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Keeping Chickens

Keeping chickens is extremely rewarding and fairly straightward as long as you know the basics.

Feeding and watering your chickens

Clean food and water must be provided for your chickens on a daily basis.  A good quality chicken feeder and chicken drinker make life easier for you and for your hens.  The plastic chicken feeders and plastic chicken drinkers are usually the most cost effective option and come in a wide range of sizes.  Make sure you get a feeder and drinker large enough to last your hens at least one day without topping up.

The health of your chickens

Chickens can suffer from a range of diseases, but most are easily preventable and curable should they occur.  There is no need to let this put you off keeping chickens.  Using a good quality supplement can help overall chicken health - for example Life Guard Poultry Tonic which is simply added to drinking water.

The most common pests associated with keeping chickens are worms, red mite and poultry lice.. 

Red mite live in the housing rather than on the chickens, so treatment is usually a combination of treating the housing to kill the mites and treating the chickens to help prevent further infestation.  Barrier red mite powder is an effective repellent and is applied to the chickens. 

In terms of worming your hens, Verm-X is a popular chicken wormer used in the control of worms and all other internal parasites.  Verm-X is available as Verm-X Liquid which is added to drinker water as well as a Verm-X Pellets 750g and Verm-X Pellets 250g.  form as well as in pellet form.

Barrier Louse Powder is an effective treatment for poultry lice and can be safely applied to both chickens and their housing.

Keep all housing and equipment clean and safe by spraying with Poultry Shield.  Poultry Shield is also know for being effective against red mite. 

Choosing your chickens

If you are just starting out with chickens you have a few decisions to make.  Are you planning to keep just a few chickens in the garden or do you want to build up a breeding flock of hens and cockerels?  There is a vast array of different breeds to choose from and most of these can be bought either as hatching eggs, chicks or more usually point of lay (POL) pullets.  Take a look at Feathersite for an idea of the range of breeds that exist.