There was a time when I was only about twice the height of a chicken. Look, here a picture to prove it:
Them there hens, which come up to the top of my 1970s flares are Gingernut Rangers, a prolific egg layer that were the bread and butter of the free-range family farm. (They were the lucky ones, as elsewhere there were fatter, more meaty birds destined for the dinner table.)
They had an idyllic life sleeping in bright, airy barns and being let out to roam free among the apple trees in the orchard every day. We spent summers there, Sal and I, helping to feed them in the morning and shut them up safe from the foxes at night.
Well, they say things go full circle, and while I may no longer be a flares-wearing shortie I’m about to launch myself back into the world of poultry and eggs, as I’ve put in an order for a coop. It won’t be here for another month, which gives me plenty of time to source my laying ladies, which have been named Margot, Gerry (Geraldine, not Gerald, natch) and Barbara even before they arrive.
Why three? Because you should always start with more than two. If you don’t, they’ll bond as a pair rather than a flock which leaves you somewhat stuck when one of them dies. The one that’s left will be simultaneously bereaved and unable to relate to any new chickens you buy to replace the dead one.
In the meantime, I have some learning to do, like what you feed them, how much you give them, and what you do when an egg gets stuck half-in, half-out.
Actually, I already know the answer to that last one – I just don’t want to think about it.
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it is important that you feed chickens what they need, £ for £ you wont get better than a compound ration, by all means supplement this with whatever you have, remebering that it is illegal to feed meat scraps to your birds, if you feed scraps & the like you need to supply a free choice supply of calcium, oyster shell is best, otherwise your birds will use calcium from their own skeletons to make your egg shells, such is their drive to make more chickens, this is why an industry bird is regarded as “spent” at the end of its 70 week lifespan, hope is of use, oh yes one last thing “organic” layer feed is has as much nutritional value as cardboard, just nice cheap normal bagged is best, hope this is of help to you
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Congratulations! We got ours a few weeks ago and they are huge fun to just sit and watch. We feed them layers pellets in the morning with some cabbage or spinach for greens, a handful of mixed grain each in the afternoon and some chopped up scraps in the evening of veggie and fruit bits and pieces.
Once or twice a week I chop up a little bread or plain cooked pasta as an afternoon treat, but not too much as carbohydates make them fat. We never feed them meat of any kind.
One thing you might want to do while you’re waiting for them to arrive is get together a rudimentary chicken first aid kit. We didn’t as we were expecting to get healthy girls from a breeder.
Instead we ended up with a trio of unwanteds from a local farmer and all of them had problems of one sort or another, from scaly leg to diarrhoea. It took a couple of weeks to sort all of them out because we hadn’t any supplies to deal with their problems.
Now they’re strong, healthy and very, very cheeky with their own personalities, food preferences and odd habits.
Have fun with the girls when they arrive and post lots of pictures!