Everybody loves eggs. They’re one of the most versatile foods you can have in the fridge. And everyone loves pets. So why not combine the two and keep chickens. That way you satisfy the urge to get a pet, and you’ll also be getting plenty of eggs for the fridge.
It seems that all kids love chickens. I have kids and chickens and they spend hours patting them, feeding them and collecting the eggs. Chickens are relatively clean, easy to keep and cheap to feed, and if you only have been they don’t make a lot of noise. Let them free range and they will feed on all those nasty bugs in the garden that eat your flowers.
But before you buy some chickens you do need to think about housing them. You will need a good chicken coop to house your chickens. Let’s consider the ins and outs of chicken coops.
A simple portable chicken coop that you can move around the garden is really quite sufficient for 3 or 4 hens, and 3 or 4 hens will provide ample eggs for the average family.
The first thing you need to think about is whether there are any regulations governing keeping chickens or having a henhouse . In some places regulations specify what you can and cannot do.
The quickest way to get yourself a chicken coop is to buy one, however they are not that difficult to build provided you’re familiar with the workings of a hammer. Grab some treated timber suitable for outdoors, some chicken wire and a few essential handyman bits and pieces and it is not that difficult to build your chicken coup during an afternoon.
Although not essential it helps to provide an enclosed area for the hens to nest. This is where the eggs will be laid.
At night chickens like to perch to sleep and therefore you need some perching bars off the floor of the coop.
A simple A-frame design is quite sufficient, and it’s also important to provide the chickens with some rungs spaced from one side of the chicken house to the other off the ground for the chickens to roost on at night. It is better that this part of the coop be under cover.
If you put handles on one end and wheels on the other it is then easy to move around the garden, and you move it every few days to fertilise different areas of the lawn.
You can always allow your chickens out of the henhouse during the day. Make sure however that they all return at night and the door is closed in case of foxes. Your chickens will clean up your yard of any nasty bugs.
Kids just love having chickens, as well as the eggs. But before you get started on your new hobby of keeping chickens decide how many you wish to have, and buy or build a a good quality chicken coop to house them in and you’re well on your way to a fridge full of eggs.
All you have to do is get stuck into a simple handyman job building your chicken coop or buy a good one and then you can be comfortable knowing that you always have a fridge full of eggs.
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