Pasture Pen Nest Box Upgrade

The bucket nest boxes I originally put in the Heras Panel Pasture Pens never really worked very well, They just weren;t quite big enough and could cause hens to break eggs. But because I used these pens more for grow outs it didn't matter too much and I changed the one I used for the layers into a bigger nest box like the one in this post. 

Currently I have all three of these pens with potential laying hens in. So it was time to upgrade the last two pens to have proper nest boxes, which can even stay in when raising meat birds in there as well. 

Own Meat Birds Get A Step Closer

 So with some really poor hatch rates from posted eggs I decided that it was time to buy a few hens so we could actually start to hatch out our own eggs. I already have some fine Indian Game cockerels to run with them. 

There is a Facebook group about rearing meat for the table and through that I got in contact with someone who had some young Indian Game pullets for sale. So I took a trip into deepest darkest Wales (via a small saw mill that had some specialist timber I was after) to buy some! 

Of course I ended up buying more than just this! 

He sold a trio of Plymouth Rock Hens, which when crossed with an Indian Game will produce a great meat bird (And this cross was used in the orginal Chicken Of Tomorrow competition so I have high hopes).

I also got 4 Indian Game POL pullets so I should be able to keep a pure flock of these going as well. But hopefully the Plymouth Rock hens will lay enough eggs in the next few weeks to get another batch in the incubator and replace our need to order in day old Ross Cobbs! 

There seems to be quite a few pens of chickens around at the moment! Anyone else can't help themselves when it comes to poultry?

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?

20 Extra Chickens

Back to some normal posts now! 

Last night the girls stayed at Grandmas and Grandads for the first time, so I took my wife and Alistair out for a meal, with a slight ulterior motive, we were going to pick up some chickens afterwards! 

These are ex free range commercial layers and they cost next to nothing to buy. They've reached the end of their commercial lifespan but as I've said in the past I think they have another 12 months in them where they can earn their keep here.

I went for 16 birds but ended up with 20! I'll have to get the honesty box back out again before we're over run with eggs! 

Six Chicks Hatch

I try to hatch a few chicks every year. It's good to grow my own replacement chickens, not to mention the fact that the girls, the wife and me love them!

These ones couldn't have been better timed if I had tried. After a rubbish week we came home and had six little chicks hatch the very next day, the girls thought it was wonderful.

 The six hatched out nine eggs so I was quite pleased, the cockerel is still proving his worth. Yesterday I was talking to a farmers wife that commercially breeds chickens for hatching eggs (we're talking thousands upon thousands here) and she was telling me that as the age of the chickens increase they increase the number of cockerels in the pen to maintain the right level of fertility. Really interesting but it also raised a question for me and that's the fact that we don't often look at the complete life cycle of chickens we buy, these were kept indoors but the hatching eggs that they lay and subsequent chickens could have been for free ranged meat birds. Does that still make them free ranged?

I still have a few more broody hens so I'm tempted to buy some hatching eggs off the internet of a different breed - what's your favourite chicken breed? I'm tempted to go for Light Sussex as I used to have these when I used to hatch some as a teenager.

Chicks Come Early

I'm now feeling much better - thank you to every one for the well wishes. I think it must have been some sort of 24 hour bug and I'm feeling really guilty about it, as my dad, who came to help out with the children, has now got it. No need to guess who's to blame for that one! I just hope he feels better soon and it doesn't spread to the rest of my family! 

 On a brighter note we had some chicks hatch yesterday. Two days earlier than I had marked on the calendar, so I guess she must have been sat on them in the coop for a little longer than I thought before separated her from the rest of the flock! 

 Out of seven eggs, six hatched, one chick was deformed/injured so had to be dispatched straight away (away from the sight of the children) but five chicks isn't bad really. I bet they'll all be cockerels now though! 

 The girls love them, it's going to be as much as I can do to keep Ev away from them! She's really gentle with the chicks and helped me pick up all the egg shells and tidy the nest then told her mum all about it when she got home. What a great way for a little person to learn about life and food!

Melissa seemed fascinated by them as well so hopefully I've got two budding young poultry keepers in the making!

Egg Numbers Improving

Although we're still not getting huge numbers of eggs the numbers do seem to be improving.

Thanks to anyone who left advice when I asked about stopping an egg eater.

Regular egg collection by my wife and two little "helpers" have helped the most I think (and it's not been easy for her in all this mud and wet with two little ones). But I've also made sure there is plenty of extra bedding and added a grit feeder as well as mixing it in their food.

I've not seen any wet, eggy patches in the nest boxes in a long time so, without wanting to use a pun, maybe we've cracked it!

Thanks again for all your help and advice.

Blogging is such a good tool for a homestead! Real advice from people who are living it is hard to beat!

How To Stop An Egg Eater?

My new batch of hens have got everything they could ever want, a nice big coop, a fresh patch of grass, bedding and plenty of food and water.

Why then are they only giving me a few eggs if I'm lucky?

I think I know the answer to this one - egg eater.

I'm pretty sure the eggs are being eaten by a bad hen. The harder question is how to stop it. My wife is going to check and collect the eggs a couple of times a day to lessen the time they're in there. I've added in some ceramic eggs which won't break to fool them into thinking they can't break them and I've added loads of bedding for the nest boxes so the eggs are snuggled down into it.

I'm considering interviewing them one by one, with an egg on the table, and any that go for it will be sentenced without trial (on bin day).

Any other suggestions from fellow chicken keepers before it gets to this?

Ex Caged Birds Update

I got to see the new batch of ex battery chickens in the light this morning, as I've been leaving for work in the dark and coming home in the dark.

 Although numbers have dropped from 15 to 14 (one died the first night after the shock of moving) they seem quite happy trashing my greenhouse. I'm hoping this to be very temporary accommodation, they've got access to outside (where they've been trashing my veg garden).

The bald things seem quite happy and roost themselves on the greenhouse staging each night, have a good fill of food each day and we've already had a good amount of eggs off them. Not bad for £25 worth of chickens!

Now if they could just grow some feathers!

3 Old Birds

Last October I had my first "big" batch of excaged birds (well 11 of them - big for me). Over a year on and yesterday I picked up my second batch of 15 birds so I thought I'd show you what I've got left of the first lot.

Well two of them pictured, as one was on walkabout! Only three have survived to this point.

I lost two early on - the shock of coming out of the large sheds into the fresh air is too much for some of these girls. Then the other 9 lived happily through the Spring, Summer and Autumn, laying a surprising number of eggs everyday, until the incident with the dog walker that put us down to six. Then, as I couldn't find where the bodies of the chickens from the dog attack, I think a fox got a taste for them, so I lost three more over the next week or so, leaving me with my three scouts that I've got now.

They've got a great coop and large run but pretty much go where they like during the day, favourite spots include (but not limited to) under the old oak tree in the orchard, up by the patio at the back of the house and "teasing" the other chickens in the big pen who can't get out!

The best bit about these three is they still lay three eggs every other day. Productive for birds that are past their best out of a large factory hen house!

15 Oven Ready Birds

Not many feathers between my new batch of ex-caged birds. I was a little shocked when I picked them up as they seem to have even less feathers than normal, some have none except on their wings and heads. The hen house they came out of must be really warm as they don't look like they've been pecked out.

 This lack of feathers has given me another problem. I was planning to have them go straight into the field with just a normal chicken coop, but I think the change in temperature might just be too much for them due to their lack of protection from the elements.
I had to come up with another solution.
The greenhouse, some cardboard boxes and lots of straw. Just for a few days, with access to outside for a bit of pecking and scratching.

In a few weeks they'll look great and become happy birds (that lay me lots of eggs). In the mean time they need a bit of care to bring them up to health.

And as for the three I've got left from last years batch (after dog and fox attacks), I was going to kill them to make way for the new ones but they're still laying really well, have no idea that they're meant to stay in their pen and love wandering about the whole smallholding. I think they can stay.

Chicks Have Hatched

Yesterday our chicks hatched!

A happy little girl with her new chicks

 Four out of the seven eggs hatched out. Unfortunately the mother decide to move on with her little brood so when I got back from work another chick was half out of his shell and peeping but the egg was cold. I've broken the number one rule and helped him out of his shell and popped him back under the mother for the night. I doubt he'll survive but he's got more of a chance this way than any other!


A healthy chick

My little girl was so excited to see them but she's so calm around them. She sits on my lap and only strokes them when I tell her she can (she let out a squeal of excitement when she first did). It's lovely to see her with them.
Another hen has gone broody so I think I might hatch out some more!

Broody Hen

Sorry no updates over the last week or so. I've been so busy with work and everything else that I haven't had time. I plan to have a good catch up on blogs sometime soon, so sorry for my lack of comments!

Clucking hen

 And as a follow on from my last post, no sooner had I moved the two silkies out of their arc, another hen went broody. She kept it up for a few days so I decided to separate her off from the others and put some eggs underneath her. The eggs are just from my chickens here, so no pure breeds, but it will be interesting what they turn out like!

Only seven eggs but she's only a small hen

Not a happy hen when I chuck her off her eggs for a drink and a feed for 5 mins a day!

Nearly two weeks in so hopefully my little girl will have some chicks to play with soon.

Cockerel Refugee

My wife was somewhat unimpressed when I came home from work on Saturday with another cockerel. "We don't need any more" she said, I'm not even sure we need the two we've already got .

Buff Orpington Cockerel

This guy is big and tough though. The only survivor from a workmates fox massacre.

I figure we'd give him a chance to see how he gets alone with some of our hens. If he's too big for them or gives them too much of a hard time, then he has to go. But in the meantime I quite like the way he's so big and waddles about.

Egg colour

My one set of hens contain 5 Legbars and one Welsummer. Or at least I thought it did. One days egg collecting proves otherwise as Legbars lay blue eggs.

Eggs collected from one day



I got these hens from a local smallholding but, as you can see from the picture above, I'm fairly sure there isn't five legbars in that little flock as then I could only have one brown egg in a day (unless that hen has been working overtime).

This is annoying really as I had plans to breed from them, but now they'll only be laying birds as I seriously doubt their lineages and it wouldn't be fair to anyone buying the future hens.

I do want to hatch some chickens this year but I think I'll have to dust off the incubator and buy some fertile eggs off eBay instead. 

Anyone else been sold something thinking it was something else?

Ex Caged Birds

Although battery hens are a thing of the past in this country there are still caged birds. I've bought 10 of them (well 11 as I got given one for luck) and you can see the condition they come in isn't much better than from battery cages. Many feathers missing and some sore bums!

Don't get me wrong. I'm not criticising the British farmer, it's all about supply and demand, if people still buy the eggs it's better they come from this country. Not to mention the fact that our welfare standards are much higher than many EU countries where we still import eggs from, so I'm not having a pop at British farmers.

A few feathers missing

These birds haven't cost me much and it was a bit of a spur of the moment thing to buy them (in fact I've just spent my Friday night putting up a shed for them to sleep in while they waited in the van!) but I like the idea of bringing them back up to health and we've had them in the past and they make great layers. That said I know I've got them the wrong time of year - but their main job is to be eating and scratching all the weeds from the veg garden for the next few months anyway so any eggs will be a bonus!

Not looking too happy for themselves

Some sore bottoms!

But with all this niceness I must bring you all back to earth. This are still not pets, and although I'm giving them a nice "retirement" when they stop producing eggs they will be culled. But then they will have hopefully had a nice couple of years living nearly free range on my little smallholding so it's not too bad!

More pictures to follow when they spend their first day outside!

3 Silkies From Work

What a bunch of bumpkins we are at the building site I'm currently working on. Every "bait" (breakfast and dinner time to normal people) the conversation normally ends up talking about chickens, shooting, fishing, wild food, pigeons, rabbits, etc. And yesterday the one lad told me he wanted to get rid of his slikie trio as they weren't very good layers.

The chickens brought in next to where I eat my "bait". Rustic lunch room eh?

Well I've never heard of anyone thinking they would be good layers!

But I said I'd take them off his hands and although my policy on the small holding is everything has to earn it's keep, becoming a father has turned me a bit of a soft touch. All I could think was what wonderful pets these will make for my 6 month old daughter, she already gets transfixed by the chickens so these tame little bantams should be ideal. Also I've read that slikies make great broody hens so I might be able to use them for hatching out a few chicks in the future.

Nice little trio of bantams

I've put them in my spare chicken arc for now (you guys in the states call them chicken tractor - thanks to the lazy farmer for that translation), and hopefully once they're settled in they should be allowed to have a wonder around the garden and just use the arc as base until I can build something bigger.

In their chicken arc in the rain

I built this arc for a broody hen with chicks about 5 years ago, we lived at our old house then and only had a garden which the hens slowly turned into a mud bath, digging a new hole everyday when I moved the pen! In the end it looked like an exploded mine field, still the chickens seemed happy!

New Chickens

Well our smallholding has now got some animals! I think it's tradional that you start with chickens.

We've brought ten to start with, five legbars and five Welsummers hens all for egg laying with a view to breeed from them next year.

They're a little bit younger than I would have liked (one lot 10 weeks and one lot around 13 weeks) and come from two different batches with a bit of a size difference. Hopefully the pen is big enough to reduce fighting and keep them entertained until they even up in size. Moving them all into the new pen on the same day should help as well, they seemed fine today with no fighting at all. We have got a bit of time before they start laying but they should come into lay at the end of the summer and then they're be more likely to lay strongly through the winter (thats the plan anyway).

They seem to like their new coop but I've got a few nights of catching them to lock them up until they get used to it, tonight they gave me a right run around - I hope no one was watching!