Chickens
 

Do any .orgers (other than me) have chickens (as pets)?

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used to keep half a dozen rhodies.

When I was a kid I even had a pet bantam

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I had one for lunch!

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I've been thinking about getting bantams. Are they friendly?

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Same as any other chicken I'd imagine. No good for taking walkies or playing fetch, though.

V small eggs.

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My boss keeps Chickens. She has about 8 or summat.

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Surprisingly yes, like I said it was whilst I was a kid, It was a soft old bird that seemed to like human company, it would sit on my shoulder and could somehow flutter up to the bedroom window of a morning.

Best though get a cockerel a few geese and really P off your neighbours.

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Nope. Just the kids.

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We have 3 ex-battery hens (cost 50p each!).
They make superb garden pets :D.

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I also considered getting exbatts but was a bit worried that they might be hard work for a first-timer.

Did it take them long to settle in etc?

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I remember my friend got a load of ex battery hens as his first try. They were bald:(, and my goodness he got so many eggs he was giving them away free. They didn't know what a field was and he said it was quite amusing watching them come out of their shells(s'cuse the pun)
They got Kevin the Rooster, but he got henpecked as he had too many ladies to look after and they ended up giving him away, but having 50 or so burds to contend with would drive any male away:-D

The lot of them lasted quite a long time to be fair, he didn't expect half of them to live as long as they did.
My friend in france has a half dozen chucks, she calls em her girls, they seem pretty easy to look after, they come running down the garden looking for her when they hear her voice:cool:

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Toyed with the idea of getting some, but soon realised that I'm the only one that feeds/waters the pet rabbit, so getting more things to take up my time is a no no.

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We may have been lucky, we had but none of the ex battery hen problems with our three girls described in books/experts etc.
One died after 4 or 5 months, which is unusual - aparently they often die soon after coming home.
Introducing an new hen to the other two was very traumatic. The original two nearly killed her, poor thing, she was already pretty bald!

Through the summer we get 2-3 eggs a day which is more than we need so we're always giving them to family and friends.

As DizzyB says it's great to call them in when they're up the garden somewhere, and seeing them come running home.

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I think my cats would enjoy having something in the garden to chase and then eat.

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I used to have a very large co....nah never mind, dont want to get banned ;)

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Billy and Bonnie don't know quite what to make of them. They are interested but a bit scared I think.

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I have always wanted a few chickens, how much space do they need? Will they fly off if they are let out into the garden?

Pete

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They don't need much space. We got one of these delivered a couple of weeks ago. We kept them in the run for the first couple of weeks but I've let them out into the garden at the weekend and today.

Apparently they are rubbish at flying but you can chop some of their feathers a bit to make them even rubbisher.

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Hmmm. I've seen those Eggloo's before, not cheep!

(Sorry)

Very tempted by some exbat birds, especially after watching Hugh's Chicken run earlier in the year, that and the Jamie Oliver show changed the way we buy chicken forever.

Cheers Sarah, some thinking to be done!

Pete

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They aren't cheap but conventional chicken houses and runs aren't mega cheap either.

I liked the idea of having something that would be easy to clean out so that it wouldn't become a chore.

There are plenty to be had on ebay and also on the forum part of the omlet website.

I've wanted chickens for soooo long and I'm so pleased that we've got some now. They are surprisingly amusing and friendy.

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My assistant keeps chickens, I get half dozen eggs a week from her, she manages to sell them cheeply(ha ha) to all staff which helps pay for their feed. Her cat had a go when she first got them home and poor Mitzi was pecked so hard she's never gone near since.

She's just introduced another 3 hens, and after been pecked a bit by the first three they've all settled well together. They are amazing how the recognise her now and will come running when she calls.

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No. Our chickens would have a cat for breakfast!
Our three cats, and the neighbours three learned the hard way, and have been well and truely put in their places!
Our chickens will even had a go at a fox... not such a good idea!
Poor Nugget (really...:cool: others are Korma, and Madras :rolleyes:) nearly had her head chewed off twice by a fox. First time the vet stapled her neck together for the same price as putting her to sleep, she looked like Franken-chicken!
Second time she was bleeding from her ears, and her beak didn't line up properly. Her beak still isn't straight, but she's otherwise fine!

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you can make chicken runs easy if your handy with it. When the avian flu thing hit France my mate made her own, and nearly ended up making half the villages! Shes lucky she has a few outhouses, that are a bit like coal sheds, she just made them a couple of perches in one, and whatever indoors, then built the run straight off it. She made sure that the ground outside was covered( I think with chicken wire) as they are a bugger for scratching the hell out of everything, pretty destructive. Since then though they roam free in the garden. They eat pretty much anything too, along with the chicken feed she gives them, they eat stuff like lettuces and carrot tops etc, the baker even gives her the french sticks they don't sell in a huge sack. They really are pampered. In the summer you find them hiding in her flower beds flapping about dusting themselves :-)

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Bridget and Britney love stale baguette too.

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they go nuts for em. Sometimes she puts them in water to give them something different to peck at. Chickens are cool, I wish I had somewhere to keep some

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Your Chickens sound like lovely pets :-D

One day maybe I could have a pet chicken or three, I wouldn't mind a miniature goat too because I think they are fun. Sadly though, for now we live in a rented flat with a shared garden, so no goats or chickens allowed. The Landlord took some persuading to allow us to have our cats. :cheers:

Being a Vege, I am appalled by the conditions that some battery hens are kept in and I buy only free range eggs. Glad to hear that you can bring some happiness into the lives of an otherwise unwanted and badly treated animal. :smt083

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Seriously, how easy are they to clean/look after etc? We have a pretty large garden and would easily be able to build a large run etc. Just don't think I'd have the time to constantly clean up after them.

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We've just got an eglu. The house bit is made of plastic so is easy to clean, it has a tray at the bottom to catch the poos. You just slide out the tray and then empty the contents onto the compost heap. So far so good (only had them a couple of weeks though). Other than weekly poo emptying they need shutting in their house when it gets dark and letting out in the morning and obviously feeding and watering.

We're keeping them in the run apart from when we are around when we let them roam the garden. They are doing a good job of scratching and eating the grass but the plan is to move the house and run every week or so so that the grass can recover ok.

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yuck

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Chickens do generate an enormous amount of poo, so keeping that under control is a big part of looking after them.
This time for year their run is a mess due to rain and not being able to let them out.
We don't bother opening/shutting their house at the ends of the day. We used to, but they get up earlier than I do and they start clucking disapproval.
The run is always shut up unless someone is in the garden with them to keep the fox away... again they will make disapproving noises if there's someone in the garden and they've not been let out!
Our 3 chickens just about finish a feeder full of Layers Pellets in a week so apart from egg collection there's not much to do day to day.

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Woohoo, Britney has just laid her first proper egg (she laid one the other day but it was broken when I found it so I think the shell must have been a bit too thin). It's a biggy: 73g according to my scales.

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http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/8875/img5094zk0.jpg
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/img...jpg/1/w800.png

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Superb News :D

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oooh how exciting!!
I want chickens now!! Id love to get up in the morning and feed them!! I expect Milo would get jelous though!

Get some pics of the chickens!!

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this is Britney
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/1637/img5075cg2.jpg
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/i...jpg/1/w800.png

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Awwwwwwwww

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and here's Bridget hiding behind Britney

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/6711/img5089bn7.jpg
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/i...jpg/1/w600.png

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cool

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Very cute! That's it, I'm getting some chucks asap!