A Family Guide To Keeping Chickens (10 page)

A ‘gate’ can be installed in the netting if required, and you should display a warning notice in areas where the public have access.

Correctly installed fencing only produces an unpleasant sting – children and pets will quickly learn not to touch it. However, small animals and amphibians can become entangled in the netting and continue receiving shocks, which may prove fatal (hedgehogs tend to curl into a ball around the fence). Disconnecting the second line of electrified wire can help prevent this.

Electric netting isn’t suitable for waterfowl (they try to walk through it) and shouldn’t be used with horned animals.

Occasionally farms have chickens foraging in the yard and roosting in the barns. Although this wouldn’t suit all breeds, some chickens were originally bred to live in the farmyard.

If you have the facilities and like this idea, bear in mind that the chickens will be at risk from predators both day and night. Chicks will be especially vulnerable. Egg collecting is time consuming when nests are made anywhere and everywhere – it’s difficult to keep track of freshness too. Farmyard chickens still need food and fresh water, as well as daily checks in case of illness or injury.

Considering How Many ChickensEE You Can Accommodate

However you decide to keep your chickens, it’s essential not to overstock. Trying to keep too many chickens in too little space will result in stress, disease and behavioural problems.

When deciding how many chickens to buy, err on the side of caution. Better to start with a few happy healthy birds than lots of miserable ones.

If your chickens are to be wholly or mainly confined to a run, allow as much space per bird as possible. Manufacturers can sometimes be over-ambitious about how many birds will comfortably live in their chicken runs, and ideally you should be more generous.

The house should allow all the birds to roost comfortably. Chickens are susceptible to overheating, and a crowded henhouse will lead to hot, unhealthy hens. As chickens do most of their droppings at night, you can imagine how unpleasant the air quality will be if the house is tightly packed. This will harm their respiratory systems.

Chickens are better able to cope with cold than with heat and will keep each other warm as long as their house isn’t too big or draughty. If you’re likely to increase your flock in the future, buy a house with reasonable space for expansion, but not so vast that the chickens rattle around in it trying to keep warm. If the addiction really takes hold, you may need to buy another house eventually, but by then you’ll have plenty of use for two houses anyway!

Positioning the Chicken House

Choose a well-drained spot for the chicken house. Soggy ground will quickly become a disaster zone and muddy feet lead to dirty eggs.

New chicken keepers often put their chicken house proudly in the middle of the lawn, but chickens are descended from jungle fowl and can become anxious in open spaces where they are exposed to predators. Nervous chickens don’t lay eggs so try to give your chickens the security of trees, a hedge or a fence.

Hot chickens don’t lay eggs either and a house without any shade could become overheated on a scorching summer’s day. However, chickens do enjoy some sunshine so their run needn’t be situated in the gloomiest part of the garden.

Try to position the pop-hole away from the prevailing wind and rain. Otherwise, you could rig up a screen of some kind (perhaps using fencing or straw bales) to give the chickens some protection from the worst of the weather.

A hedge provides both shelter and a feeling of security

Different Types of Chicken Housing

Before the chicken-keeping craze took off, there was little choice when buying a henhouse. A handful of manufacturers produced a range of traditional designs, some of a better standard than others, and that was that. Nowadays chicken owners can choose between luxury, picturesque, quirky, practical and economy homes.

Basically the alternatives are a house with an attached or integrated run or stand-alone housing.

A ‘poultry ark’ is typically a triangular structure incorporating the sleeping quarters and the run, although ark is often used to describe any combination of house and run or may just mean a triangular-shaped henhouse.

The shape is said to have evolved as a way of stopping sheep from jumping onto the roof but it also allows rain to run off efficiently. The triangular design limits perching space, though, which usually isn’t high enough for a large chicken or cockerel to roost comfortably without damaging its comb.

The Boughton chicken ark with sleeping quarters above the run

The sleeping area of an ark may be situated above the run, which makes good use of space and keeps the run dry too. The chickens go up a ramp to roost – it isn’t suitable for tiny chicks.

When considering an ark, look at the access to the run (working out how easy it would be to catch a chicken). Check the door to the sleeping quarters too. Sometimes the whole side of the roof has to be raised. We had an ark like this and it was a work of art to balance the door open enough to see the occupants while not allowing them to escape.

A small chicken ark – suitable for bantams