Exotic Birds Blog

hopfeed_template=''; hopfeed_align='LEFT'; hopfeed_type='IFRAME'; hopfeed_affiliate_tid=''; hopfeed_affiliate='roshan03'; hopfeed_fill_slots='true'; hopfeed_height='280'; hopfeed_width='336'; hopfeed_cellpadding='5'; hopfeed_rows='5'; hopfeed_cols='1'; hopfeed_font='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans Serif'; hopfeed_font_size='9pt'; hopfeed_font_color='000000'; hopfeed_border_color='FFFFFF'; hopfeed_link_font_color='124218'; hopfeed_link_font_hover_color='124218'; hopfeed_background_color='FFFFFF'; hopfeed_keywords='parrots, pets'; hopfeed_path='http://roshan03.hopfeed.com'; hopfeed_link_target='_blank';

If you are considering keeping chickens at home then you’re well on the way to making the best decision you’ve ever made. There’s so many reasons to keep chickens it’s difficult to list them all. Primarily though, kids love chickens and they will produce for you a wonderful product every day, eggs.

But if you’re planning to get some chooks you need to consider how will house them. A chicken coop, or what is sometimes called a henhouse or chicken house, is where you house your chicken.

Whether you buy or build a chicken coop doesn’t matter, it’s perfectly possible to build one using simple second-hand materials that you scrounge from the neighbours, and is reasonably cheap to build. A good chicken coop is really just a garden shed with a number of modifications.

The modifications that you will need are firstly that there are nesting boxes available in the chook house for the chickens to lay their eggs. Make your nesting boxes only a little bigger than the size of a chicken. If they’re too big you’ll find two chickens battling for position in the same nesting box. And make them easy to clean.

Make sure the nesting boxes are quite dark as you will find that if they are not dark enough your chickens will lay their eggs somewhere darker, like in the corner of the shed.

And you will need perches as well. Chooks sleep off the ground standing up, and if you put a bar around 75 millimetres by 50 above the ground they will perch there to sleep.

hopfeed_template=''; hopfeed_align='LEFT'; hopfeed_type='IFRAME'; hopfeed_affiliate_tid=''; hopfeed_affiliate='roshan03'; hopfeed_fill_slots='true'; hopfeed_height='100'; hopfeed_width='650'; hopfeed_cellpadding='5'; hopfeed_rows='2'; hopfeed_cols='1'; hopfeed_font='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans Serif'; hopfeed_font_size='9pt'; hopfeed_font_color='000000'; hopfeed_border_color='FFFFFF'; hopfeed_link_font_color='124218'; hopfeed_link_font_hover_color='124218'; hopfeed_background_color='FFFFFF'; hopfeed_keywords='parrots, pets'; hopfeed_path='http://roshan03.hopfeed.com'; hopfeed_link_target='_blank';

You will need food and water provided either in or outside the chicken house, however if it is provided outside you will need to ensure that any food left is not in the open so it will not get wet in the rain.

But if you provide the food or water in the chicken coop do not put it underneath the perches or it will become contaminated with droppings.

Once you have purchased your chooks you have committed to regular cleaning of the henhouse. You will need to lay a soft material on the floor of the house, such as hay or sawdust. My preference is sawdust, and over time it soaks up the droppings, but beyond a certain point must be cleaned out. However sawdust full of chicken droppings makes a wonderful fertiliser and if you spread it around the garden the plants will love it.

Collecting eggs every day is the best part of keeping chickens, and your own free range eggs always taste better than the supermarket variety. If you have too many just ask a few neighbours, there will always be some who will buy them from you.

So there’s good reasons for keeping chickens as pets for the children. There’s many animals that make good pets are very few if any that provide you with a useful product to eat as well.

And there’s no doubt that kids love chickens, ours absolutely adore them.

So why not research a little about keeping chickens. Decide whether to buy or build a chicken coop, where you will put it and how you will clean it and then get your first bunch of chooks. You won’t regret it.

hopfeed_template=''; hopfeed_align='LEFT'; hopfeed_type='IFRAME'; hopfeed_affiliate_tid=''; hopfeed_affiliate='roshan03'; hopfeed_fill_slots='true'; hopfeed_height='100'; hopfeed_width='650'; hopfeed_cellpadding='5'; hopfeed_rows='2'; hopfeed_cols='1'; hopfeed_font='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans Serif'; hopfeed_font_size='9pt'; hopfeed_font_color='000000'; hopfeed_border_color='FFFFFF'; hopfeed_link_font_color='124218'; hopfeed_link_font_hover_color='124218'; hopfeed_background_color='FFFFFF'; hopfeed_keywords='parrots, pets'; hopfeed_path='http://roshan03.hopfeed.com'; hopfeed_link_target='_blank';