A Family Guide To Keeping Chickens (14 page)
Read A Family Guide To Keeping Chickens Online
Authors: Anne Perdeaux
What do chickens have to eat at parties?
Coop cakes!
What do you call the door to the chicken house?
The hen-trance!
Think about how you could keep chickens in your own garden. Find out as much as you can about the various types of chicken housing. If you look on the internet you will find lots of different chicken houses. Study them carefully and see which you like best. Or ask your parents to contact some of the suppliers listed at the back of this book and ask them to send you their catalogues.
Birds of a Feather
How you keep your chickens and which chickens you choose to keep is something of a chicken-and-egg situation. While you may need to modify your plans to accommodate a particular breed, some situations will dictate the breed of chickens that can be kept. This chapter considers some of the more popular types of chicken, and their different characteristics. The enormous variety will surprise anyone who thinks that chickens are either brown or white. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Deciding Between Pure-Breeds and Hybrids
There are over a hundred varieties of pure-breed chickens in Britain – some of them have been around for centuries. Pure-breeds have defined standards of colour, shape and character, with the ability to reproduce offspring that closely resemble the parents.
There are also several varieties of hybrid. The original hybrid layers were developed for the battery systems and selective cross-breeding created the ‘super hen’, designed to produce numerous eggs in return for the least amount of food. Different types of hybrid have since been created to suit domestic environments and small-scale enterprises. The chickens we buy for the Sunday roast are also hybrids – bred to grow much faster and fatter than their forebears.
Your initial decision will probably be whether to keep pure-breed or hybrid hens. Pure-breeds offer the most variety and are often very beautiful, but hybrids are usually more productive.
What Do You Want from Your Chickens?
When choosing a breed, consider your prime reason for keeping chickens.
Eggs
All chickens lay eggs but there is wide variation in productivity. Hybrids are the champions, although there are also good layers amongst the pure-breeds.
Examples of hybrid layers: Warren, Black Rock, Amber Star.
Examples of pure-breed layers: Leghorn, Rhode Island Red, Sussex.
Pets
If you are more interested in having some pets, look for a friendly breed that is easy to tame. Many of the hybrids make productive pets, while small chickens (bantams) are popular with children.
Examples of pet chickens: Warren, Orpington, Silkie, Pekin Bantam.
Ornamental Birds
Look amongst the pure-breeds for colour and unusual features.
Examples of ornamental chickens: Silkie, Brahma, Cochin, Belgian Bantams, Sebright.
Eggs and Meat
Choose a dual-purpose breed for laying abilities and the requisite plump shape to provide a good meaty carcass.
Examples of dual-purpose breeds: Rhode Island Red, Sussex, Plymouth Rock.
All-purpose
What about a chicken to meet all requirements: eggs, calm disposition, attractive to look at and capable of hatching chicks that will grow into good-sized table birds?
Examples of all-purpose breeds: Wyandotte, Sussex, Faverolles.
Free-Range
Some chickens are suited to free-ranging and will find much of their own food.
Examples of free-range breeds: Appenzeller Spitzhauben, Dorking, Welsummer.
Confined to a Run
There are chickens that will adapt to living in a run, while feather-footed chickens are best kept in clean and dry conditions.
Examples of chickens for a run: Warren, Rhode Island Red, Sussex, Silkie, Cochin, Booted Bantam, Pekin Bantam – or if space is really tight consider the Serama, the smallest chicken in the world!
Hybrid Laying HensThe hybrid has several advantages over the traditional pure-breed and is often a good choice for beginners.
As well as being productive, hybrid hens are bred to be docile and are usually friendly birds, easy to tame. Unlike many pure-breeds they should keep laying over the winter and rarely go broody.
Usually cheaper than pure-breeds, hybrids are available throughout the year and will have been vaccinated against several diseases.
Hybrids are available in a selection of colours and there are varieties that lay brown, speckled or even blue eggs. They are usually medium-sized birds so they fit comfortably into standard accommodation.
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Increased productivity comes at a price. Hybrids come into lay at around twenty weeks, and continue laying well for their first year or so. Then output starts decreasing and may cease altogether after three or four years.
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While some hybrids may still be producing an occasional egg at a grand old age, hybrids don’t usually live as long as pure-breeds.
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The early and intensive start to egg production can leave hybrids vulnerable to laying difficulties.
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Hybrids can’t match the pure-breeds for glamour. They don’t have interesting features such as muffling, beards or feathered legs – but then these features can require extra care.
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Although hybrids are generally docile with people, they may bully their companions in a mixed flock, especially if it includes some timid breeds.
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Cockerels aren’t usually obtainable and hybrids don’t ‘breed true’ – if you breed from hybrid hens, the result will be cross-bred chicks.
Selecting Your HybridsMany hybrids are based on top traditional egg-layers, the Rhode Island Red or White Leghorn, with other breeds being added to produce interesting colours of both hens and eggs. The same types of hybrid may be sold under different names, depending on the breeder. These are some of the most common but new varieties are always being developed and you may come across several others.