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So we have decided that we want a small flock of chickens for in the garden. Before we go out and by half a dozen or so there are a few things to get sorted out first.

The best way to do this is to create a list of everything that we will need.


First we will look at the house and run options, there are many different designs of housing on the market, From rustic looking wooden ones to bright pink plastic things, each one has its own quality and benifits and each has its own drawbacks and problems.

Personally I love wood, it looks natural, its easy to care for and yes it does have a few drawbacks but has been used to keep chickens in for hundreds of years and that to me says that its a proven material.

There are lots of designs to choose from, Ark's, sheds, apex's, runs, aviory's, flights etc. But at the end of the day as long as a few vital requirements are met, the design is your personal choice, the chooks don't care what it looks like, they will sit in an orange box if its comfy!

so the basic requirements from a house and run:-

I can't comment to much on plastic housing as I don't own one and I probably never will, I have a hatrid for the material so thats as far as i will go on that one. If any of our readers have one then please email me a small acount about them and I will happily post it on here

There are a few metal houses that I have seen on the market, these i would advise everybody to avoid unless you would like roast chicken in the hotest months !!

So as i said earlier for me its wood.

The size is very important, don't always go by the manufacturers recommendation, the actual space needed depends on the size of bird, something such as a Cochin which ic a very large bird would need about 3 square foot house room and 15 sq foot in its run so if you want a trio of the very large breeds then triple everything, a house that is 9 sd feet and a run that is 45 square feet. mid sized birds or LF would need a space of aboout 2 sq feet housing and 10 sq feet run size, and bantams 1.5 sq feet house and 6 sq feet of run.

You need enough room for your birds to roost comfortably at night, if there isn't enough room then there will be fights breaking out.

A nest box is required, there should be at least one box to every 3 birds, that way again there won't be any squabbles.

The perch should be above the pop hole to the nest box, that way you will find that there is less chance of the birds rooting in their boxies. it should be between 1.5 an 2.5 inchies in diameter and rather than being round it should be oval in shape to help feet development.

The best housing is always off the ground this prevents vermin such as rats entering at night or nesting underneath.

As an end note, if you are buying your houses and runs, check out the quality before hand

here are some that I would recommend.



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a big thankyou to David and Claire from Coopers Coops for letting us use the images of there coops, click on the link to the left to find out more about their excellent quality products

THE RUN

The Run should be spacious enough for your birds to have a good scratch around, and large enough to contain feeders and drinkers without compromising space for the birds. Our runs are especially designed to keep three or four breeding birds, usually a cock and three hens and depending on the bird they are about 36 sq feet that gives each bird 9 sq feet to play in each. it doesnt sound like much but when you are only a foot atall it is. Once breeding seasons over the birds are moved to much bigger runs where they recoop their strenght for next season.

The floor of the run can be several materials, from gravel to rubber chippings, again it is personal taste but you must ensure that whatever you use you can clean and disinfect the run on a regular basis.

I won't recommend leaving your run as mud because come the winter it will be a bog! and a great place for bacteria to hide.

We have several runs, some are bark chips, some are gravel and one is paved with slabs, this one being the chick run, this one can be powerwashed weekly so to keep down the risks of infections to the birds.

Your birds will love to dust bath, we use very large gravel trays bought from our local garden centre in which i put a mixture of bird sand and ash from our fire, plus a cupful of Diatom to keep down parasites.


FEEDERS AND DRINKERS

These couldn't be easier, there are hundreds to choose from. but as long as your feeders and drinkers can be kept clean then anything can be used from an old sauspan to a biscuit tin, but if you want a good looking easily cleaned one then i suggest one that is bought is best.


BEDDING AND NESTING MATERIALS

Bedding is what we put on the floor of the house, you can use a number of materials, most people use wood shavings but we use chopped oil seed rape husks, these are dust extracted and citronella is added to them to keep down pests such as flies, and they make the houses smell lovely!. You can also use chopped hemp, shredded paper, but try not to use straw or hay as these are a great place for red mite to find a hiding place.

The material used in the nest box is the same, avoid hay and straw, we use shredded paper, the shredder cost us £25 and the paper is curtacy of everyone who sends us junk mail.


VITIMINS AND MINERALS

The feed that you buy should contain alot of vitimins and minerals but not enough to keep your birds in tip top form.

All i can tell you is what we do with our birds. The stuff that we use is from a company called Net-Tex who do a huge range of poultry products to keep your birds healthy. we add Mineral powder to their feed, this contains probiotics to help the birds immune systems and contain vitamin B and amino acids, and seaweed for help with the egg production, it stregthens the shells and is rich in vitamins A and D and Iodine.

And in their water we add Liquid Tonic

Again this contains seaweed but also contains Bioflavonoids which helps fight bacteria and viruses.

FEED

Now this is the easy one:-

Chick crumbs for chicks
growers pellets or mash for growing birds
layers pellets or mash for adult laying birds
Breeder pellets for when your birds are in breeding season
mixed corn/ barley/ maze for scatter feed

The choice between pellets and mash is merely for your convienience, pellets you just pop into a feeder mash you mix with water to make a damp feed. We choose to use mash at this time of the year because we find that it is so much easier to add vitamins and minerals to a damp mix.

check out the ingrediants on the bags you are looking for oil, protein, fibre and ash content

we use feed from Marriages, we find that they meet all of our requirements without breaking the bank to much. There are cheaper feeds but we are willing to pay that little bit more for the quality of the feed.



First aid kit

Alot of poultry keepers don't have a first aid kit for their birds, and it is such a simple kit to put together,

These are the basics, there is alot more that you could add such as specialist disinfectants and insect sprays, but unless you are going into serious breeding this will be ample