Quote:
Originally Posted by dazz1971
do you keep chickens as pets or to get eggs ?? im just curious cause my partner kim keeps bringing up chickens so far ive managed to get her to settle for a vegtable patch but i dont think its gonna work for long
the reason i ask about eggs is cause i think you need a rooster around to get the hens to lay eggs ?? or i could of just been mistaken ?
so also keeps badgering me to get her some pigglets but i flat out said no lol 
i mean between myself kim and her daughter and son we have 3 dogs 1 chocolate dobermann and 1 whippet(kims) and a 5 month old staffie pup (mine) 2 rats (kims son) and 8 guniea pigs (kims son nd daughter)
oh and 1 tropical show tank (380ltr) all of ours
i think thats quite enough animals for 1 household
sometimes i think kim and the kids would have us living in a zoo !!!!  |
We keep chickens as both pets and for eggs. They are remarkably easy to look after, change their water and top up their food every day, and clean them out once a week. It's a common misconception that you need grass to keep chickens, but so long as you buy a good quantity of bark chippings, they can scratch around quite happily in those.
go to the omlet website, and they do a who package of a run, an eglu (roost) and 2 chickens, plus first bag of food, and grub and glug bowls for around £300. and once you've got all that, the food is very reasonable, and chickens cost between £15 and £25 on average.
You also do NOT need a Rooster for them to lay eggs most hens lay around 300 eggs in their first year, you only need a rooster if you want them fertilized and to breed. We get about 1 a day from Poachy, her partner Scramble passed away a couple of weeks ago now, so because chickens don't do well on their own, on account of them being a flock animal, we got 3 new girls, Miss penny apple, Angua, and Pecan, all of which are point of lay hense (about 2 weeks off first lay hopefully) and we get about 6 a week off Poachy, so we should eventually get about 24 a week. But sally loves to bake, and we give some to the neighbours and friends and family etc.
also people think chickens are noisy, so cant be kept close to other residents, but thats not true either, its the ROOSTERS that make ALL the noise.
hope this helps, but check out the omlet website as the forum there is incredibly helpful, I'm on there under the same name. and prospective chicken keepers are welcome to sign up an ask questions, they're a great crowd.