em. The way you are doing it, I get it. To grow your own chickens for food makes huge financial sense to me, especially when a small organic chicken that I will only get one meal out of costs us €16. I understand that it costs the farmer huge money for organic feed but I just cannot afford that. (I do get 2 legs & 2 wings for €3.50 though )