Keeping Poultry In Your Back Garden
Have you ever considered keeping chickens either for eggs or as pets
? Possibly not, though there are many very good good reasons to do so as they make remarkably great pets and ones that actually give a little back in the form of delicious eggs on your breakfast table.
Keeping Poultry can be reasonably in-expensive and very rewarding providing you follow a few basic rules of thumb. Have the kids been badgering you for a pet? Then chickens may just be the answer. Most amateur chicken farmers will tell you that they adore it and wouldn't go back to not keeping chickens.
Here are my top 7 tips for getting the most out of your chickens and the very best ways to establish their long life and worthwhile egg making. Dependant upon the amount of chickens you propose to keep really can make a big difference to how you keep your chickens, this guide discusses trying to keep 3 to 4 chickens in an average sort of garden always keeping to a negligible allowance:
1) The Chicken's Home or Hen house: If you are at present considering keeping poultry then you almost certainly currently have a concept of what your hen coop ought to look like, some people imagine a charming hen house complete with weather vain, chicken run and a trustworthy family pet dog standing watch over your new brood. This can be a reality for less cost than you might imagine.
Make sure your chicken coop is sturdy, secured and weather proof, hens prefer nothing more than being kept cozy and dry.
2) The Chicken Run: Any self respecting urban poultry farmer will have a chicken run, we have all seen the film so there are no excuses. Your hens are lively beings and like a bit of yard to wander around, scratch, peck and in general to be a hen in. It is quite harmless to let them wander around your garden, you will enjoy tossing some grain on the lawn and watching them potter about. Although, if you are a keen garden enthusiast, hens really do really enjoy the flavor of rose petals, I get the sense that the more colourful the tastier they appear to the bird.
3) Your Chicken's Well being: To continue to keep them warm and give them somewhere to roost, place a good quantity of straw or hay on the base of the coop, you can get this at any pet shop or superstore. They will make their own nests with it and it will keep them warm and dry. Make sure they have a constant source of nutrition and drinking water, your eggs will run dry if they are not kept well nourished. Chickens, like any critter, may (very rarely) get ill, do not let them be misersble take them to a veterinarian.
4) Nutrition and Drinking water: We use a big pet water drip feeder, the sort you might use for a rabbit or hamster. The hens naturally peck on the shiny ball at the end and soon discover that they can get water from it.
5) Eggs: Your hens lay eggs routinely, when they are laying well you can expect at the least one egg daily from each laying hen. Their welfare is of incredible relevance to their laying, an un-happy chick will not lay eggs.
6) Do They Make Good Pets?: In a word, yes. Considering the size of their brain they seem unexpectedly bright and without a doubt have their own character. I used to work in the poultry business and my viewpoint of these feather brained critters has dramatically changed from a dumb thoughtless animal to ones with their own identity and quirks.
7) Fallacies and Misguided beliefs: Your family pet you call a chicken is not actually a chicken, it is a hen. More commonly a brown hen, a chicken is what you see in the supermarket and roast on a Sunday. One of your chickens (I will continue to call them chickens as i prefer it) would not taste very nice roasted, furthermore the amount of edible meat on one would not make it very rewarding unless you were exceptionally needy.
If you do get silly enough to munch on your family pets then you would need to boil it after plucking, gutting and washing it. Do not be too shocked to receive little gratitude from the family members after serving up their dearest Beatrice on a platter for Sunday lunch though.
All in all I find chickens make a great inclusion to the family members and are a wonderful pet, they provide a means to explain to your youngsters the requirement to look after them and teach them a bit of accountability whilst having an amusing family pet and one that rewards you for your attention. I would highly suggest having chickens as pets. Keep them warm, dry, fed and happy and they will give you almost endless amusement and a nourishing and good source of breakfast every day.k
by: Andrew C Gregory
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