Wanting to start keeping hens

[Gillykat]

oooh how exciting

A couple of good websites/blogs i like to follow are Lisa Steele (Fresh Eggs Daily) and Kathy Shea Mormino (the Chicken Chick)

https://www.fresheggsdaily.com/

https://the-chicken-chick.com/

[quietandy]

Girls seem to be settling in ok. One must of liked the car journey as we had an egg in one of the boxes.

[Stan79]

If you put a small perch just outside the entrance they will happily jump/flap up onto it and then step in. (Stops any critters walking up the ramp)

And because of this thread.... I’ve just bought four more chickens. I was going to give the run a rest as we’re down to two hens and a cockerel now so I was going to wait until they shuffled off this mortal coil and have a break.... but we’re now back up to a decent number.

Local farm to us. Didn’t know they sold hens until I searched on google.

Thank you for the motivation!

[veggiechicken]

.....and I'm getting 3 more "rescues" at the end of June.

[quietandy]

We by away from the plot for an hour and returned to this!



Just a quick view of them in the plot.

[veggiechicken]

Nice looking birds, Andy
They look settled.

[Gillykat]

Oooooh they're BEAUTIFUL! They certainly seem very relaxed and confident too

Seems 'weird' to see such fully-feathered new girls as I'm so used to seeing baldy ex-batts

[quietandy]

Soooooo. Newbie question here. How long does it take for the girls to learn to go to the hen house for bed? The first couple of nights i put them in but tonight i thought i would wait until it was dark. They were all, bar one, were still wandering around showing no interest in going in their house. I have an automatic door and i set it on sensor to close it and if it hasn't closed by 22:30 it closes. I had to put 3 girls in after the door closed. I had enticed 2 girls in by shining a torch inside to see if everything was ok inside (It was apart from 1 hen deciding her bed was the nesting box!). After putting the rest in the house i made sure the rest of my allotment was ok and gave a quick look in the henhouse and not one of them were using the perches to stand on. I know they are new to this set up but i am worried that they won't see themselves inside at night. Am i thinking this through too much?

[veggiechicken]

With new hens, I put them on the perch to give them the idea. No idea how long it takes them to learn to go in, sorry, and I've never had an automatic door - only me.

[quietandy]

Thanks VC i will keep going.

[veggiechicken]

Mine are going into their coop about 8.30 at the moment. I put a handful of mixed grain inside, read them a bedtime story and shut their door.


OK I made up the story bit but I do wish them goodnight, sleep tight.

[Nicos]

8.30 VC?

Mine are 10.30 at the earliest!...yep , we are an hour ahead but that's still an hour later!

One very young chook prefers to go to bed in a tree but is happy to be placed inside their hutch...

[veggiechicken]

Their run has a solid roof to keep off the rain so its darker in there than outside.
There are only 2 chooks now and I don't think Old Mrs Brown will be around much longer. She goes to bed first. Mrs New Brown would stay up longer but she's happy to go in for corn. They have a window so its not completely dark in there. There's enough light for them to read by.

[lottie dolly]

OOH what lovely birds,bluebell,warren and 2 black rocks and a specaldy,last thursday i got 3more girls,the first 3 nights i had to put em inside on the perch like VC said,they soon get the hang of of things.

[Stan79]

With our new ones i put them straight onto the perches in the house with the doors shut when we brought them home at about 5pm. This let them calm down and feel safe in their house for an hour or so. Then i let them out for a scratch and a drink before it got dark.

I then blocked up the nesting boxes for the first two nights, and put them away quite early and onto perches by hand.

The last night and Tuesday night they had taken themselves in and onto their perches by the time i went to put them away. I have now removed the blockages from the nesting boxes as we've already had our first two eggs!!!

When they go into the big hen house in the big run i will have to re-educate them as that house has the automatic door opener. They seem pretty happy and i will integrate them with our other this weekend so they can sort the pecking order out while i'm around to supervise...!

If that doesn't make sense just ask!