keeping hens

wexford12

Hi all im looking at keeping some hens about six at the most.I have priced housing for them all are about 300euro plus does anyone know where i would get any second hand coops.Also how high would the fencing need to be i have about an acre but i dont want them that free to wonder off.Ihave an area about 50ft sq that i was going to keep them so i want to keep costs down as to fence 200 ft long is not cheap.All advice is welcomed.

arctictree

Standard hybrid laying hens can be contained by a 4 foot fence (in my experience).

You should be able to pick up some second hand coops on www.buyandsell.ie

BTW - Hens don't wander off. Once they know were there food and roosting place is, they have no interest in leaving. The only reason I have fencing is to keep them out of the garden. I have a field out the back and they free range in that. The fox takes one very now and then but thats unavoidable really...

A

Camile

Hello,

I'm keeping a few hens myself, 10 + 20 chicks right now .. more on the way as I have another broody sitting on eggs.

You should be able to find some hen houses on Buy and sell, but I am making them myself to suit my need and keep the cost down.

A few pallets and screws does the trick ...

As for the area you are planning on keeping them, this is way to small in my opinion. 6 hens will destroy it within minutes ... even 1 ..

A 4ft fence won't keep most of the breed of chicken, unless you clip one wing. 6ft would be more like it, even though most of mine would actually clear it in no time. Plus, clever as they are, on such a small area that you want to keep them in, they will happily jump on the roof of the coop, and fly away !

What you could try to do is to buy an ark, that is a self contained coop and run attached .. that way you can move them around easily before they cause too much damage.

Mine are free ranging and they always return home at night .. that's the wonder about keeping hens .. and they won't cause as much damage if kept free ranging, plus they will benefit from all the food they will find on their own, ie bugs and greens .. and you will find a big difference in the taste of the eggs.

And I actually fenced off the veggie patch so that they don't get in and scratch everything .. because they can be very destructive.

Good luck.
Camile

arctictree

Camile wrote:

I'm keeping a few hens myself, 10 + 20 chicks right now .. more on the way as I have another broody sitting on eggs.

Great to see someone else here keeping hens!!

What breeds do you have? I have 3 hybrid layers and 4 light sussex chicks that are about 6 weeks old. I hope that some will turn out to be hens and go broody.

Do you have problems with foxes where you are? Our 4 foot fence seems to keep the hens of the veggie garden. Probably because they have no need really to go in there.

So what are you going to do with these 20 chicks??!

A

Camile

Hello again ..

I currently have a Naked Neck rooster, 1 Heinz 57 rooster, 1 Silky rooster, 1 silky hen, 3 x Rhode Island Red, 1 x Ancona and 2 x Orpington x LS.

The chicks are a mix between them all .. Some are POL now (6 x 16 weeks), 9 x 10 weeks old, 5 x 5 weeks old ..

These were hatched by the silky and Orp x LS ... and the Ancona has now gone broody on me for a week ..

I had only one visit from a fox that took 4 last october .. but the worst was the mink that came one day and wiped me clear .. there was 4 hens and 2 roosters ..

As for the chicks, we'll keep a few hens for eggs, sell/barter/give the others .. and I'm affraid that the roosters will be for the pot

Here are a few pictures of most of them:













Camile

Our man in Havana

FAB pics Camile We have one old ex batter hen now & a cockeral - most of the battery hens died a year ago some lived for a few years tho & got to experience an almost free range life - they are confined to the garden they have their own hen house but come & go as they please. We need to get some more hens later this year.

arctictree

Camile wrote:

I currently have a Naked Neck rooster, 1 Heinz 57 rooster, 1 Silky rooster, 1 silky hen, 3 x Rhode Island Red, 1 x Ancona and 2 x Orpington x LS.

Wow - Respect!!!

Nice pics!!

A

arctictree

BTW - What do you feed them? I use layers pellets but would like to go more organic...

A

wexford12

I have been looking in the buy and sell web site for some time now never seen a second hand coop in it.I have a large dog kennel that i could use i think do i need to put wodden perches in it or do they sleep on the ground,also do i need a place on the side of it for them to lay or is i cover the floor with hay would that do ?

arctictree

wexford12 wrote:

I have been looking in the buy and sell web site for some time now never seen a second hand coop in it.I have a large dog kennel that i could use i think do i need to put wodden perches in it or do they sleep on the ground,also do i need a place on the side of it for them to lay or is i cover the floor with hay would that do ?

Hens aren't fussy, they need somewhere to roost and somewhere dark and quiete to lay. Yes, you need to put wooden perches in the dog kennel and also put a couple of boxes a few inches off the floor with straw in them for them to lay in. Would also be a good idea to raise the kennel about a foot off the ground.

A friend of mine keeps his hens in an old car! Nice and dry and loads of places to roost.

A

Camile

Hello ..

We feed ours rolled wheat, rolled barley, a bit of flake maize and some whole oat when we can find some .. ad lib ..

We can't find any organic one so far ... one day maybe ...

don't forget also to give them some crushed oyster shell ... they will eat it if they feel they need it .. if they free range, they will find their grit and calcium , otherwise you will need to provide some .. builder sand does the trick ..

as for the dog kennel, that sounds fine, give us the dimensions and we can try to tell you how many will fit ..

make sure the roost are not too close to the roof ... and make sure that the nest box is not too high so that the hens can't really stand up in it .. otherwise some will try sleeping in there and make a mess of it ...

Good luck ..

will post pictures of the hen houses next week so you get an idea ...

by the way, if you want to know more about animals and country life in Ireland, there is a nice forum that openned a while ago:
http://countrytalkandtips.myfreeforum.org/

Also, there is http://greenwelliesbalertwine.myfreeforum.org which talks about more or less the same thing .. but not only for Ireland ..

And Bond_007, if you are not too far from Co. Galway and want more hens, give us a shoot because we are looking to sell/barter some young ones thar will start laying in a couple of months.

Camile

luckat

There's a farm feed place in Stepaside - in a garage, think it's called the Stepaside Garage indeed - on the road from Dublin to Enniskerry, which sells organic feed. This feed is produced by a farm feed place in Wicklow, either in Baltinglass or in Balbriggan, can't remember which. It's not dear.

I have an ark which I'm not using. The floor is a bit rusty and needs a patch, otherwise it's fine - it's one of those big iron ones on wheels made by nuns in Louth years ago.

It's not a great design, mind - the ideal design of ark needs you to be able to get at all parts of it easily, so that you can move a hen and chicks if she goes in nesting in an inaccessible place, or you can take out a sick hen that has gone to ground and medicate her.

Unfortunately, you'd need a crane to get it out of my back garden, because it was wheeled in through the garage when the door was being made.

But if you can get a lifter to get it out you're welcome to it.

wexford12

luckat wrote:

There's a farm feed place in Stepaside - in a garage, think it's called the Stepaside Garage indeed - on the road from Dublin to Enniskerry, which sells organic feed. This feed is produced by a farm feed place in Wicklow, either in Baltinglass or in Balbriggan, can't remember which. It's not dear.

I have an ark which I'm not using. The floor is a bit rusty and needs a patch, otherwise it's fine - it's one of those big iron ones on wheels made by nuns in Louth years ago.

It's not a great design, mind - the ideal design of ark needs you to be able to get at all parts of it easily, so that you can move a hen and chicks if she goes in nesting in an inaccessible place, or you can take out a sick hen that has gone to ground and medicate her.

Unfortunately, you'd need a crane to get it out of my back garden, because it was wheeled in through the garage when the door was being made.

But if you can get a lifter to get it out you're welcome to it.

Thanks for the offer but i dont think i would get it out and down to wexford to easy.The dog kennel i have is 3 1/2ft x2 1/2 x about 2 1/2 foot high the roof is fixed on which is a pitty but any good ideas would be a help "im not the best wood worker ever lol".The area i had set aside was 50 ft sq someone earlier said it was too small its 2500sq ft surely thats a lot of room for a few chickens.

luckat

Hire someone to build a run, I'd suggest. My run, at the end of my suburban garden, is made of chain-link fencing going down a foot and out three feet to prevent burrowing, with a roofed section at one end.

If I were keeping hens now I'd get a garden shed and have someone build a pop-hole with a stepped ramp leading up from the inside of the wire run, plus a nesting box with a sliding door accessible from the outside, built on the door leading in, and an easy place to put in feed and water from outside without going in.

You want to be able to get in and clean; you also want to be able to leave your hens minded by hen-nervous neighbours if you're going away for a fortnight.

arctictree

luckat wrote:

If I were keeping hens now I'd get a garden shed and have someone build a pop-hole with a stepped ramp leading up from the inside of the wire run, plus a nesting box with a sliding door accessible from the outside, built on the door leading in, and an easy place to put in feed and water from outside without going in.

Here's a few pics of my setup! Is this what you are talking about?

A view of my coop. Its a converted garden shed with a run attached:



View from the back:



View of the front:



View inside. I have wired off the last 3 feet of the shed with a gate. The hens roost on the left and have nesting boxes on the right. You can see from this setup that I can go into the shed and clean it/get the eggs very easily. You can also see the mini run I built for the chicks on the bottom left.



The chicks in their little run!!



Happy hens in the field!



BTW - wexford12 - I am thinking of buying an ARK for the chicks off someone in Ashford:

http://www.growgreensolutions.com/Pages/Poultry%20Housing.htm

I've sent him an email and will get back to you with his prices.
I need one for my light sussex growing hens.

A