Looking After Pets

If you’re going to be keeping hens there are some easy items of equipment that you will need, most of which are essential, though not all. Here are the few things you need to buy, build, or
have available:

Finding the best hens and sourcing them can be complicated . But acquiring them from chicken breeders, local keepers and farms are good beginning points. There is more than meets the eye, though. As a beginner you should know what factors to look for when choosing a hen. Some, or all, of your questions can be answered by asking your local breeder or keeper.

Selection Factor 1: Finding the Best Provider

Try going over local trading papers or books that more often feature cattle and pet sections. You will refer to Google and zero in on the specified subjects and subjects. Browse through the pages to work out if there any hens that are up on sale. Widen your search through local newspapers running advertisements listing hens for sale.

Other useful tips:

• Try asking neighbours and pals if they know any of their chums and acquaintances who keep hens.

• Go to the Internet and see if there are chicken breeders near your locality you might go to for a visit.

• Consider a visit to the Battery Hen Welfare Trust (BHWT) web site to discover if there are available rescue hens that need a new home.

Selection Factor 2: The Chicken Sort of Choice

Do you not think that with the numerous kinds of hens available, you should ask what to pick ? First, you want to decide and decide what is it particularly that you want out of your chickens”fresh eggs on a daily run, a pet for your leisure or entertainment for your friends, or for beef . Different breeds, as was the knowledge of seasoned breeders say, are “ideal for certain things.” Here are 1 or 2 tips:

Strains of Good Layers

Towards meeting your need for hens that produce a fine supply of eggs, those that are advertised as POL or point of lay is a sensible choice because they're typically 18-22-week-old birds. The best breeds include:

• Warrens, which lay between 250 to 300 eggs annually

• Rhode Island Reds (200 eggs yearly )

• Black Rocks (250 eggs annually )

• Marans (200 eggs yearly )

• Bluebelles (200 eggs yearly )

• Orpingtons (200 eggs annually )

Good Table Chickens

If you are looking for chickens that are excellent for eating, table birds fit the bill . The ideal breeds meeting these necessities are:

• Sussex

• Wyandotte

• Dorking

• Plymouth Rock

Pet or Show Birds

Many chicken breeds, in most parts of the planet, are understood to be docile, lovely, or strange (rare ) in appearance. Breeder manuals and magazine point out the bantam variety as the most ideal chicken that fits the factors . Bantams serve as the miniature version of the favored massive breeds and are judged suitable in locations where there's less room for nest boxes. The preferred pet or show breeds include:

• Araucana, which lays blue eggs famous for their beauty

• Cochin

• Dutch Bantam

• Pekin

• Sebrights

• Silkies

Selection Factor 3: Vaccination-certified Hens

It's your responsibility as owner-entrepreneur to be certain that the hens you obtain from your supplier have had been immunized against common fowl diseases such as Mareks, Newcastle, contagious laryngotracheitis, fowl pox, and mycoplasmosis, amongst others . Checking out explanation in a vaccination certificate stands consistent to your own interest.

Also, keep a watchful eye on tell tale indications of physical weaknesses . Find out by closer observation if the hens are alert and bright-eyed. The healthful ones stand with tails up, have had clean bottoms, and show no discharge from their noses and beaks. Moreover, check the legs and feet, and make sure that the hens had smooth scales and strong legs.

Selection Factor 4: Final Preparation Checks

You want to be sure that your prepared facilities duly matched the sort of hens and the purpose for which you are raising them. Run the check list one by one to make sure that not an item is left out.

Before leaving your house to gather your hens, ensure that the coop is prepared . Make sure that the feeders and drinkers had been filled out and full.

Think previously about the type of carrier you're going to use. If a special pet carrier is not available, a cardboard box is sufficient . Nonetheless do ensure that there's enough breathing holes already in place and the box bottom has been duly buttressed . See to it that the box is neither too big for the hens to have so much space to move about on the trip or too small that they are too crowded in or cramped beyond normal comfort.

Selection factor 5: Choosing a chicken coop.

You need to make sure you choose a good chicken coop for your chickens. Even if you get everything else right your chickens won’t be happy if they have a damp or cold or draughty house. Find out more about chicken coops on my website.

Peter has a website all about Chicken Houses where you can get more advice about chicken nesting boxes to keep your chooks healthy and happy and laying eggs

A hen house is a place of shelter for your chickens at night and during bad weather as well as nesting boxes for their eggs. Different ideas on building a hen house are available depending on the type of house you want to build. It is important to consider the number of hens that you have when planning a house for your poultry since you want to prevent overcrowding the chickens, which can cause fights and reduced production of eggs. You should as well build a nesting box for every five hens so that they have plenty of spaces to lay their precious eggs. Provide six to 10 inches of spaces for each bird for their perches.

Another important thing is to choose the appropriate material. Wood is an ideal choice in case you do not have plenty of time to get busy for you can finish the task by setting aside two weekends for creating the coop. Make sure that before you start the project to build hen house, you already know the size and style of coops that you want to build. Make sure that they will be put up in proper places.

If you have no idea on building chicken coops, plenty of resources are available on the Internet, whether you require a big coop or a small one, whether you have a limited budget, or whether you want a premium large and two-story hen house. Many plans for chicken coop are found online to give you basic ideas on starting your project. You will find out in your research that location is really an important consideration when building chicken coops to avoid having sick and unproductive poultry. The three factors that you should look into are sol drainage, air circulation, and accessibility to water facilities. The drainage will prevent the formation of muddy areas, which could cause filth and be a reason for diseases. Meanwhile, if the coops do not have good ventilation, it can cause unpleasant odors, which can be harmful for human health. Lastly, make sure that you have a nearby water source to be able to replenish your chicken’s water needs daily and conveniently. You can even install an automatic watering system for added convenience if there is an available nearby water source. Lastly, keep the coops clean as often as possible so that your chickens live in a healthy environment, which will yield to top quality eggs for everyone to enjoy.

When you have a brood of chickens that you’re keeping, you need to ensure that you  understand how to look after them properly in all areas.  It will make certain you have happy nutritious chickens all the time. Your chickens health isn’t so complicated to maintain, you just have to fully understand what to do.

Why don’t we start with the most important part of chicken care, the coop. Hens simply were not produced for roaming, especially in our day and age. Try to identify any area that may be excellent hiding places for poultry predators, for example shrubbery and long grass locations and prevent placing your new coop there. Make an effort to choose a space that is clear and level that also has some kind of shade, like a tree or building, particularly if you live in quite a hot environment. The very best coop will even incorporate a chicken house from where the animals can go for refuge during bad weather and nest in, to enable you to  gather those fresh eggs.

Being aware of any predators around the area is essential, as they will easily decimate a group of chickens. You’ll find a great deal of possible predators that are searching for their next meal, and an unprotected hen house with fresh meat and eggs is incredibly tempting. Depending where you are located, you need to  be aware of Foxes, Hawks, Coyotes, Raccoons, Weasels as well as your family pets.

You could dig your fence into the soil to stop predators from digging in, and also fit some barbed wire across the top of the chicken fence and dwelling, to help keep potential predators from clambering over. Aside from these safety measure, simply keep a close eye out for any indicators that a predator is on the lookout.

Daily care includes making sure that your farm animals are properly fed and watered. There are a number  of excellent all purpose hen feeds that you should use to nourish your chickens. A typical routine would be to feed and water twice daily, early morning together with evening hours.

You might want to  consider utilising a something comparable to a hamsters water bottle to deliver your chickens with water. The advantages of this is that you will not  waste any water because the water will evaporate far less, it’ll likewise stop your chickens from making as much mess as they definitely would with a bowl of water.

It is also smart to  locate your coop in an area that has a lot of dirt, as hens love to scratch within it. This certainly will not be an issue, and it will keep your hens happy and healthy, since the dirt also actively works to assist in keeping them free from unwanted pests. By dusting themselves for hours each day with dirt, they are going to decrease the chance of pest attaching themselves to them.

When it comes to chicken care, you actually do not have to do that much in comparison to other farm pets or animals. Supplying a chicken coop and some daily sustenance is the main part of the work. These will make sure you have fresh eggs daily, and some happy and healthy chickens.

Whilst managing hens can easily be a wonderful hobby for the household, and whilst I personally consider that hens make wonderful pets, there are some disadvantages to maintaining hens as well as positives.

Whilst maintaining chooks can certainly be a fantastic hobby for the household, and whilst I personally consider that chooks make wonderful pets, there are some negatives to managing chickens as well as positives.

Lets take into consideration the pluses first. Certainly the greatest plus to attempting to keep chooks would have to be all those tasty roam around eggs just laying there waiting around that you simply get your hands on every afternoon or night. There is nothing like cooking your own nutritious, and tasty free range eggs that were laid on that day simply for you. No chooks needed to suffer coping with a tiny cage to lay all of them for you personally, so you can easily feel great about having a fridge crammed filled with healthful foods.

Next chooks can make great pets despite the fact that they’re just fowls. Youngsters just adore them. Ours will happily pick them up and carry them all over for hours. It’s quite a delight keeping hens, and when you permit them to free range around your garden it is satisfying observing all of them out your kitchen window when you make supper.

Third, if you make it possible for them to roam around at home they will thoroughly clean up a whole host of pesky insects which, if left on their own, could possibly eat your garden. It was our chickens that helped save our back garden from two summers of hopper plague. You should see how many grasshoppers one chook can feed on daily.

Fourthly it’s pretty simple, not like for most animals, to provide for your hens so that you do not need to make arrangements for them every time you go on vacations. As I have substantial automatic storage containers for feeding and supplying water we are able to go on vacations leaving behind the chooks to their own devices and have never ever lost just one yet, whilst on trips.

Now to the disadvantages. Like all pets chickens may get sick and pass away. We have had occasions when the children have found a dead chicken in the chook coop, and this is distressing for the kids. Whilst this obviously is applicable to all domestic pets it is more prevalent when you keep your own chickens. This of course is simply because you have a tendency to have quite a few hens, whereas a lot of people may have one or at most 2 pet dogs or cats. In our situation with 15 chickens it is more frequent. Of course hens have a shorter life than some pets such as puppies or cats.

Second of all despite the fact that chickens will cleanup many of the nasty bugs around your back garden they do so by scratching, and this can scratch up the earth of your garden beds. They will also peck at your vegetables if you grow your own and they particularly like pecking tomatoes. You might need to safeguard your fruit and vegetables or some area of your back garden.

Thirdly, like for many other pets, there is some work required, including frequent cleansing of the chicken coop. Hens poop all over the place and the coop, as well as feeding and water containers, must be cleaned. You must also learn more about pest avoidance as chickens could certainly be susceptible to such challenges as mites.

Furthermore while getting fresh new roam around eggs is fantastic it doesn’t occur on a regular basis. Chickens can go off the lay throughout the cold winter months, and older chooks lay fewer eggs than young ones. For this reason there might be times when you’re paying for chook feed but still purchasing eggs.

I think nevertheless that the positives of always keeping chooks far outweighs the negatives. They’re one of the very few family pets that are productive in addition to just being a family pet, and for anyone considering managing hens as pets my reply is always to do it. Not many people have regretted keeping chickens.

Don’t forget to visit my web site Australian Chicken Coops about hen houses to find out more about how to find the best chicken coop  for keeping your chickens happy.

Whilst managing hens can easily be a wonderful hobby for the household, and whilst I personally consider that hens make wonderful pets, there are some disadvantages to maintaining hens as well as positives.

Whilst maintaining chooks can certainly be a fantastic hobby for the household, and whilst I personally consider that chooks make wonderful pets, there are some negatives to managing chickens as well as positives.

Lets take into consideration the pluses first. Certainly the greatest plus to attempting to keep chooks would have to be all those tasty roam around eggs just laying there waiting around that you simply get your hands on every afternoon or night. There is nothing like cooking your own nutritious, and tasty free range eggs that were laid on that day simply for you. No chooks needed to suffer coping with a tiny cage to lay all of them for you personally, so you can easily feel great about having a fridge crammed filled with healthful foods.

Next chooks can make great pets despite the fact that they’re just fowls. Youngsters just adore them. Ours will happily pick them up and carry them all over for hours. It’s quite a delight keeping hens, and when you permit them to free range around your garden it is satisfying observing all of them out your kitchen window when you make supper.

Third, if you make it possible for them to roam around at home they will thoroughly clean up a whole host of pesky insects which, if left on their own, could possibly eat your garden. It was our chickens that helped save our back garden from two summers of hopper plague. You should see how many grasshoppers one chook can feed on daily.

Fourthly it’s pretty simple, not like for most animals, to provide for your hens so that you do not need to make arrangements for them every time you go on vacations. As I have substantial automatic storage containers for feeding and supplying water we are able to go on vacations leaving behind the chooks to their own devices and have never ever lost just one yet, whilst on trips.

Now to the disadvantages. Like all pets chickens may get sick and pass away. We have had occasions when the children have found a dead chicken in the chook coop, and this is distressing for the kids. Whilst this obviously is applicable to all domestic pets it is more prevalent when you keep your own chickens. This of course is simply because you have a tendency to have quite a few hens, whereas a lot of people may have one or at most 2 pet dogs or cats. In our situation with 15 chickens it is more frequent. Of course hens have a shorter life than some pets such as puppies or cats.

Second of all despite the fact that chickens will cleanup many of the nasty bugs around your back garden they do so by scratching, and this can scratch up the earth of your garden beds. They will also peck at your vegetables if you grow your own and they particularly like pecking tomatoes. You might need to safeguard your fruit and vegetables or some area of your back garden.

Thirdly, like for many other pets, there is some work required, including frequent cleansing of the chicken coop. Hens poop all over the place and the coop, as well as feeding and water containers, must be cleaned. You must also learn more about pest avoidance as chickens could certainly be susceptible to such challenges as mites.

Furthermore while getting fresh new roam around eggs is fantastic it doesn’t occur on a regular basis. Chickens can go off the lay throughout the cold winter months, and older chooks lay fewer eggs than young ones. For this reason there might be times when you’re paying for chook feed but still purchasing eggs.

I think nevertheless that the positives of always keeping chooks far outweighs the negatives. They’re one of the very few family pets that are productive in addition to just being a family pet, and for anyone considering managing hens as pets my reply is always to do it. Not many people have regretted keeping chickens.

Don’t forget to visit my web site Australian Chicken Coops about hen houses to find out more about how to find the best chicken coop  for keeping your chickens happy.

Whilst pets are wonderful to have they do have their problems. Dogs will bark of the neighbours, some pets can be very expensive and veterinary bills can be very expensive and what do you do with your cat when you want to go away for a week’s holiday?

The perfect pet for a family may well be chickens. Chickens don’t bark at the neighbours, they aren’t expensive, they rarely get sick and if you work it right it’s not a problem having chickens when you go on holidays.

And as well as that chickens are very productive providing you with a fridge full of wonderful free range eggs, and the result can be some delightful omelettes for dinner. There’s many reasons why chickens may be the ideal family pet.

And whilst it is true that you can’t sit a chicken on your lap to pat at night we still find that adults and particularly children adore chickens.

But as is the case with other pets you need to research a little about keeping chickens before you buy your first one. The primary consideration is where you will keep them. They live in a chicken coop, which is occasionally called a henhouse or a chicken house. There are many chicken coops available for sale although the cheapest way to get your coop is to build it yourself.

The chickens will sleep in the coop at night but generally are allowed out of the coop during the day, in many cases to run free around your garden. If they do this they will clean up many of the nasty bugs in your garden, though they may scratch the soil and peck at your flowers as they do.

If you have tomatoes planted you do need to protect them as they love to peck ripe tomatoes.

Or else you can provide a dedicated chicken run around the hen house where they can roam during the day.

It’s important, if you plan on keeping chickens, to understand some of the feeding requirements. To ensure an adequate supply of eggs they need plenty of calcium and protein. You can supply the protein from any source, though it’s possible to get dedicated high protein feed, and calcium can often come from shell grit added to their food. You will need a good feeding and watering device.

And going on holidays isn’t a problem. We can comfortably go away for one to 2 weeks after we have left our chickens with sufficient food and water.

Without doubt keeping chickens is a great way for the family and in particular the children to enjoy having pets. Although there is plenty to learn it’s fun and rewarding and the children will love having their chickens. So learn a bit more about housing and feeding them and then start looking for your first hen.

And then you’re on your way to a lifetime of healthy free range eggs delivered to you by some happy healthy hens.

Whilst pets are wonderful to have they do have their problems. Dogs will bark of the neighbours, some pets can be very expensive and veterinary bills can be very expensive and what do you do with your cat when you want to go away for a week’s holiday?

The perfect pet for a family may well be chickens. Chickens don’t bark at the neighbours, they aren’t expensive, they rarely get sick and if you work it right it’s not a problem having chickens when you go on holidays.

And as well as that chickens are very productive providing you with a fridge full of wonderful free range eggs, and the result can be some delightful omelettes for dinner. There’s many reasons why chickens may be the ideal family pet.

And whilst it is true that you can’t sit a chicken on your lap to pat at night we still find that adults and particularly children adore chickens.

But as is the case with other pets you need to research a little about keeping chickens before you buy your first one. The primary consideration is where you will keep them. They live in a chicken coop, which is occasionally called a henhouse or a chicken house. There are many chicken coops available for sale although the cheapest way to get your coop is to build it yourself.

The chickens will sleep in the coop at night but generally are allowed out of the coop during the day, in many cases to run free around your garden. If they do this they will clean up many of the nasty bugs in your garden, though they may scratch the soil and peck at your flowers as they do.

If you have tomatoes planted you do need to protect them as they love to peck ripe tomatoes.

Or else you can provide a dedicated chicken run around the hen house where they can roam during the day.

It’s important, if you plan on keeping chickens, to understand some of the feeding requirements. To ensure an adequate supply of eggs they need plenty of calcium and protein. You can supply the protein from any source, though it’s possible to get dedicated high protein feed, and calcium can often come from shell grit added to their food. You will need a good feeding and watering device.

And going on holidays isn’t a problem. We can comfortably go away for one to 2 weeks after we have left our chickens with sufficient food and water.

Without doubt keeping chickens is a great way for the family and in particular the children to enjoy having pets. Although there is plenty to learn it’s fun and rewarding and the children will love having their chickens. So learn a bit more about housing and feeding them and then start looking for your first hen.

And then you’re on your way to a lifetime of healthy free range eggs delivered to you by some happy healthy hens.

If you are considering keeping chickens at home then you’re well on the way to making the best decision you’ve ever made. There’s so many reasons to keep chickens it’s difficult to list them all. Primarily though, kids love chickens and they will produce for you a wonderful product every day, eggs.

But before you start looking to buy some chooks you need to find out a little more about what you house them in. They are generally housed in chicken coops, or what are sometimes called a henhouse or chicken house.

It doesn’t matter if you buy your chicken coop or build a chicken coop yourself. It’s quite cheap and not difficult to build a henhouse, it’s really not a lot more than a garden shed with some modifications.

The modifications that you will need are firstly that there are nesting boxes available in the chook house for the chickens to lay their eggs. Make your nesting boxes only a little bigger than the size of a chicken. If they’re too big you’ll find two chickens battling for position in the same nesting box. And make them easy to clean.

And as chickens like to lay where it is dark make sure the nesting boxes are relatively dark or they will lay somewhere else darker, for example in the corner of the chicken coop.

And you will need perches as well. Chooks sleep off the ground standing up, and if you put a bar around 75 millimetres by 50 above the ground they will perch there to sleep.

And you will of course need to provide both water and food, generally inside the chook shed, though this is not essential.

If you provide food and water in the chicken coop you will need to make sure that it is not underneath the perch or the chicken droppings will foul the food.

Of course some responsibilities come with keeping chickens, in particular cleaning the henhouse. You need a nice soft material on the floor of the henhouse, my preference is sawdust which soaks up droppings, though of course needs to be removed from time to time. And it makes a wonderful fertiliser put it on the garden.

The best part of keeping chickens is collecting eggs every day. Organic free range eggs taste better than supermarket eggs and you’re never left with too many as you will always find neighbours happy to buy them from you.

So there’s good reasons for keeping chickens as pets for the children. There’s many animals that make good pets are very few if any that provide you with a useful product to eat as well.

And chickens certainly are a fine companion for children, ours absolutely love their chickens.

So spend a little time researching keeping chooks and consider the type of chicken coop you will need, whether you will build it or buy it, where you will put it and how you will clean it, then get yourself some chickens. You won’t regret it.

Whilst managing hens can easily be a wonderful hobby for the household, and whilst I personally consider that hens make wonderful pets, there are some disadvantages to maintaining hens as well as positives.

Whilst maintaining chooks can certainly be a fantastic hobby for the household, and whilst I personally consider that chooks make wonderful pets, there are some negatives to managing chickens as well as positives.

Lets take into consideration the pluses first. Certainly the greatest plus to attempting to keep chooks would have to be all those tasty roam around eggs just laying there waiting around that you simply get your hands on every afternoon or night. There is nothing like cooking your own nutritious, and tasty free range eggs that were laid on that day simply for you. No chooks needed to suffer coping with a tiny cage to lay all of them for you personally, so you can easily feel great about having a fridge crammed filled with healthful foods.

Next chooks can make great pets despite the fact that they’re just fowls. Youngsters just adore them. Ours will happily pick them up and carry them all over for hours. It’s quite a delight keeping hens, and when you permit them to free range around your garden it is satisfying observing all of them out your kitchen window when you make supper.

Third, if you make it possible for them to roam around at home they will thoroughly clean up a whole host of pesky insects which, if left on their own, could possibly eat your garden. It was our chickens that helped save our back garden from two summers of hopper plague. You should see how many grasshoppers one chook can feed on daily.

Fourthly it’s pretty simple, not like for most animals, to provide for your hens so that you do not need to make arrangements for them every time you go on vacations. As I have substantial automatic storage containers for feeding and supplying water we are able to go on vacations leaving behind the chooks to their own devices and have never ever lost just one yet, whilst on trips.

Now to the disadvantages. Like all pets chickens may get sick and pass away. We have had occasions when the children have found a dead chicken in the chook coop, and this is distressing for the kids. Whilst this obviously is applicable to all domestic pets it is more prevalent when you keep your own chickens. This of course is simply because you have a tendency to have quite a few hens, whereas a lot of people may have one or at most 2 pet dogs or cats. In our situation with 15 chickens it is more frequent. Of course hens have a shorter life than some pets such as puppies or cats.

Second of all despite the fact that chickens will cleanup many of the nasty bugs around your back garden they do so by scratching, and this can scratch up the earth of your garden beds. They will also peck at your vegetables if you grow your own and they particularly like pecking tomatoes. You might need to safeguard your fruit and vegetables or some area of your back garden.

Thirdly, like for many other pets, there is some work required, including frequent cleansing of the chicken coop. Hens poop all over the place and the coop, as well as feeding and water containers, must be cleaned. You must also learn more about pest avoidance as chickens could certainly be susceptible to such challenges as mites.

Furthermore while getting fresh new roam around eggs is fantastic it doesn’t occur on a regular basis. Chickens can go off the lay throughout the cold winter months, and older chooks lay fewer eggs than young ones. For this reason there might be times when you’re paying for chook feed but still purchasing eggs.

I think nevertheless that the positives of always keeping chooks far outweighs the negatives. They’re one of the very few family pets that are productive in addition to just being a family pet, and for anyone considering managing hens as pets my reply is always to do it. Not many people have regretted keeping chickens.

Don’t forget to visit my web site Australian Chicken Coops about hen houses to find out more about how to find the best chicken coop  for keeping your chickens happy.

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