How to... keep hens
Ruth Harwood
Fancy eating eggs laid by your own chickens? We look at the practicality of keeping hens
Ever thought about keeping chickens? As the plucky Tom and Barbara showed in the BBC sitcom ‘The Good Life’, housing a few hens is not just the preserve of farmers and country dwellers. Even a small patch of lawn can be enough.
There are plenty of reasons to get started. Besides a regular flow of freshly laid, healthy eggs, keeping chickens is also a step towards greater food self-sufficiency. It can also cut your weekly shopping bill, reduce your food miles and guarantee good animal welfare standards.
What you need
- Space. The size of your chicken house will depend on the number of hens you intend keeping. To keep four chickens you need a minimum internal space of 4 x 4ft, but the more outside space, the better. A 10 x 10ft plot is plenty, but a smaller run will do provided you can regularly move the hens on to clean grass.
- A chicken coop. Make sure you buy a good quality chicken coop otherwise foxes will get in. But this needn’t mean spending a fortune. A 6 x 4ft shed from any DIY store makes a nice henhouse you can stand up in and is large enough for six chickens. Then you just need to add roosting bars, an external nestbox and a small doorway.
Wooden houses cost from about £100 upwards, but for something well built, and with an integral run, you will have to spend at least £250.
You might decide to build your own henhouse and run. This is a good option if you want to keep costs down.
Top of the range is the chic and futuristic-looking Eglu by Omlet. The coops are spacious and open plan, and have modern twin walled insulation and draught free ventilation to keep the chickens warm in winter and cool in summer. They are made from recyclable materials and come in red, yellow or green.
For the bedding use straw, wood chips or wood shavings and coarse sawdust in the nestboxes.
- Drinker and food bowl. A 3kg plastic hopper feeder that can hang inside the house or run will cost you about £12. A plastic 10 litre drinker will cost about the same.
- Food. Make sure your chickens always have fresh water. Feed your chickens layer’s pellets so they get everything they need to keep them healthy. You can also supplement their diet with veg scraps - they’ll eat almost anything, provided it does not contain meat.
Breeds of chicken
Good starter birds are often hybrids as they will produce lots of eggs every year and tend to cost less than pure breed, which are harder to come by and are less resistant to infection. You could consider adopting ex-battery hens, as they tend to be killed after the first year of life when their productivity declines.
It’s also worth doing a bit of research on the internet and getting as much information as you can. Practical books, such as Best Hens for You by Charlotte Popescu, talk you through all the merits of different breeds, both pure and hybrids. Popescu’s section on breeds not only covers egg-laying abilities, but the characters and personalities of the different breeds, reinforced by the anecdotal accounts of individual keepers.
Egg laying
Each chicken will usually produce around four to six eggs a week, but a chicken breeder can advise you further once you decide on your requirements. Although they will lay their eggs out in the open, you’ll have more success if you provide chickens with a dark, enclosed nesting area. A crate filled with straw will suffice. All chickens lay fewer eggs during the winter months because there is less sunlight.
Benefits
- You will know where your eggs have come from.
- You’ll get free range and hormone free eggs regularly.
- Keeping chickens is good for the garden in one sense as they are a natural form of weed and pest control - chickens eat insects and bugs, and keep the lawn well trimmed.
- Chicken droppings make for great compost – it’s richer in nitrogen and phosphates than horse manure.
Drawbacks
- Chickens can cause a lot of damage to your garden and vegetable beds must be kept out of bounds. They are constantly searching for food and scratch up any surface they are on. You might want to keep your chickens in a fenced area so they don’t wreck the grass, or you can put some bark chippings down instead.
- Another disadvantage is the clucking but, contrary to popular belief, chickens aren’t particularly noisy.
Other things to remember
Before you decide to keep chickens check with your local authority that you are allowed to do so. Most people can, but it's best to be sure. Consider your neighbours too – it’s always a good idea to speak to them first.
Rats aren't a problem so long as food isn’t left lying around, so if you are vigilant and don't leave out scraps you should be OK.
It is important to regularly clean out the coop and bedding from under the perches to avoid the spread of disease.
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