Looking After Pets

Are you interested in raising chickens? Well, more and more people are. There are plenty of reasons why a growing population is looking into the possibility of rearing chickens on their own. Many will agree that chickens, compared to other pets, require simple and inexpensive maintenance but nonetheless offer fun and fulfillment to their owners. In addition, most are after the fresh meat and eggs as well as the fertilizer that they can give. And should you want to experience such advantages, you have to understand that you would need good housing for the chickens. In order to have one, good hen house plans are imperative. And similar to constructing people’s homes, a guide is needed to ensure that the house is put up properly, using minimum cost, time and effort and with the minimum wastage on any of the resources employed.

Before getting ready with the building itself, you have to find out ahead the laws and ordinances that may have an implication on raising chickens on your locality. And when this is accomplished, you have to decide whether you will buy a coop or build your own. Those who want to make more savings will find the do-it-yourself option an excellent choice. However, you should find a good set of plans for hen house because it is only through this that you can build a good coop, even if you are inexperienced in this type of project. You can obtain these plans on the Internet for free. You can even find other important tips and guide which you can use in rearing chickens. Take advantage of the video tutorials that show how coops are made, so you are well equipped when you do your own. To save more on your quest, check the materials you would require and see if you can find them in your property. Scrap lumber, plywood or an old shed can be useful.

Apart from the plan, there are other things which you need to account for as they can have implications on the coop construction as well as in taking care of the chickens. One is the coop size which will vary depending on your intention with raising chickens. Other factors are: climate, design of the coop (whether it should be elevated or not); and location. Your good set of plans for chicken coop will not really result to a good coop unless you take these matters into a thorough evaluation. As a whole, caring for chickens can bring about pleasure and fulfillment. And it will all start with providing your chickens with the best coop you can make.

There are many people who keep chickens on their property. They may keep them in large fancy hen houses, or smaller portable stations. A chicken coop build can be managed with the right plans. There are some great ways to find a work plan that may help someone build a hen home in the backyard.

A blue print and a plan can be found in a few different ways. There are reputable websites that offer information about the chicken homes they sell and how to build them. The site creators may supply some personal experience and information about building and creating a perfect coop.

When someone is searching through information about plans they may think about what they need in a particular building. If someone has a large property, then they may have more flexibility when it comes to size and location. A smaller yard may only have room for a certain size. There may well be laws that prevent a person from keeping chickens within their property lines.

Learning what the laws in the area are, and figuring out where a good spot would be to place a coop, may factor in what size of unit can be made. Once the size has been decided upon, then a person can design the features and layout of the coop.

There are two ways to construct the bottom of the coop. The decision could be to have a closed floor with bedding or a sliding tray. Both styles will work and will depend on the time a person has for cleaning out their hen cage. The sliding tray just simple gets slid out and the droppings disposed of. Once it has been cleaned by hosing off the waste it is placed back under the coop. Bedding will also work well, as your hens will bury their own waste, but this will need to be cleaned regularly to avoid some really bad smells.

Windows, ramps and doors are all part of the features in a hen home. Someone may choose to have a few windows and ramps to get in and out. The type and size of door needed will need to factored into your plans. To keep out pests, special fencing may have to be put around the chicken coop as well as some wire.

Building a hen house from a set of plans may take some time and careful planning. Each plan will discuss the best tools and materials for the job. That can be useful information when someone heads into a hardware store for their supplies.

Chicken coop build ideas can be found and will help a person build their own structure. There may be lots of ideas about sizes and features that will make each one unique and different. The size and aspects to the coop may reflect the yard size and the number of animals who will be residing in the unit. When a great idea and plan is found, it will allow the person to acquire the right materials and build the structure with a hassle free approach. Easy to read instructions and a clear blue print may be what is offered.

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.

If you want the perfect pet, both a wonderful companion for the children as well as a productive pet then the obvious solution is to keep chickens. Chickens make a great pet for children, are fun to have around, will help clean up the garden of nasty pests and provide you with the perfect product to eat, namely free range eggs.

The keeping of chickens is not just restricted to country folk. Many suburban dwellers keep chickens and delight from those wonderful free range eggs.

The keeping of chickens is often subject to rules and regulations, for example it is often prohibited to keep roosters and there are also sometimes regulations about the number of chooks you may have and where your chicken house may be located.

But after you’ve found out what you can and cannot do there are no other reasons why dwellers of suburbia are unable to keep backyard chickens in suburbia.

I am often asked how many chickens to have and what breed of chickens to buy.

This depends of course on your own choice, but a general rule is that a good laying hen will lay around 300 eggs each year, or around 5 or 6 a week, more in summer than winter.

You can then look at how many eggs you require to determine how many chooks to keep.

If you have too many eggs, as we always seem to find, you will also find that there are plenty of people close by who are happy to buy them from you, it’s very rare for anyone with chickens to have fresh free range eggs going to waste.

Using this figure most people find that 3 or 4 chooks is sufficient.

And then there is the question of what breed to buy and this depends on why you are keeping chickens. Are you keeping chickens for their looks or their eggs or their companionship?

Because there is no doubt there are some wonderful fancy looking chickens available. Our kids love fancy chickens and so we have some wonderful pure white silky bantams. They don’t lay large eggs so are really there for their looks.

But they do look great.

We have Isa Browns for their egg laying capacity. They do not sit on eggs very well and this means they are producing eggs for more days of the year, so are excellent layers. But they won’t hatch chicks for you.

Having chicks is a wonderful experience and kids love it. However there is a downside, namely that you will have to decide what to do with the roosters, and unless you want your brood of 3 or 4 hens to grow to 10 or 15 you will also have to find something to do with the new hens.

However these are small problems when compared to the delights of keeping chickens as pets, and also of having those wonderful, tasty and fresh free range eggs to eat every day.

Peter’s website is at http://www.chickenhouses.net.au

The kids would like a pet. You’ve considered dogs but they bark loudly, mess up the lounge and poop in places you don’t want them to. You consider a cat but they catch native animals and aren’t environmentally friendly. Have you considered chickens?

There’s so many reasons why keeping chickens is such a great hobby, and why chickens make such wonderful pets. You’ll never hear a chicken barking, and although a rooster crows there is absolutely no need for you to get a rooster. And kids love having chickens, I know my kids spend hours playing with the chickens.

And on top of that you have an added bonus. Eggs.

Lots of people never think about getting chickens as a pet when it comes to choosing a pet for the kids. As long as your council allows you to keep chickens it’s well worth considering. But there are some things to think about before you rush out and buy your hens. You need a good chicken house to house your chickens.

Chicken houses need not be big if you only have 3 or 4 hens. It will need a good sheltered nesting area where they can lay their eggs as well as perches for them to sleep on at night.

It’s not hard to build yourself a henhouse. It’s basically just treated timber (for outdoor use) and some wire mesh, and some materials to cover in part of the henhouse so they have some shelter at night. Usually don’t need a floor as it sits on the ground.

And a small henhouse for 3 or 4 hens, if you add wheels one end and handles the other, can be moved around the garden so that the chicken droppings can fertilise the lawn in different spots from time to time. And there’s no reason chickens can’t free range around the garden during the day.

Building a chicken coop is the perfect handyman project. Get together with the kids one afternoon, after finding a simple set of plans on the Internet, and start building your own chicken house. It shouldn’t be expensive or difficult to do and it’s a great way to spend some quality time with the kids.

So grab that hammer and nails, go round up the kids and spend the weekend having some quality time building a chicken house. Buy your hens and you’ve got the perfect solution to finding a pet that will keep the kids happy and the fridge stocked with eggs.

Then all you need to do is learn how to make omelettes and you’re happy as well As the kids.

« Older Entries