I live in Burton on Trent, Staffordshire (beer
brewing capital of the UK
;o) and I have been keeping chickens for a little over two years. It
was
a friend of mine; a chicken keeper himself, who started me off with the
‘bug’ for keeping chickens. I just loved the idea of being able to keep
a lovely animal that gave you something back in return for its
upkeep….An egg!
We have lots of animals; including 4 dogs, 3 cats, gerbils, lovebirds,
etc… and all we do after them is clean up….yes they do give you love
back, but nothing beats the character of a chicken and their wonderful
eggs!
In our, erm, very mixed flock, we have Black Rocks, Light Sussex,
Sussex
Stars, Marans, Bluebells (Rhode/Cuckoo Marans), Bovans Nera (Black
Stars), White Stars, Speckled Sussex and a Golden Laced Wyandotte
(sorry……no partridge in a pear tree!!!). We have 30 chickens in total
and have had most since point of lay, however we have recently rescued
12 of our flock from the chicken soup factory. They were only 2 years
old and still laying (every other day), but the local egg farmer has to
replenish his stock for ‘everyday’ layers to make a profit, so we saved
them from the chop).
Pete and Justine really helped me out when I first started. I used
Pete’s coop design photos and instructions on the website to form a
basis of a design for my coop.
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Here
is my coop, which is built into the back of my garage (note the
roost design….kindly borrowed from Pete’s own design)
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My
nest boxes are quite high off the ground, but because the roosts are
right outside they are easily accessed
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My
drinkers and feeder are suspended by chain link from the beams of my
garage. This is an ideal solution to stop them from becoming soiled
with
sawdust and chicken poop (height of the drinkers and feeder should be
roughly level with your chickens back height)
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Although
this is purely a hobby of mine, neighbours and locals keep
coming round for the surplus eggs we get. We don’t strictly sell the
eggs as such, but we ask for a donation towards the chicken’s upkeep.
That way the chickens pay for themselves and even afford themselves
treats such as mixed corn and fresh greens (they LOVE THEM).
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Oh
and I have no cockerel in my flock and my flock are absolutely fine.
You only really need a cockerel if you plan to breed. However, a cockerel
can look absolutely stunning and are lovely and very proud birds.
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We
did have one; a Welsummer named Steve, but he crowed too much
so he went off to Mushroom Farm (local farm) to sire 100 hens! Lucky
bugger!.
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Also
in this
picture you can see a small grit-hopper. We feed the chickens
layers pellets and they do not necessarily need grit to grind their
food, however, we fill our grit hopper with crushed oyster shell and
this provides them with an extra boost of calcium for really strong and
beautiful eggshells. As I said previously, this is a hobby of mine,
but if you want to keep a
flock of chickens for egg production then you’ll be wanting the White
Star (photo at right). She is a Leghorn hybrid and lays between 300 –
320
Large white eggs a year…a real stunner
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Photos - Page 9
