"Surprise" Chicks

I've titled this "Surprise" Chicks, but rarely am I surprised by the chickens these days. I had a few hens broody in the the one coop, in  a place tricky to get to, so I kind of knew they might be sat on some eggs. 

So when I heard a chirp the other morning I knew that our flock would be getting a little bigger. The three hens had fought and sat on each other for a few weeks and managed to hatch out 6 chicks. These are pure bred Indian game as the eggs were white (our hens that aren't Indian Game lay brown eggs), so it will be interesting to see what birds we get from them.

New Additions (hens) & Egg Rolls

 A friend of dads has a big chicken farm and they sometimes offer us birds when they have their cull to replace with younger birds. These were from a free ranged chicken farm and are very lively and healthy birds! 

We've increased our flock by 6 birds, and I know these will lay better than our Indian Game over winter, which hardly lay at all when the nights draw in. 

Broody Hens

Argh! Like buses, broody hens always seem to come at once. The irony of these four hens from my breeding pen of four Indian Game hens is that if they're all broody none of them are laying any eggs! 

 Also not sure sure the nest box can take them all in there at the same time! It must get pretty warm.

With broody hens I tend to leave them pretty much alone but I do chuck them off the nest once a day, I even do this when they're sitting on eggs, as they sometimes won't look after themselves by feeding and drinking properly. Also lets them do a big poo away from the nest - which is a good way to help keep things clean. 

Anyone else have too many broody hens at the moment?

Poultry Tour!

We have lots going on with the poultry on the smallholding at the moment. 

I've made some new pens, repaired old ones and seem somewhere near organised with it all so I thought I'd do a video showing you all round our birds and what we're planning to do.

Not Buying Supermarket Eggs Again!!

If you've read this blog over the 8 years I've been writing it you'll know that in that time I've kept a lot of different chickens (never over 50 though - just encase Defra is reading this!)

And I do normally get some ex-commercial hens each year as my layers. But this year they forgot to ring me!

What Chickens Are On The Homestead?

I seem to have a lot of chickens here at the moment.

I haven't spoken about them much this year on the blog so I thought I'd give a run down of what I've got and what they're for. 

Brooder Extension

On my last post Jo mentioned that she didn't have anywhere to keep chicks under a heat lamp.

This is initially what put me off getting day old chicks. Every brooder set up I saw was in a shed or a barn and I don't have that kind of space available unfortunately. I've even had friends keep them in their dinning room before now but that isn't something I fancied as they soon start to smell!

Meat Chickens

Last year we had great success growing some meat birds for the freezer, so as everything else winds down I thought it would be a great thing to do again. 

This time I got 26 day old chicks delivered out to me on Wednesday of last week. It was far more cost effective than driving to get them and the company delivers lots of poultry so really knows what it's doing.

Three Home Butchered Chickens

We had an absolutely mad weekend where we didn't seem to stop! 

We went out on Friday night with friends (this is almost becoming a habit), the girls had multiple ballet performances on Saturday and Sunday, we had a bonfire party to attend and I need to get some work done in the extension as my plasterer is coming this week.

Another job I managed to squeeze in was to butcher three chickens. I had hoped to do more but it started to rain and I was set up outside.

It was only when doing a few birds I realised how I need to be set up much better with a logical work flow. As it was I ended u p walking around a lot because I slaughtered them in a different place to where I plucked and butchered them.

I think I might create a dedicated little area for doing this job. Somewhere that's easy to hose down and keep clean but also has places to hang chickens as they drain, separate chopping boards for different jobs and a much larger boiler for hot plucking them. A cover as well encase it rains might be handy!

I did try the wet plucking method and it was a revelation! The feather came off so much easier and it cuts the job in half, I'm still tempted to make a chicken plucker though, either a wizzbang type one or one that goes on a drill - thanks everyone for the links last time! Just a shame the fingers are so expensive to build one myself. 

I also vacuum packed the birds using a vacuum packer I brought myself last week. Not the easiest thing to use on your own and it took a few attempts to get he seals right but I think I might have been cutting the bags a little small and making it harder for myself. A bit of practice will help as well I'm sure! I'll do a post on this gadget soon!

Anyway, two good sized birds for the freezer (2.1kg and 1.9kg) and one for tea last night. Made an incredible roast and it'll make another nice tea tonight, with the carcass for stock.

I think this will become a regular way that I provide meat for our family, I just need to get more efficient/skilled and have an area dedicated to it.

Does anyone have a good set up for processing at home?

Or do you follow anyone that does? 

I'd be interested in seeing some more set ups before I design my own. Thanks!

Building A Free Chicken Coop!

My pasture chicken coops are working our great, fresh grass each day, helps to keep the chickens healthy.

My chicken plans change day by day though. At the moment I'm thinking that as well as having my two regular egg laying pens (for sales and for ourselves) and one mobile pen for meat birds (doing a few batches throughout the year to keep us supplied in meat) I also want to set up some breeding birds, so I can sell fertile eggs and point of lay pullets from a breed we'll pick as a family. 

My new coop built for free

For this I want to create some permanent pens, maybe a short row of them, each with a coop and a pair of runs off each that can be seeded and rotated. The idea being to keep a breeding trio or four in each pen, keep blood lines pure and chickens happy. 

I've already got one coop spare:

Spare coop - not the easiest to move! Houses a 10 birds though! 

And my mobile coop that I built a few years ago has been converted into my chick brooder now:

Chicken coop converted into a chick brooder - It might gain a extension yet as I'd like to do 30 bird batches rather than 20 (day old chicks are cheaper if you buy over 25 birds).

 I've learnt a lot from building lots of chicken coops over the years (I've built some at mum and dad's farm in the past as well as one for our old house that got covered in red mites - so I left it there). 

But one thing never changes - they're not cheap to build; wood, cladding and roofing material is always expensive and adds up quickly no matter how small it is. 

So the other day when dad offered me one of these pallet boxes for free I jumped at the chance. In fact he's offered me 20 as he will only burn them otherwise (If you're Herefordshire or Shropshire based drop me a line and I'm sure you can have one or two of them).

Some of what he orders comes in on them but the courier he uses makes it too expensive for him to use for shipping things on in them and many people collect anyway (he's a machinery dealer). 

They're 32" square and about 2ft high. Not a massive coop but ideal for around 3 or 4 birds. 

I took one home and started working on it. Got my eldest practicing her hammer skills one night, knocking nails over, she loved that!

First thing I did was to remove one side. 

It would have been easier to just cut a door way in and build a removable roof but I wanted it easier to clean and get into. Being able to sweep or scrape the droppings out is much easier than having to scoop it up and out. 

I then did what I consider essential for any chicken coop - I lifted it up off the ground. 

I lifted this up around 16 inches, this does two things: Removes anywhere for rats and mice to hide under the coop and give the chickens somewhere to shelter out of the rain without having to go in. 

The kids were helping, honest...

I then made the front removable. As I'm trying to keep cost to a minimum I used a french cleat type system, a piece of wood cut on 45 degrees means it slots nicely back into place.

This picture below shows the stop add at the bottom (one at the top as well) to make sure the front won't push in. 

The boy to show scale

The door was just a bit of scrap ply, I did use two old hinges there as well, a scrap of wood as a catch. 

  I then added the top of the pallet as a roof, adding in a 100mm (4inch) piece of timber to give it a bit of fall. The two open diagonal sides were then meshed to prevent predators entering the coop but maintaining good ventilation. 

 I had some old clear sheet material up the field a friend dropped off for me years ago, I added this on top of the wood on the roof as a waterproof layer. 

Not pretty but practical, much like myself...

 A perch at the back and a divide just in from the door, means a dark nest area. I'd like to make some roll away nest boxes in the future, that could work well in here.

French cleat in action  - saves on ironmongery! 

Nest area

This coop can be easily moved with a sack truck so at the moment it's down in the orchard, to be the cockerels new house - he's feeling a little down after being denied access to his ladies. 

A pin for Pinterest if you're into that type of thing...

Normally I hate when someone says something is built for free because of all the stuff they've got kicking around! But this time it's a waste material (the pallet box) and loads of bits I've got kicking around, I'm sure most could come up with some of these materials - maybe a bit of skip diving! 

I now need to treat the woodwork, but it should last a few years easily

The great thing is that with my eldest and youngest we built this coop within about an hour or so, it's well ventilated, big enough for 3 to 4 good sized chickens, is high enough off the ground from pests but also provides a bit of shelter under it, has a perch, nest area and can be locked up at night to keep foxes and badgers out. All it cost me a handful of screws! 

I have a feeling I'll be building a few more of these if my plans for creating some breeding pens for chickens takes shape, if not it's always handy to have spare pens for sick birds or if some need separating due to bullying or hatching out too many chicks, etc! 

What do you think to the coop? 

Would you use it or do you prefer something a little more pleasing to the eye?

Easy To Build Mobile Chicken Tractor For Under £120

I'm really pleased with my lately creation. 

I set myself a design brief on a good movable chicken coop, that's easy to construct and costs under £120 if you buy everything.

I'd been seeing a lot of chicken tractors in the states (on Justin Rhoydes YouTube channel) and I've always like the idea of having movable chicken tractors. The trouble is I end up leaving a pen in one place too long otherwise. 

One pen really caught my eye and that was one moved by a sack truck, why I'd never thought of moving them in this way before was beyond me. Suddenly I could move a much bigger coop easily and make it so it could fit a reasonable amount of birds in (the video that inspired me is here)

The trouble is they built it out of cattle panels, which are really popular in the states but not over here. 

That got me thinking about what we could use as an alternative, it was only when a friend came round and he suggested Heras panels, that the solution had been right in front of me the whole time (and was evening forming the pen for the chickens at the time!). 

Also they're cheap, strong(ish) and readily available. 

So I set about making the rest of the pen in the easiest way possible. 

Here are some key points:- 

• Easily houses ten birds.
• The roof is just a tarp (nowhere for red mites to hide) also easy and cheap to replace.
• Wheels on the back make it easy to move.
• Small access door on the front means you can get in if you need to.
• Food suspended with a spring feeder so no wasted food or grain left out overnight.
• Anti predator netting as a skirt around the outside so no need to shut the chickens in at night.
• no floor to the coop means no cleaning out and pastures are improved as it's moved along.
• Nest boxes easy to construct as they're made from builders buckets.  
• Perches are just cable tied to the heras, making adjustment easy if you need to. 
• Chickens are moved each day so the risk of picking up parasites is minimal, food consumption is reduced and pasture is improved. 
• Nest boxes are easily accessible from the back - my children now collect the eggs each day. 

I've been using this coop for over a month now and it's been great. You can see where it's been over that time and see the grass coming back at different rates, it's great that the hens are moved from their dropping each day. 

Moving it is easy (although I need to improve how it turns), so much so I've made up three of these coops, two for laying hens and a third for meat birds. 

Watch the video above to see it in action and let me know what you think. 

I'll draw up some plans and share them for free on here as well at a later date (when I get time) as well as doing a video on how I made it if people are interested. 

Changing The Chickens

I got 20 new chickens for the homestead on Sunday night.

These are ex commercial birds again (Hi line) from a free ranged flock where they were up for slaughter as they've become uneconomical on large scale. 

These birds have no trouble settling in as they had free range on 20 acres, although with as many as 36 thousand birds in the sheds (divided up) some never see the outside. When I've been past many, many birds are outside. Into their new pen they were straight on their perches, and acting normally. Much more settled than when I've had ex battery hens that take a few weeks to become normal chickens. 

Now before anyone says what a good thing it is I'm doing "saving birds" I'd like to state that I do this each year because, for me, it's viable. 

To house these 20 birds I first culled the 10 I had left from last year when I got home. 

These hens have, on average, 600 eggs inside them. When I get the hens they've laid, on average (again), 320 eggs over 12 months of laying. That means they've got 280 left to give and as I tend to get around 8 eggs off ten birds a day there wasn't much time left for them to still be productive, time to change the flock. 

Also I have to time it right when the large chickens farms are changing their flocks.

I got these birds for very little so it also means I've not had to invest any money compared to buying in hybrid pullets at £8 - £10 a bird where they have to lay a lot of eggs before they've paid for themselves, or hatching out my own and waiting the 21 weeks before they start to lay. 

This week I'm going to show you my new chicken pens I've designed to house these birds, I'm really pleased with them, each house 10 birds, easy to make, easily moved on to fresh grass each day and cost under £120. 

Who else has ex commercial birds?

Do you cull your old hens to make sure you stay productive?

Chicks In October

My girls were far more excited about this mishap that I was. 

A hen has managed to hatch out a clutch of eggs on the 11 of October - the Perils of free ranges hens I guess. 

Rubbish photo - I'll get some better ones later! 

Although it's always nice to have some new chicks this has given me some housing issues as there is no way free range chicks will last more than five minutes around here. So last night I gathered them up and put them in my broody coop. The young pullet and mother that were in there already aren't ready to go into the big wide world yet so they got shoved into my little greenhouse, problem solved - for now! 

If it doesn't go too cold too quickly these chicks have a chance but it's far too late for them really, I might add a bit of insulation on the pen they're in for a couple of weeks and make sure they have plenty of bedding.

What's the latest you've had chicks hatch and survive?

Illegal To Feed Chickens Kitchen Scraps

Yesterday I wrote a post about keeping chickens near the house and one of the advantages I listed was being able to easily feed your chickens scraps from the kitchen, but I also stated that this activity is illegal in the UK. 

This seemed to surprise quite few commentators so I thought I'd look into it more and see if what I said was actually right (I have been wrong before!).

A Chicken picture from last year that I love! 

There are quite a few links on the internet about it but the rules are quite clear here in the UK, anything that enters a domestic or commercial kitchen can't then be fed to chickens.

You could argue a case if your a vegan family but the rules are in place to prevent the risk of cross contamination with high levels of animal proteins (although chickens are omnivores) and to reduce the risk of salmonella.

So the rules state that vegetables, like a glut of courgettes, can be taken from the veg garden straight to the chicken pen, but if they go to the kitchen first then they can only go on the compost heap, as your kitchen is an unregulated space.

What do you think to these rules?

Potentially sensible when applied to commercial farms with sheds that house 10,000 birds, but not appropriate to the average domestic chicken keeper? Or a good rule to help control what chickens are fed.

I'm fairly sure I don't need to put my opinion on here as most of you will know where I stand on this.

Chicken Feeders

In trying to get my chicken keeping in order I'm planning on changing my feeders.

 I currently use small galvanized feeders. The trouble with these is that all the other animals and wildlife can have a go at it as well. 

Around here there is a lot of shoots where they rear pheasants and they all tend to use spring barrel feeders on legs. So I decided to buy a spring and make a barrel feeder up, I've been thinking about doing this for years and in the end it took about ten minutes to make! 

 The one batch of hens are trying it out, so I'm hoping they get the hang of it quickly.

How do you feed your chickens? What feeder would you recommend to prevent wildlife from stealing it all?

Chicken Clean Out & Sort Out

At the weekend I managed to have a good sort out with the chickens. 

I cleaned all the coops and put fresh bedding in each one. I fixed the one coop by changing the hinges for some much stronger ones.

Wet chickens

I also looked at all the chickens and decide which ones to cull and which ones to keep. 

I've got some hens that have had a year too long as it is and the whole flock starts to look unproductive because of all the old hens I am carrying. The feed starts to cost more than the money I save on the eggs, not only this but because it's so wet more chickens make more mess faster, so having less will be much easier to manage in this wet winter we're having.

I decided that from the one young flock I'm keeping the two new hens that we hatched last year and the cockerels we hatched are still crowing about the place, ready to be eaten on a future Sunday. 

Out of the other pen of 12 birds, I'm keeping the old cockerel and four hens, the other hens are three or four years old now, past their best and time to replace them. I am keeping one of the oldest hens as she is a great broody hen and has hatched out chicks every year, so saves me having to use an incubator. They've now been moved down to the fruit garden for a month or so to let the very muddy pen recover a bit and eat bugs amongst the bushes. 

I'm looking at getting some pure breed birds this year and to start being more selective about which ones I choose to pass on their genetics, generally just keeping chickens but doing it better.

I know that culling hens like this is pretty controversial to some people that read this blog but I make no apologies for posting it here. I need to make sure that these birds pay their way or there is no point in me keeping them. Last year it cost me money to have the chickens here, whereas if I had culled a few more and bought some new hens in I could have been selling the eggs and making enough to cover costs again.

Do you control the number of hens you keep by culling the older birds? How do you manage the stock numbers you keep?

Moving Young Chickens & Clipping Wings

 On Sunday we finally got round to moving the young chickens that we hatched out earlier in the year into their bigger pen. I got the electric netting back out, moved the coop with the tractor and gave them a nice new area to peck and scratch in. 

Before moving them I clipped their wings in an effort to try to keep them in their new pen, I doubt it will work but I live in hope!

The girls loved helping move the chickens

Moving the hens

Clipping wings

Teh girls getting the coop ready for the chickens

Hens and young cockerels enjoying their new pen

Fly my pretties! 

Out of the six that hatched I think we've only got two hens and one maybe (I'm not quite sure about the light coloured one!). But that means a few meals in a few weeks time.

How has everyone else got on with hacthing and breeding chickens this year?

13 Tips For Hatching Eggs Using A Broody Hen

A friend of mine is hatching some eggs using a broody chicken so I thought I'd do a quick post with some tips for success and then any anyone else has got can be added at the end.

This aren't set in stone but it's what I do to hatch eggs and helps increase your odds of a successful hatch - 

- Make sure she's been broody for at least a few day before you give her eggs to hatch.

- Separate the hen off from the rest of the flock and get her settled for a day before you put eggs under her.

- If you leave her in the same pen then the other hens might bully her off the nest or they might fight and an egg get damaged, although I know many people still hatch eggs without removing the chicken from the flock I just find it easy to manage as well.

- Also use the day before to make sure she stays broody, sometimes moving her into a new pen will break her broodiness (annoying if you've brought eggs for her to sit on!).

- Make sure the pen you give her is nice and safe from predators and has a nice dark nest for her to hide in. I use a little chicken arch for the purpose (or chicken tractor if you live on the other side of the pond) with some hay for her to build her nest with and a covered run.


- When collecting your eggs to hatch out, the fresher the better, and better if they're all the same age. Make sure none are damaged.

- Don't get too greedy on what your hen can hatch out. Look at the size of her and think about how many will comfortably fit under her. Lift her up and see how big of a warm area she has under her. I normally go for about 8 or nine eggs for an average sized chicken with normal sized eggs.

- It takes on average 21 days for a egg to hatch but I have had eggs hatch on day 20 so it pays to keep checking towards the end.

- It's worth candling the eggs halfway through to see if they're is any signs of development, a bad egg at the end can smell really bad!

- Every day during the brooding I make sure the hen is chucked off her nest and shut out of the nest box for ten minutes. She doesn't like this but then she can then have a (huge) poo away from the nest and have a drink and some food. I give her constant access to food and water the rest of the time but at the far end of the run so she has to get up to eat.

- A good hen will be dedicated to her eggs, if you see her eating and walking around lots you might as well take her eggs away as it's doubtful they will hatch. Also a good hen will be desperate to get back to her eggs after you've taken her off when she has a drink and some food.

- When the eggs hatch the hen will really come into her own, she looks after the chicks, not you. You don't need to provide extra heat, just drinking water (with stones in to prevent drowning) and some chick crumbs for them to eat (they don't need any for the first 24 hours). I move mine on to fresh grass each day and after a few weeks I add a little wheat to their food mix to get them used to what they're going to eat.

- This is when they're most vulnerable to predators so make sure they're coop is covered. When I hatched some out this year the magpies didn't leave the side of the pen for three weeks and I've no doubt I would have lost them if they weren't under wire.

So there are a few of my tips. I know that free ranged chickens wonder off and come back with a clutch of chicks quite often but it's not a very planned way of hatching them and can be a little unreliable! 

Using a hen in this way really is, in my opinion, the easiest way to hatch out chicks simply because once they're hatched the hen looks after them for you and they harden up to the outside world much faster -without a incubator or heat lamp in sight!

What are your top tips for hatching eggs?