Read A Family Guide To Keeping Chickens for Free Online Page B

their own personalities, and make lovely pets if handled regularly.’
. . . in a large garden
    Our garden is mainly lawn, surrounded by trees and bushes. It backs onto fields and there are no near neighbours.
    The henhouse stands in a wooded area at the rear of the garden, where the ground is covered with a thick layer of woodchips and leaves. The chickens love rummaging through this under the shelter of the trees. On sunny days they sunbathe and dust-bath on a south-facing bank. They also have plenty of grass to explore and wander at will.
    We have occasionally lost chickens to predators, but a colony of rooks give an advance warning and the chickens are good at hiding themselves.
    At night the chickens are shut in their henhouse. This is a substantial structure, made locally from good-quality timber. We made a few alterations, including raising it 50 cm above the ground, and the chickens hop up a collection of logs to the pop-holes. They took a while to get the hang of this (I found some sleeping on the back-door mat one evening), but new chickens now quickly copy the others.
    Although there is little for the chickens to damage in the garden, we have recently reclaimed some space while trying to build a new terrace. Every time my husband swung the pickaxe, he would find a chicken underneath, waiting for the worms to appear. Green plastic netting has proved ideal for keeping chickens out – cheaper than wire and easier to move.
    Having chickens around is fun and their eggs are fantastic – deep gold and richly flavoured from their varied diet. We keep around twenty pure-breed and cross-breed chickens, so eggs are plentiful in spring and summer but tend to disappear over winter.
    Pure-breed chickens are an exotic addition to the garden. Letting them free-range keeps work to a minimum, although we have to be around to shut them in and let them out, so our lives tend to revolve around their schedules.
. . . on a farm
    Anne has kept chickens for many years but when she and her husband Charles moved to their farm, she was able to expand.

    Their previous henhouse (from the Domestic Fowl Trust) had given years of loyal service and was passed on to a daughter. Anne chose a larger model from the same company, capable of taking up to fifty birds. The hens were to free-range around a wooded area on the farm.
    The first hybrid hens were purchased from the local poultry auction and egg production was soon in full swing. Unfortunately, the local fox population became interested and hens began to disappear. Eventually there was no option but to invest in electric poultry netting.
    The hens now live safely behind 100 m of fence, where they forage for grubs amongst the bushes and trees. When they need fresh ground, it takes Anne and Charles about three hours to move the netting.
    With security taken care of, Charles presented Anne with twenty Warren hybrids one Christmas, and she now has around thirty hens in all. These include a few pure-breeds – Wyandottes, Welsummers and Marans. ‘The dark brown eggs are popular,’ Anne says, ‘but it’s a nuisance when the pure-breeds go broody. They stop laying, take up the nest-boxes and require extra attention.’
    Eggs are sold from the farm gate and Anne has no shortage of customers. She makes a small profit after paying for feed and has plenty of eggs for her own use too. Although she has considered going into egg-production more seriously, she feels the extra work involved is too much for a busy farmer’s wife.
Key Points
    • Give chickens as much space as possible – don’t overstock
    • A small fixed run requires ground cover that can be cleaned and replaced
    • Two smaller runs used in rotation are better than one large run
    • Good-quality materials and careful maintenance are essential for a secure chicken run
    • If the run isn’t roofed, the fence should be at least 2 m high and angled outwards 50 cm
    • The bottom of the fence should be dug in 50 cm and turned outwards