When considering owning chickens, there is a lot that needs to be considered beforehand and to make sure that you have the right facilities and knowledge about them to ensure they’re being kept safely. Whether they’re meat chickens, or you just want some fresh eggs for breakfast, there are different ways to care and feed them and you need to make sure you have the right breed.
Different types of chicken breed for different reasons
For Eggs
- Ancona Chicken
- Andalusian Chicken
- Asturian Painted Hen
- Barnevelder
- Campine
For meat
- Bresse
- Cornish
- Ixworth
- Jersey Giant
For Eggs and Meat
- Australorp
- Brahma Chicken
- New Hampshire Red
- Rhode Island Red
- Sussex Chicken
- Derbyshire Redcap
- Orpington Chicken
As Show Chicken
- Silkie Chicken
- Cochin Chicken
- American Game Chicken
Cost
The cost of owning chickens can vary on the size of your flock, how much work you can do yourself, the breed and many other things, but here’s a rough outline of your costings. Hens are usually £15-20 but this can vary on the breed, and along with the materials to build and furnish a coop are going to set you back at least £300, and if you cant do this yourself you’ll have to hire a labourer. There are other costs such as feeders and drinkers, fencing, entertainment. If you were to buy 4 chickens you should expect the costings to be between £420 – £1490, as well as keeping on top of the food and things a year would be between £204 – £496.
Benefits
There are many benefits to owning chickens, some people own them for meat production, some people solely have them for the purpose of a constant supply of fresh eggs. But they are also very beneficial to your garden, once the gardening season is over, allow your chickens to roam the space, they will uproot the stem and stalks of weeds and eat an overripe and leftover vegetables that remain, as well as eat insects in the soil, mixing up the soil in the process.
Chickens, other than eggs, produce and endless amount of manure, and luckily the chicken poo can be composted, aged and eventually added to the garden, after six months you will accumulate about 1 cubic foot of manure per chicken. You can also earn a little bit of extra money through them by selling the fresh eggs as well as they will eat all the chicken scraps.
Checking
Before owning any chickens you need to check local town ordinances to make sure chickens are allowed in your area, as well as making sure the space you have for the chickens is a suitable space and location for the amount of chickens you own. If you’re planning to keep 50 or more birds you’ll need to register with the Great Britain Poultry Register, you are required to in order to help the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency get in touch if a disease outbreak.
Some other things to remember to have proper fencing around your coops and garden, and to keep in mind predators are a thing and will try to get to the chickens. As well as chickens do get sick, so they’ll need to be checked up on often, and that chicken wire is not for chickens.
Things owners wish they knew before owning chickens;
- ‘Chicken math’ Planning the size of your coop
- How to treat common illnesses
- How to protect chickens against predators
- How fun they are
- They’re smarter than people think
- Use sand instead of sawdust
- They are stubborn
- Rodent control
- They grow really fast
- They need haircuts
- Know if roosters are allowed in your areas
- Proper financial planning
- If a 5 year old can open the door, so can a raccoon
- How addictive they are
Overall having chickens is very beneficial for a home, but you just need to ensure you have great knowledge on chickens and their needs before owning them. So you can have some new friends and fresh eggs every morning, but with that you need to keep up on feeding and cleaning them.