Poultry Keeping - The Bug

by Phil Bennetts
Smallholder Directory

For many years I was under the impression that chickens were smelly dirty creatures and to be honest, I could not understand what people saw in the hobby. Then things changed. About 4 years ago, my wife and I went over for a bit of a break to my sister in-law 's smallholding in France. The weather was very hot and we found the quite location very relaxing. What I soon realised is that chickens especially silkies are very cute , intelligent and not the dirty animal I thought they were. The bonus was great tasting eggs.

So impressed, we thought at some point it would be nice to keep chickens ourselves. For a number of reasons, this was put on the back burner and in time other things became more important although the thought was still in the back of our minds.

This year we returned to my in-laws in France, again great weather and again besotted with the chickens. We came back with a even bigger drive to get some chicks. I made the decision to buy my wife a chicken house on her birthday. That's when it started ! The house probably one of the most common on the net arrived the next day, so that night I put it together. The following day I took my wife out to get some chicks. We bought 3 silkies and 2 Welsummers about 10 weeks old. As we have two dogs we aimed to let the chicks out into the garden in the evenings, while the dogs where inside. We then realised that the houses with built in runs would not keep 3 - 4 chickens happy as the runs where not large enough. With this in mind I set out to build a walk in run at the top of the garden. Taking advice from some of the poultry forums and suppliers, I built a 12ft x 11ft run.

Since then the bug has grown and we look forward to our evening routine of letting the chickens out and feeding them by hand. In fact every day by 6.00 pm they all wait by the gate to be let out. I would now recommend poultry to anyone as a fantastic hobby and a great laugh as well, as chickens do the funniest things. Below are some images of the chicks and the new walk in run.

Poultry

Article submitted Friday, June 10, 2011 & read 13 times.

Phil Bennetts
Smallholder Directory

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