Newbie Intro & Q's

[Javed]

Hi
My name is Javed & I work 5 days a week 7am-5pm, I am in West Yorks.
I am contemplating keeping 2/3 hens. I would be very grateful if some nice people would answer my questions please.

I have an old metal dog run which is approx 6ft x 10ft, this is sat on top of some concrete flags.
I was going to purchase a chicken coop & attach it to the outside of it
Is this suitable
Would i need some kind of material on the floor
I have a fairly large garden with a 40 square yard of lawn, a flower bed & a rockery
I was thinking of letting the hens out on a daily basis for approx 2-3 hours when somebody could supervise
I have 6ft fencing all round, is this suitable
Cats we have a few in the neighbour hood any issues
At the moment i have 2 aviaries with Sun/Jenday Conures & Alexandrine Parakeets
Would the chickens eat some leftover food of the above as well as proper chicken feed.
Any advice will be taken on board

Thank you

[p.penn]

Hi Javed, and welcome to the forum.

To answer some of your questions:

Dog run sounds fine, providing the holes in the wire are small enough. The size is ok for 2/3 hens.
If it's placed on earth/grass, you won't need any additional flooring. If it's a metal base, then yes, something like aubiose or easibed.
As for the other bird food, I would stick to layers pellets myself, although someone else may know better.
Letting hens out is fine, but do be aware that foxes can still strike during the day. Cats shouldn't be a problem.
6 ft fencing sounds fairly ok, but probably not completely secure as they can do the jumpy fly thing very effectively!

Hope this helps

[Mad Chick]

Hi Javed, welcome to the lane

As P.Penn said the size of the run is fine. General rule is 10sq ft per bird. Is the run weatherproof? You might want to consider putting a roof on to keep the wet out, either a strong tarpaulin, corrugated plastic sheeting etc. It's amazing how much nicer an experience it is walking through a dry run As Penn said, make sure the wire is small enough not to allow anything in - we lost one of ours to a mink. For the flooring try contacting a local tree surgeon. Wood chips are great flooring and many tree surgeons have to pay to dispose of them so are often very happy to give you a load.

The local cats are more likely to be scared of the chickens than the other way round. Our cat very quickly leant to have a healthy respect of the chickens and their beaks

I would go for three hens rather than two. Being flock birds they do better in groups. If you have two and one dies, you'll be left with a very lonely hen and introducing new hens into the mix is quite tricky as they are very territorial.

What kind of chooks are you thinking of getting? Hybrid chickens are developed for maximum egg laying. They will consistently lay you an egg every day for the first couple of years then they will slow down and eventually stop laying. Pure breed hens do not lay as fast but will lay until they're older. They lay roughly the same amount of eggs in their lifetime but just over a longer period. I loved it when we had chickens all laying different coloured eggs so I knew who had laid what and they looked lovely on my worktop!

[Spreckly]

Hello and welcome. We enjoyed keeping hens a few years ago, and joined the Lane then. The information and help was over and above anything found in the expensive books we bought, and though we no longer have any girls, I still enjoy the friendship on here.

We covered our hen run, firstly with pea netting, to make sure they couldn't fly out, though Lizzie took a quick trip of the garden on her first morning! After this we used a cheap tarpaulin, which made things rather gloomy, and slowly we put plastic corrugated sheeting over the run. We laid wood chippings on the earth, which soon disappeared into the mud, so from our local Freecycle group we obtained a load of paving slabs, which were easily cleaned off after the girls had gone to bed.

Our girls came from a cousins poultry farm and were a year old, they gave us a great deal of pleasure and were such different characters.

All the best with your mini flock.

[kitla]

Hi Javed, I hope you enjoy keeping hens. I recommend roofing the run, corrugated plastic seems to work best for most, but a tarp would do. I have corrugated roof & fix small clear tarps on the windward sides in winter (Omlet sell them).Also if it needs shade you can use garden reed screening. I use Aubiose horse bedding on the floor - and in the coop, but some prefer woodchip. Dont forget something for a dustbath and maybe a branch, box, or a couple of logs etc for them to perch on & keep them amused.
I'm sure the chickens will tuck into your leftover birdseed if they get the chance, but it's wise not to let them eat too much, if they dont eat enough layers pellets they may have problems with their eggs from imbalances of calcium etc

[Freeranger]

I think the others have given brilliant advice. I'd also say that another thing to think about for them is shade. Particularly if the run is to be on the patio area, it can get really quite hot after just a short burst of sun, so you need to give them a space to get into a nice, cool shadow. As for the birdseed, yes I think they'd be happy to eat it, but as a treat as well as the pellets. They like variety in their diet, like we do, but the seed is high in protein and too much can reduce laying rate.