Keeping chickens

3 ex-battery rescue chickens arrived on Saturday. Horrible how scraggly they are but they seem pretty healthy other than the lack of feathers. These will grow back in a few weeks, not great weather to be bald though so we are keeping them shut in for now anyway

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Nice one! Would love an update when they're a bit more recovered. Ours didn't want to get out the coop this morning. Had to empty some boiling water into their water trough to get rid of the ice.

Yay #flockdown. I've ordered a few toys to keep them happy but I think our four really got a taste for roaming the garden over the last 6 months so they're going to bored af over winter.

Ah shit. After having kept them in the run for a few weeks to get them used to their new lodgings. I had bought some chicken wire for the holes in the neighbour's fence and we were all set to let them out this week.

Ain't that always the way.

Egg chat – we had a record breaker this morning, our biggest yet at 87g. A follow on from the smallest egg so far which we retrieved yesterday. Big small and normal in the pic.

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Wowzer. These all look huge compared to the ones we get. What's your secret?

No idea! The chickens came with the house so we don't know what they are, but they lay pretty reliably and yeah, all good sizes. We're still getting ~3 a day even with the reduced daylight, which was a bit of a surprise as I thought they were supposed to slow down for winter.

I thought they were supposed to slow down for winter.

Ours definitely slowed down. One every two days or so at the moment.

Flockdown: I've netted over the entire top of the garden. I'll have to stoop slightly for the next x months, but chickens will be happier. A friend with a less linear garden is using heras fencing with net over.

Egg chat: current record

There's still a "chook bucket" at my parents place where scrap food gets put, even though we haven't had a chook shed or any chooks for 30 years. Now it gets composted for da wormies. #csb

Blimey. I’ll show that to mine tomorrow, tell them to up their game.

What do folks use for bedding? I read something that said you shouldn’t use straw, and a suggestion you could use shredded newspaper?

We’re on straw, so please don’t mention that to my chickens.

Ideally use aubiose bedding. Straw is ok apart from mite susceptibility, which can be mitigated by only using when very cold. Hay needs to be cut very short, ensuring that the whole of the strand is eaten and digested together, preventing sour crop.

On the note of good stuff to feed them- brassica's are always good.
And we've always used thick sawdust.
The last 10 were eaten/killed by a fox who managed to sneak in the run somehow.
So currently a new 10 are inbound.

Can we let our chickens out yet? Trying to find defra advice.

Don’t think so. Got them a mirror and a chicken xylophone for Xmas to keep them busy 🙄

Cheers! I put a few perch-y items in to make the run a bit more interesting.

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My two are still not missing a beat on the laying front. Two eggs a day without fail (Rhode Rocks)

Rhode Rocks

Noted for the future. Get about one every 2-3 days from these at the moment.

Flockdown is over! https://www.gov.uk/guidance/avian-influenza-bird-flu#full-publication-update-history

But now I don't want to let our chickens roam because I haven't sorted our fence arrangement out and I've got a load of fresh planting in the ground 🤦

Anyone want any chicken hi vis btw? We've got two that came with our chickens but prefer rider training and road positioning as mitigation tbh.

Will pass on for postage cost.

That is bloody hilarious!

I’ve got my chickens in head to toe DPM camo so that the foxes can’t see them.

I utterly love the idea of chickens in hi-vis jackets!

There is a chap that 3-D prints little plastic T-Rex arms for them to wear. I would be lying if I said I haven’t been tempted to get some!

Good news is that, with the end of flockdown I shall be getting some more birds.

I bloody love chickens, and they are such social enablers. Chap on a nearby allotment admitted the other day that he talks to my chooks more than to anyone he knows. I sit in my shed with a cup or a glass and a book for an hour or so each day and it always makes me smile hearing people come up with garden titbits for the ladies and natter away to them without knowing I’m listening.

I reckon I’ve got the best fed chickens in Gloucester, and it is born out by astonishing eggs :-)

Actually, you know what, could I take you up on that offer? Not for me, but a friend runs an architectural salvage yard and has a few hens running around, including onto the road, on an industrial estate in Stonehouse. I know he has lost hens to cars so he may be very grateful (and perhaps kit out the others?)