Rearing Animals

prashantnew

prashantnew

prashantnew

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Joined
19 Feb 2012
Posts
208
Location
Boro
No you sickos, I don't mean THAT.

Has anyone here ever kept any animals for reasons other than companionship? A neighbour has recently bought some chickens, which has intruiged me. If so, what animal did you keep and what did it entail? Or would you ever consider keeping animals such as chickens etc...I must say, the thought of my own fresh eggs is quite appealing!
 
I will most certainly be getting chickens when I have the space. The price of eggs is stupid and it is rare to be able to get really fresh ones nowadays unless you stop in at a farm shop, but even then I get disappointed on a regular basis.

You crack them and the white is all watery. It should be gelatinous like jelly.
 
Chickens can be noisy, require you to be careful about shutting them up at nights/letting them out in the mornings to avoid them getting preyed upon, can be smelly and they're not the brightest animals you'll ever see. Aside from that they don't seem to be all that hard to look after going by my mum's experience with keeping chickens - it's nice to have the fresh eggs and if you've got a surplus then you might be able to sell them but whether it is worth it depends on you really.
 
Is the smell really that bad? Hadn't considered that. Hmm might not be such a good idea after all then. Some of the small coups seem quite nice, and getting started websites suggest you can have 2 chickens and see how you get on. Still very tempted!
 
I have a couple of cats that I use to surprise the bin men, they are pretty well trained to get out before they get crushed to death, haven't worked out if they should go in general waste or recyling yet though.
Sadly though I have had 3 casualties, all three of them had hangovers so they weren't as quick as they should have been. Guess darwin was right.
 
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I have spiders / snakes / lizards / frogs / other bugs...dont have them for companionship at all, they interest me and once i get the room sorted i will be trying to breed some of them :)
 
Any other opinions of chickens? I'm considering this at the moment, but I only want to get them if they are super-low maintenance, really.
 
Edrof said:
Any other opinions of chickens? I'm considering this at the moment, but I only want to get them if they are super-low maintenance, really.
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They're definitely not low maintenance, we had them when I was younger, freezing mornings feeding and refilling the now frozen water trough, cleaning them out is messy and they do stink, you may end up with rats through the food and eggs.

Putting them away every night and opening them up every morning, chickens are not low maintenance.

We reared turkeys several years on the trot for Christmas, I remember the bucket with the bottom cut out to put over their bodies so we could break their necks.
 
We have 3 chickens and if you value the grass in your garden, don't get any :p They've completely eaten all the grass by their house and love to scratch around, kicking up stones and dirt everywhere. They also love to poo absolutely everywhere, which if not cleaned up quickly will attract flies, especially in the summer. Oh and it stinks. They poo in the night when in their house, so you'll have to clean it up everyday and put new bedding down etc. Every so often we have to put some mite dust on them, which is incredibly frustrating as you have to chase them round the garden trying to pick them up. They also eat a lot but thankfully they let you know when they're hungry - by squawking, which is very loud and annoying.

So yeah, all that for 3 eggs a day.
 
Yep, living on a farm, have many animals that aren't kept for companionship.

Sheep - Meat/wool
Horses - Breed and sell and meat
Cows - Breed and meat
Pigs - Meat
Guinea Fowl - Eggs and meat
Chickens / Ducks - Eggs and meat
 
Chickencoop.jpg


Coops can be cheap, not sure how you'd clean it out tho ...
 
Edrof said:
Well it looks like the wife can stuff her chickens!
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Depending on location they are very low maintenance.

We have a large variety of chickens which have a small paddock/field to themselves, which they sometimes share with lambs, but most of the year it's theirs with a large enclosed area for them too.

When the sun goes down they put them selves to bed, so just a case of shutting the door.

No maintenance apart from feeding them tbh
 
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