chickens that roam the garden....

[Bramble-Poultry]

tlck - £8 for 20kg - what the heck are you buying? ditto for the corn I pay a fiver for a 25kg sack!

[RichmondHens]

tlck may just not be able to get cheaper stuff - I looked into getting Farmgate round here. They said they could deliver (for just under £6) with a price of again just under £6 for a 20 kilo bag, so think unless I go in with someone and get a job lot will probably find it easier to stick to picking up my Marriages at £6.25 from someone 10 miles down the road. Prices in your neck of the woods Bramble seem generally cheaper than elsewhere.

[Bramble-Poultry]

Mother gets farmgate from a place in little london.

become a stockist Richmond, then mother can buy from you!!! Wouldn't the smallholder group all get together and place a 50 bag order between you per month then delivery is free? thats only 10 - 15 people ordering 4 - 5 bags each per month. Direct from the mill at that quantity will make it cheaper than £6 a bag too

Prices aren't actually any cheaper here - we can just get the cheaper brands if that makes sense - if we buy a brand like smallholder they are a similar price to you way. But we can get farmgate and youngs which are cheaper.

[RichmondHens]

I know the place in Little London Bramble, and I think I may get in touch with her. I think I'm torn as I've used Marriages for quite a few years and my birds like the brand.

I have a problem with having deliveries direct to me as we live up a very narrow lane with restricted access. Getting ANYTHING delivered on anything bigger than a transit is a real P in the A!!!!! So I wouldn't consider being a stockist for that reason.

[Bramble-Poultry]

sounds like mothers lane!! actaully sounds like everywhere around there. Although £6.25 for marriages isn;t gonna be much different that farmgate. I suppose its down to personal choice

[bluemoon]

tlck - £8 for 20kg - what the heck are you buying? ditto for the corn I pay a fiver for a 25kg sack!

I pay £8.05p for a 20Kg sack too (Small Holder Range) and £3.60 for 5Kg of mixed corn (also Small Holder) My problem is that the local feed merchant only stocks their own brand of cheap and nasty stuff (GM ingredients, Brazillian soya, hexane extracted oils) or the Small Holder range that is free of all that. They do also sell the Organic Feed Company range, but it's £13+ for a 20Kg bag and even I refuse to pay that. At the moment I don't have anywhere rodent free to keep the feed at the lottie, so I have to store it at home and take it up in tupperware-type cereal storers, a couple of which contain about a day's worth of feed. If I could safely store the corn at the plot a large sack would be considerably cheaper than 4 small bags, but keeping a large bag of pellets, plus the dog's food at home is about all I have the space for. When the shed is ready at the plot I'm going to get some metal feed bins, but until then I'm stuck with the system I have. I only have 11 hens and 2 cockerels so can't buy in bulk as it would go 'off' before it was used, even if I had the storage space, a shame as it would make things a little cheaper. I suppose it does make the chickens rather expensive, but they are happy, lead active lives, eat loads of other things in addition to their feed and lay delicious eggs, so I'm more than happy to pay it at the moment. If many more chooks arrive though I'll definitely be searching for ways to cut the feed bills.
I did enquire about Farmgate, but the nearest stockist to me is about 20 miles. The feed merchant I currently use is 10 miles, but it's near my mum's so I am 'passing' quite often and it doesn't mean a special trip which the Farmgate stockist would, so the petrol would eat up any savings. Someone suggested a supplier of Farmgate in Bedfordshire which is actually do-able as my S-I-L goes there frequently on business, but again it would lead to storage problems as he doesn't go often enough to bring a bag whenever it's needed.

[Bramble-Poultry]

Do you have an ikea (or get to one occasionally) we keep all of our food in their knodd bins - they are only £10 and are the exact right size to fit a sack of feed in, they are painted and seem to have faired well, we use a bungee cord to keep the lids on in the wind and being metal - rodent proof!

Until we started using farmgate we used smallholder, but then we only had 6 chooks too. we moved here - snowballed - as it were to current numbers and needed to get cheaper food. Farmgate is a nightmare to get here too, some places stock 1 item from the range but not all so if we wanted it all we had to travel - then we ran into lisa from farmgate at a show and now we go to the mill to collect 10 bags at a time (benefit of living near to them)

She is however currently doing 7.5kg bags - buy 4 and they will ship them to you for £6 not sure how much that makes them - but keep pestering her as they are trying to sort out a delivery service if there is enough interest and also tell her who your local feed merchant is - she will lobby them to stock it and if you do likewise your end they may well give in a buy some in on a trial !! Her email is on their website - lisa mancell

[bluemoon]

Thanks Bramble, I'll try that. I'll also pop to IKEA for the bins, there isn't one near us, but there is one in Manchester and we passed it when we went to pick up the boys. It was actually a nice little run out and as the local hardware shop is charging £25 for a metal bin I'd more than save on the petrol costs involved, especially as I need at least 2 of them.

[Bramble-Poultry]

Ah yes - but you'd spend more in Ikea than you would in the local harware shop!!

[chrissie the chippy]

Well after reading all of the replies, I think I might go go bees instead! (we'll have a section in the garden at the bottom that will be fenced off from the children, because of ohs shed when he finally builds it )

If I keep my lottie, I might look into having a few chickens there

[Bramble-Poultry]

pen the chickens if you don;t want the mess - when we started out we lived in a mid terrace on the high street of a town and we built an aviary at the bottom of the garden and ours lived in their very happily. We've since moved and "expanded" but thats how we started.

bees - - I love our hives, not so good with kids and dogs though - unless you fence them to send them up and away from the garden.

[Polly Fouracre]

I agree! Hens you can keep controlled and they won't harm the children. But bees! You have to know what you are doing with them. You have to site them so that they fly not only up and away from your garden but from neighbours too. If anyone gets stung you can bet your bees will be blamed!!

[Bramble-Poultry]

yep Polly - hence why most bee keepers have liability insurance - us inculded!

[Flummery]

Our 4 have a permanent run - 3 x 2.5 metres and walk-in - and they have a penned off area of garden to scratch in too. They are not together but the chickens happily scamper down a path and across a patio to go from one to the other. They are fine in a big enough enclosure but they really love a bit of soft ground and grass to scratch in (your run won't have this for long - even if it starts out that way!)

I'd definitely go for hens rather than bees - there's so much for children to enjoy with chickens. Apart from eating the honey (which these days they don't suggest they eat till a year old) I don't think bees will fascinate them in the same way.

[Snadger]

Farmgate is £4.95 for a 20Kg bag around here............