A Family Guide To Keeping Chickens (12 page)

There should be at least one small door (pop-hole) for the chickens. There must also be a larger door so you can easily clean them out.

Some pop-hole doors pull down to form a ramp, while others slide vertically or horizontally (horizontal doors can become clogged up and difficult to use).

You can buy a device which opens and closes the pop-hole automatically (see
Chapter 5
). Not all doors are suitable for automation, so you may wish to consider this when choosing your henhouse.

Our henhouse stands in a wooded area at the rear of the garden. One pop-hole door pulls down to form a ramp and one slides vertically

Having the house raised above ground level allows air to circulate and stops vermin from making themselves comfortable underneath your chickens. If the house is raised high enough, it provides an outdoor shelter, with space for feeding or dust-bathing.

If space is limited, think high rise

Nest-boxes with outside access allow eggs to be collected easily

Look for separate nest-boxes with outside access so eggs can be collected without opening the henhouse.

Nest-boxes should be in the lowest, darkest part of the house. If they are higher than the perches, the hens will roost in them, leading to mucky eggs. Sometimes nest-boxes can be closed off at night.

Chickens don’t perch comfortably on broom handles! They need 5 cm square perches, with the top edges rounded off.

Allow about 25 to 30 cm per bird. Although they often squash up, the lower-ranking hens may not be tolerated too close to their betters and can end up on the floor.

Low perches are needed for heavy breeds who can injure themselves by jumping down from high roosts.

If the housing is to be moved regularly, look for a model with wheels. If possible, try it out for manoeuvrability first.

Although the house should be sturdy, remember that if it is too heavy it will be difficult to move.

The house will need cleaning out at least every week so the easier it is to do the job, the better.

Check the access. Imagine trying to get into every nook and cranny – and how may nooks are there to clean anyway? Perches should be removable and there may be a droppings board, which can be taken out and scraped. Sometimes nest-boxes are detachable.

Ideally the whole house should come apart for when you need to do a thorough clean.

Taking the house apart for cleaning

Providing suitable living quarters will be the most expensive part of starting to keep chickens, so it’s worth taking time to shop around carefully before buying. To some extent your requirements will vary depending on the type of chicken you decide to keep – in the next chapter we will look at the various breeds.

Scenarios of Keeping Chickens . . .

‘Keeping everything clean is the most work, but it’s worth it,’ says Susannah about her family’s five hens. ‘The chickens are pets. They recognize the sound of the car and welcome us when we come home – they also produce nice eggs.’

Susannah, her husband David and sons Matthew (fifteen) and Thomas (eleven) have been keeping chickens for two years. Living on a modern estate,
they were concerned whether their garden would be large enough and took time investigating the possibilities. They gained experience by helping look after friends’ chickens, and found local suppliers along with trade stands at country shows to be valuable sources of information.

Their attractive patio garden is just 10 x 8.5 m, but the chickens have a spacious run, covered in hardwood chips. A raised chicken house makes the best use of the space.

Trees and shrubs create shady spots, ideal for dust-baths. The result is an unexpected and delightful feature, which fits perfectly into the small garden.

The run is dug out and the ground sanitized every three months – more often in very wet weather. The 3 x 3.5 m run takes three 75-litre sacks of hardwood chips.

Susannah says there is no smell if the run is kept clean. Droppings are removed and sanitizer put down most days. Extra woodchips are added if the ground starts becoming muddy.

The house is cleaned with an antibacterial spray twice a week, but the droppings tray and nest-boxes are cleaned daily in summer and most days in winter.

The chickens are regularly wormed and are given apple cider vinegar to promote good health. They also enjoy surplus vegetables from the family’s allotment, where all their waste material is composted.

Susannah and family with their hens

In return for the care lavished on them, the hens provide around twenty eggs a week in season. These are mainly laid by the Black Rock and Light Sussex Hybrid. The three bantams (Pekins and a New Hampshire Red) only manage an egg a day between them and stop laying altogether in winter.

‘There are definite benefits to having chickens,’ Susannah says. ‘They all have their own personalities, and make lovely pets if handled regularly.’

Our garden is mainly lawn, surrounded by trees and bushes. It backs onto fields and there are no near neighbours.

The henhouse stands in a wooded area at the rear of the garden, where the ground is covered with a thick layer of woodchips and leaves. The chickens love rummaging through this under the shelter of the trees. On sunny days they sunbathe and dust-bath on a south-facing bank. They also have plenty of grass to explore and wander at will.

We have occasionally lost chickens to predators, but a colony of rooks give an advance warning and the chickens are good at hiding themselves.

At night the chickens are shut in their henhouse. This is a substantial structure, made locally from good-quality timber. We made a few alterations, including raising it 50 cm above the ground, and the chickens hop up a collection of logs to the pop-holes. They took a while to get the hang of this (I found some sleeping on the back-door mat one evening), but new chickens now quickly copy the others.