anybody keep hens ?

[drewdunnrespect]

would love to have chickens but the parents wont let me so cant at the present

 

[DrSin]

Is there a minimum size garden that you would need for say 3 birds.
What do you do when you're away from home?
They need put indoors (cooped?) at night/let out morning and fed, right?
That's basically the reason I've not investigated this any further, but I love the idea?
Any workarounds I don't know about? (just leave coop open and a big bucket of food?!?!?!)

My garden is about 15mtrs long and 6mtrs wide, my choocs have a 3 1/2mtr square pen at the top.
According to www.poultry.allotment.org.uk 4 chickens need a min of 20 square feet. When Im away from Home I ask someone else to look after them.
Yes put to bed at night let out and fed/ watere in the morning.
My brother has a very secure pen, im not saying its totally fox proof but he dosnt put his birds to bed and in the last two years he has had them, so far no foxy loxy, He fills his feeders up once a week and that does the job, collects eggs every day to stop the hens eating them.
Hope this helps.

 

[DanDan The man called Dan]

woohoo, I've just won a month long battle to get my wife to agree to a couple of hens. We've not a large garden about 16'x35' which I reckon is about O.k for a couple, though I have no experiance.

I do wonder about te vermin issue but I reckon that can be kept to a minimum if I keep the stored food sealed, don't over feed and make sure I clean out the coop weekly.

The thing that is on my mind about it though is how do you get a hen in a coop at night if they are feeling unco-operative or do they naturaly head for the coop?

 

[Cobweb]

Doesn't the cat go the the hens? Or is that a silly question...

Nope, the hens tend to be too big for the cat.

I trained my cats to go for rats and scurrying things when they were kittens, I would drag bits of fur on a string across the floor and would never play the dangle string or make the lure look or behave in any way like a bird.

 

[Steve13]

We have a smallholding opposite us who has hens, geese, a few sheep etc

The hens spend most of their time walking all over the place we often have them in our garden scratching around

 

[Bongo Matt]

Parents have got bantems and light sussex, more like egg laying pets, good entertainment too with with their little characters and that, and if you get the spade out they will follow you everywhere as they know its worm buffet time!

 

[East Coaster]

My garden is about 15mtrs long and 6mtrs wide, my choocs have a 3 1/2mtr square pen at the top.
According to www.poultry.allotment.org.uk 4 chickens need a min of 20 square feet. When Im away from Home I ask someone else to look after them.
Yes put to bed at night let out and fed/ watere in the morning.
My brother has a very secure pen, im not saying its totally fox proof but he dosnt put his birds to bed and in the last two years he has had them, so far no foxy loxy, He fills his feeders up once a week and that does the job, collects eggs every day to stop the hens eating them.
Hope this helps.

It does. Might have to look into it a bit more now. I'm sure we could get someone to collect eggs on a daily basis when we're away.

Thanks for the info

 

[locum76]

The thing that is on my mind about it though is how do you get a hen in a coop at night if they are feeling unco-operative or do they naturaly head for the coop?

When you get your hens, keep them in the coup for the first couple of days. then they will know where to roost. After that all you have to do is wait until dusk and they should go in by themselves.

I think it is something to do with the fact that chickens are derived from brids which roost in trees. they have a natural inclination to return to roost during the night for safety.

 

[WoodWhite]

We have a space out the back by an unused shed, my mum used to live on a farm and they kept chickens for years we could probably keep quite a few but we will start with just two.