It’s odd, you would have thought that there would be an easy to find, easy to digest introduction to keeping chickens somewhere on the net – and perhaps there is – but frankly, I can’t find it. So here, in a slight change of direction for this motorbike and travel blog, is a short introduction to what you need to know in order to keep chickens. No complicated feeding patterns, no brain-dump of house building materials and no overly long political statements!
Is it difficult?
No. Really, you just need a house, some food and a little time.
What do I need?
A house for them to live in, food, water, and a safe place for them to wander in.
What kind of house?
Anything, turns out all chickens really need is a perch, a nesting box, and somewhere safe to wander. There are loads and loads of sites and companies out there offering many different designs and solutions for housing our feathered friends. There’s a list of useful links below you may want to try. We went to the local feed store (Widmer Feeds & Country Store) who were very helpful and put together a package with everything we needed for about £250.
What do I need on day one?
- Chicken coup
- Food
- Grit (soluble & insoluble)
- Wood Shavings
- Straw
- Water drinker
- Feeder
- Chickens
Food is really complicated right?
No, not at all. To start out all you need to do is feed your wonderful new friends layers pellets. There are hundreds of options for these, but again your local store can recommend something, or just pick them up at your local pet superstore – they all carry this stuff now. Also provide them with a little grit – most important. Other than that it’s all personal preference and you’ll figure it out as you go – there are many schools of thought on chicken feed – so just get yourself going with the most basic and then work it out for yourself.
What happens when they arrive?
If like us you opted for a simple starter solution from your local country store or from someone like Omlet then you’ll have everything you need on hand. Get the bedding into the coup, set up the water drinker and the feeder, and then quietly put your birds in their new home. Keep the feeder in the perch / nesting area for a few days so they have a reason to go back in there and don’t let them out of their run for the first five days.
At dawn open the poop door (that’s the door from the nesting area to the run) and at dusk make sure they’ve gone to bed (they generally take themselves) and shut the door. That’s really about it. Chickens bought ‘at point of lay’ wont actually produce eggs for a good few weeks so don’t expect miracles.
What then?
In the first few days just get used to having them around, and them having you around – handle them, talk to them, go about your business in the way you always did. Don’t let them get used to an non-normal routine from you.
Useful links
I’ll add to this list over time but these shops and websites are a good starting point.
- Home Farm Fowls
- The Chicken House Comapany
- Wheatcroft Poultry
- Grandpas Feeders
- Regency Poultry
- Solway Feeders
- S.P.R Centre
- Domestic Fowl Trust
- P&T Poultry
- Ascott
- Wells Poultry Housing & Accessories
- Flyte So Fancy
- Chicken Coups Direct
Are you some kind of chicken expert?
No, I bought our chickens last week, they arrived on Saturday – I know absolutely nothing – all of this information has been gleaned from several books, many magazines and a whole bunch of websites – it’s the simple starter information in one place – for me, as much as anyone else.
This is the first of what will form a series of posts talking about chickens and the reality of keeping them – what you really need to know – rather than a complicated debate about feeders and housing.
Nice post.
I saw on telly that when eggs have ridges, it’s at time of stress for the hen.
My friend in Manchester has two chickens in her back garden. They peck at each other and has done some things suggested online but hasn’t found a solution.
Yes I saw that – I’ve read about it a little and know it’s caused by the hen being ‘stressed’ as they’re making the egg (so normally during the morning) and that it’s generally caused by 1 or 2 shocks rather than simply being unhappy.
I have no idea how you’d fix it, but would suggest the first place to start would be to watch them for a couple of mornings and see what they get up to.
If they were generally unhappy they simply wouldn’t lay at all…..
Hey Matt,
Interesting blog post about chickens. I see you have a small list of people/companies in it, and i was wondering if you might consider adding us to it?
It would be wonderful if you did. Maria
@Maria – done and done – nice site by the way and a good selection of coups – wish I’d found you a little sooner!
Hey this is an excellent article. Your starter chicken coop is the same as what we began with a few years back – I think there’s still photos of it on my family’s chicken keeping blog. Which I keep meaning to update! Keeping chickens is the best thing we’ve done – fun for all the family, the kids love them and on top of all that we get fresh eggs every morning – plus, loads of chicken poo that we can add to our compost heap and use on our veggie patch. Keep us posted with how you get on. We started with ISA browns (the kind of chicken you’d expect to see in a farm yard) and have now added a few ‘rare’ breeds to our back yard flock. We currently have 4 cream legbars (an old english breed that lays ‘blue’ eggs) 2 french marans and 3 ISA browns. I can’t say enough about keeping chickens. It’s the best thing we’ve decided to do in a long time!
Started 10 days ago, built a coop similar to the one you have. Have 4 Rhode Island Reds. Wonderful pets. The first morning after moving them in we had 1 egg, the second morning 3, from then on except one day 4 eggs every day. Wish we had done this years ago. We live about 15 minutes ouside of London, Ontario, Canada