If you're searching for the ideal pet for the kids, and one that is profitable for dad and mum as well, then you should think about purchasing a chicken coop and a few chickens.
Hens have several benefits as pets. Obviously the very first benefit of keeping hens is they present you with wonderful, healthy and very tasty free range eggs.
You will not believe how great an egg can be till you've tasted your own newly laid free range eggs laid by your own chickens. You're going to immediately throw away all of those supermarket eggs.
And hens are lots of fun to keep. Each one possesses its own persona, they come in a number of sizes and shapes and surprisingly, if you happen to raise them right, they can be a loving pet.
We have hens and my children absolutely adore them. One we've brought up by hand is really so tame that it will race up to you when you enter the chicken yard and climb onto your shoes until you pick it up and give it a pat.
However there's some things you need to consider before you decide to purchase your first hens. The first is where you will keep them.
Generally chickens are housed in what is called a chicken coop, but can also commonly called a chicken house or a henhouse. This is usually structure that has been built specially for having your hens and it has quite a few essential things built into it.
In the chicken house you will need to supply perching rungs, or perches. These are rungs approximately 1 or 2 inches wide that your chickens will use to sleep on. The same as birds in the wild will sit on a branch to sleep hens also would rather sleep off the floor and will perch to do so.
And you will also require nesting containers. Nesting boxes are where your hens like to go to lay their eggs. A nesting box should be around the size of one chicken only. if you design them bigger then you'll find, as I normally do, that despite the fact that there may be 2 or 3 to select from there will be 2 chickens both trying to lay inside the same nesting box at the same time.
It's important that your nesting box be well above the floor as chickens favor a nesting box like that, and as well that it be comparatively dark. When the nesting boxes are extremely light you might well discover your hens will lay their eggs in the dark corner. They appear to love it darker when they lay.
You will have to think about supplying both food and water for the hens at the same time. Often this is supplied in the chicken coop, often by means of automated watering and feeding, however lots of people handfeed their hens.
Having an automated watering and feeding method ensures that having hens will not subject you to exactly the same problems that you'd have with many other pets, specifically what do you do with them when you're away. Provide sufficient food and water for a week and you can safely leave your hens on their own and no harm should come to them. We have done this often.
Check out any farm store to find various versions of feeding and watering systems. Try to remember to not put the feed or the water near or underneath either the perches or nesting boxes as your hens will poo in their own water or food quite contentedly.
While some people leave their hens in the chicken house all day long I much prefer to have a yard where they are able to free range. I have a simple yard surrounded by wire so they contentedly peck away all day long. I also let my chickens out to roam around the house every so often and it's wonderful to see your chickens contentedly eating pests in the back garden.
There are many varieties of chicken coup around. Search the web and you'll see all sorts of interesting models available, made from all sorts of materials including steel, plastic and timber. Lots of people make their very own hen house. I did, and it is an affordable way to provide your hens with a fine coop to live in.
Regardless of whether you love to be a handyman and make your own chicken house or whether you'd like to buy one does not matter. What does matter is you take the first step towards keeping your own chickens by determining the number of hens you wish to have. This depends upon the number of eggs you would like daily, and how much room you are able to dedicate to your chickens.
Nevertheless getting a lot of eggs is rarely a problem, just sell a few to your nearby neighbours, they'll fall all over each other to buy your fantastic free range eggs.
I really hope it has made you enthusiastic about learning more about keeping chickens. It's a wonderful hobby, kids think it's great, and it's a terrific way to expose the kids to pets. And also to ensure a ready supply of omelettes.
There's of course much more to keeping chickens than just what I've written here, this really is just intended to be an introduction. In the event you are serious do some more research, dive deeper in to the intricacies of keeping hens, then get out there and grab yourself half a dozen birds and a chicken coop and you are on your way.
Hens have several benefits as pets. Obviously the very first benefit of keeping hens is they present you with wonderful, healthy and very tasty free range eggs.
You will not believe how great an egg can be till you've tasted your own newly laid free range eggs laid by your own chickens. You're going to immediately throw away all of those supermarket eggs.
And hens are lots of fun to keep. Each one possesses its own persona, they come in a number of sizes and shapes and surprisingly, if you happen to raise them right, they can be a loving pet.
We have hens and my children absolutely adore them. One we've brought up by hand is really so tame that it will race up to you when you enter the chicken yard and climb onto your shoes until you pick it up and give it a pat.
However there's some things you need to consider before you decide to purchase your first hens. The first is where you will keep them.
Generally chickens are housed in what is called a chicken coop, but can also commonly called a chicken house or a henhouse. This is usually structure that has been built specially for having your hens and it has quite a few essential things built into it.
In the chicken house you will need to supply perching rungs, or perches. These are rungs approximately 1 or 2 inches wide that your chickens will use to sleep on. The same as birds in the wild will sit on a branch to sleep hens also would rather sleep off the floor and will perch to do so.
And you will also require nesting containers. Nesting boxes are where your hens like to go to lay their eggs. A nesting box should be around the size of one chicken only. if you design them bigger then you'll find, as I normally do, that despite the fact that there may be 2 or 3 to select from there will be 2 chickens both trying to lay inside the same nesting box at the same time.
It's important that your nesting box be well above the floor as chickens favor a nesting box like that, and as well that it be comparatively dark. When the nesting boxes are extremely light you might well discover your hens will lay their eggs in the dark corner. They appear to love it darker when they lay.
You will have to think about supplying both food and water for the hens at the same time. Often this is supplied in the chicken coop, often by means of automated watering and feeding, however lots of people handfeed their hens.
Having an automated watering and feeding method ensures that having hens will not subject you to exactly the same problems that you'd have with many other pets, specifically what do you do with them when you're away. Provide sufficient food and water for a week and you can safely leave your hens on their own and no harm should come to them. We have done this often.
Check out any farm store to find various versions of feeding and watering systems. Try to remember to not put the feed or the water near or underneath either the perches or nesting boxes as your hens will poo in their own water or food quite contentedly.
While some people leave their hens in the chicken house all day long I much prefer to have a yard where they are able to free range. I have a simple yard surrounded by wire so they contentedly peck away all day long. I also let my chickens out to roam around the house every so often and it's wonderful to see your chickens contentedly eating pests in the back garden.
There are many varieties of chicken coup around. Search the web and you'll see all sorts of interesting models available, made from all sorts of materials including steel, plastic and timber. Lots of people make their very own hen house. I did, and it is an affordable way to provide your hens with a fine coop to live in.
Regardless of whether you love to be a handyman and make your own chicken house or whether you'd like to buy one does not matter. What does matter is you take the first step towards keeping your own chickens by determining the number of hens you wish to have. This depends upon the number of eggs you would like daily, and how much room you are able to dedicate to your chickens.
Nevertheless getting a lot of eggs is rarely a problem, just sell a few to your nearby neighbours, they'll fall all over each other to buy your fantastic free range eggs.
I really hope it has made you enthusiastic about learning more about keeping chickens. It's a wonderful hobby, kids think it's great, and it's a terrific way to expose the kids to pets. And also to ensure a ready supply of omelettes.
There's of course much more to keeping chickens than just what I've written here, this really is just intended to be an introduction. In the event you are serious do some more research, dive deeper in to the intricacies of keeping hens, then get out there and grab yourself half a dozen birds and a chicken coop and you are on your way.
For more information about the cheapest chicken coops visit our site: www.chickencoops.net.au
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