Chooks

Classy hen house Heron, do the girls have names? :-))))

Mable (the white one) Maud and Madge :-)

That is one 5* hotel...lucky chooks! Yes, those mites can be a problem as you've discovered with your felt roof. I read about the problem a few days back on GOY and hastily phoned my daughter as they have 3 chooks acquired this past summer.

She laughed and said they researched it all beforehand and had read about not using felt roofing....so to her credit she's not had that problem and mom could stop panicking. lol

They started out with 4 chooks but after 1 became egg bound and a hefty vet bill later for treatment it sadly died. Hers too like the snails!

Good luck with Mable, Maud and Madge :)

Good luck with the chickens. I'm glad they are mite free now :o)

lol heron know wot you mean .mites are awful we use the powder once a month. prob not so bad in winter. they look happy there in your veg patch. and a gud pic of penny too. our 1st hen was egg bound on our 1st day so totaled of to vet lol £35 lighter back home we popped her in the house to wait 4 her to lay it . which she did bt 2 hrs later . its a bit scary wen they get egg bound but you can deal with it yourself . the girls were fasinated to see wot the vet was going to do lol. i leave that to ur imagination , haha

lol Cristina....I didn't get into details with my daughter but my imagination gives me a good idea. They left their hen at the vets for treatment and were sent home with antibiotics and the hen a few hours later....and £80 lighter! They isolated the hen in an old rabbit hutch for a month and then she went back in with the others. But....she did die in the end after a couple more weeks. :(

o mg that a bit steep, sounds like a bit more than egg bound to me. vet gave mine an injection and well sort of dislogged it if you no wot i mean only one day in all. o dear i think thats a bit dear. thort i spent a lot 4 one egg.

Yes, it was a shocker...the price was steep. They said it was because of out-of-hours (weekend). Expensive eggs!! They were also told they had to isolate the hen for a month and couldn't eat any of her eggs during that time. I guess being new to raising them they did what they thought was right by the poor thing.

never hered of that tell her to get the poutry mag every month ,very informative

I'll mention the mag to her....she hasn't said she gets it....she does go on a forum to get advice about the chooks but having a magazine to refer to would likely be helpful to her. Thanks Cristina.

My son has just acquired some hens from a neighbour at their allotments, they had mites which had to be treated, luckily he has built them a new home on his own plot and they are doing ok now, we`ve had a gift of some eggs and they were delicious.........Your `s is a very posh house.....

I hope ours don't ever get egg bound, especially at the weekend. I've seen farmers extract lambs that get stuck but an egg? maybe all you need to do is squirt oil up it and massage. Apologies to all those of you who've given birth.

As cristina says, the poultry mag is well worth buying a few copies.

Before I forget, can someone tell me why I couldn't insert my last pic where I wanted it in the centre of my blog? I tried to 'edit' it but failed so had to leave it at the end.

lol heron ,nearly spat my breakfast out as i read that . haha but yes thats wot they recommend

Great blog Heron and I'm jealous of your chook house! Lol.

Well, chicken coop envy aside, I think your hens have got the best set up they could have and must be sooooo happy.

I wish I knew the answer to your question, Heron. I've had the same problem when trying to insert photos when editing my blog...they never will insert during editing but end up at the bottom of the blog.

It will be good if anyone knows why this happens...

Thanks Ian, trouble is OH wants the bedroom done to the same standard, she said cluuuurk cluuurrk!!

ron i hope penny,s not reading this lol

Hello, I'm Whistonlass daughter :-) That looks like a great coop you have there- more like a suite than a coop lol I've just finished cleaning my coop out - it gets so muddy with all this rain!
Thanks for the recommendation of the magazine I'll see if I can get hold of a copy. We tend to look online if we need any info or ask a friend who has about 20 chickens. As my Mom (Whistonlass) said, we did have a chicken that was egg bound. We tried all the tricks we could think of but it wasn't moving so we ended up taking it the vets. They couldn't remove the egg so had to do some minor surgery on the hen to remove it- hence the £72. Then they gave us antibiotics as the biggest risk was infection. It got checked over the next week which brought the total to £80. We kept it isolated because the other hens were pecking at her & making her bleed, was also easier to keep her warmer etc. We were told by the vet not to eat her eggs for a month due to the antibiotics. Like the vet said there's no need to ingest antibiotics if you don't need them & it will go through to the egg. Sadly she only survived another 5 weeks. She was reintroduced to the other chickens & seemed to be ok but then we went to the coop one day & she was almost dead.
As my Mom said I also knew about red mite & the problems with felt roofs so we avoided them. We made our run - will have to post pictures one day! The only problem we're having at the moment is the mud! Where we live is quite heavy clay soil & it gets water logged. We're going to put some onduline on the top to make it more water tight.

Thanks for the complement about the coop, yes they are lucky chooks. I did it so that not only would it help prevent mites but also to make it quick and easy to dismantle and clean. The roof is now just a sheet of re-cycled plastic about 3/8" thick. Builder's suppliers sell it.
We did a lot of research and didn't rely on local advice. The Magazine I think is the best. I used polycarbonate for part of the roof and made a secure mesh with east access to the rear as well as easy small feeding hatches. The earth is like yours I suspect so we incorporated grit sand so that when the dig (as they do) it doesn't solidify. We feel that any creature is a responsibility and have spent time and money to make sure all will be well. The cost will minimise as time passes because it's mostly a one off.
I was upset about your chicken, could be that the others didn't help, nature can be cruel. Not as cruel as some people though as I know someone who lost all their chickens and were concerned only about the cost.
We still have little real eperience as we only started in May so hopefully this blog will benifit us all. Anything I can do to help will be a pleasure and I will know doubt learn much as time goes by.

and dont 4 get its not just fox,s that kill . mink kill ours 3 time this month , they get in the smallest hole .a llso stottes , so make sure they are tuked up at nite,tho mine were killed in the day.

There's no way that even a mouse could get in the house but maybe in the pen though there's not a hole you could poke your thumb in. The trouble with nature in the wild is that they're always eating eachother.

they sure do lol . we thort a mouse cud not get in ours , blighters !!!!!!!!!!!! have to bob up and see you both soon i think while its still nice ish ;o)))

That will be nice, soon as pos, any time. I'll email you. Meanwhile back at the ranch/pen, I put rat traps down as we spotted the beginnings of a tunnel! we caught one but the second victim was a mouse :-((

oooooooooooo a feild mouse arhhhhhhhhhh . yes e.mail and let us know x

Got news for you Whistonlass, and Heron - if you don't insert your pics in the right place first time, you can't go back and edit and add them later. I know, its a pain, but its just the way it is...
Great chicken house, well away from foxes, which get a lot of them these days. It's much more common even in London for people to have chickens now - most of them are battery rescues though.

Yes, Bamboo....I have tried to be very careful to go back to intersperse my photos inbetween my text as I go....it's tedious but there's no way around it unfortunately.

i started with bat hens ,but just go to chellford market now, they do sell bat hens there £1 a head

£1 a head, how much did the rest cost?

We were told that if you clip one chicken wing they can't fly. Well maybe not 10 miles but we let them play/pec in a small narrow fenced grassy area yesterday. To my horror I noticed that great swathes of my veg plot had been 'raked' (not in the usual manner) after further investigation I discovered all three of them in different parts of the garden. Luckily no real damage and they seemed to have enjoyed their adventure. I wonder if they would take to wearing a lead.

ron ............. lol the rest were free haha. i have never cliped there wings . and do let them in them main garden sometimes they i have found they really just eat the bugs . they do rake but it dosent harm anying thing . and they come back wen you call them. ............... dont worry so much !!!!!!!!!!

Hi Heron,
Thanks for this very interesting blog and others for lots of interesting comments, I've really enjoyed catching up on it today, and just in case we'd been tempted, I see there's a lot more to keeping feathered egg-producers than meets the eye! Well done to all who manage it successfully. We buy our eggs from a couple of friends who have hens whenever we can, miss them in the winter months tho.

ours are still laying at the mo ... last winter we only bought bt half a dozen . but you can frezze em you no

I recon we'll have to buy some during winter but we're still getting two a day. bless em.

thats gud ron ... all u need lol !!!