New to raising chickens -advice

nup not yet it is I .whos about to attack the largest but most overgrown jungle of a coop ive ever seen, its got a excellent fence & chookhouse but im going to have to use a scrubcutter to get rid of the weeds & rubbish, its the inlaws but if i put chickens in there now i may neva see them again.

just sent my SLW chicks (4 1/2 months old) to new homes.
the 2 cockerals went off to sow thier seeds with some new girl friends yesterday and the 2 pullets went to a farm outside of dargaville today.
very pleased they are going to such lovely people, makes all the difference.

i know that if there is no rooster, a dominant hen will rule the roost, but does this include 'mating' with the other hens!

i got back from my holiday and went to pick my wee tikka up from my chicken babysitter and came home with her & her wee pekin bantam boyfriend! apparently she alienated herself from all the guys chickens for the whole two weeks and paired up with his alien bantam roo.i didnt have the heart to bring her home without him.hubby said how come theres TWO in the cage instead of one.i told him he was seeing things! lol.thank gawd its only got a half hearted crow! lol

No.

In the absence of a rooster, a dominant hen will lead the others, show them where to eat, watch out for predators & may even mock crow (all the things a rooster does) but I've never heard of a dominant hen trying to mate with another hen.

Heat can stop them from laying for a few days. They might be broody (heat can also trigger broodiness). They probably have missed you but usually they get a bit distant for a few days.like they're in a huff with you. They don't stop laying because you go away (well.mine never have). How big is the coop! If there is adequate room, they should have been ok. I sometimes put mine into a run for a day or two (for various reasons - usually because we're doing something in the garden) & it doesn't seem to stop them laying. As long as they had enough water & an adequate diet, they should be fine. I'd be putting money on the heat causing it (either just heat stress or broodiness). Have they started laying again since you last posted!

Pekin boys are the best :) Mine is just lovely - he's a really friendly wee boy & such a sweetie. He rides on my shoulder sometimes & isn't aggressive at all towards humans. But it probably helps that we handle him every day (he comes inside every night so he doesn't annoy the neighbours). Depending on how old he is, his crow may change if he's only young. They start off sounding a bit strangled & slowly develop into a full-throated, high pitched crow. Higher than a standard rooster & a bit more piercing. But they don't seem to crow too much during the day. Good luck with your new addition!

well our Miley (hyline) has just started doing it over the past 2 weeks, shes 12 (ish) months old and has never done it before.

she must just 'like' the girls :)

Hi Just found this "thread"really interesting cus I am finally going rural for my retirement! I want to get some chooks, do you think i should put a pen up! I have 7 Ragdoll cats, but they have never come across chickens before! I have lots of friends who would like eggs, but do you have any suggestions as to how many chooks I should start with! How ofton do they go off lay and for how long. SORRY I just need to know all.

Weird. Are you sure she's not just pecking them or attacking the others!

Welcome to the wonderful world of chooks :) The birds will need a coop to lay their eggs in & to sleep at night. Whether or not you put an enclosed run up for them as well will depend on your property & whether you want them to free range or not. It's often useful to have some sort of enclosure you can put them in if you need to - I have Pekins which are a bantam-sized breed & I have a couple of small, mobile runs I can put out for them if we need to do work on the garden (my birds are 100% free range) but others find it handy to just have a secure, fenced off area in their garden.

The cats should be fine with the chooks. Chooks are very good at protecting themselves from most cats. I'd be more worried about the chooks bullying the Ragdolls but, on the whole, they should leave the cats alone.

The number of chooks you have depends entirely on what breed you choose, the size of the area you'll be putting them in & the size of the coop. I'd recommend you have a look on the net at different types of breeds & go from there. Some are better layers than others, some have fancier plumage, some have nicer temprements, some are more broody than others, some have more health problems than others, some don't fly over the fence. It all depends on what you're looking for in your birds.

How long they're off the lay again depends on breed. They don't lay when they're molting in winter (typically for a couple of months.again, depends on breed.some people control molting by artifically controlling the light but it's a lot of hassle). And if they go broody, they won't lay while they're broody & for a short while after they break their broodiness. But some breeds tend to go broody more than others & some don't go broody at all. Other environmental factors can also affect laying incl heat, stress & illness.

Thanks for that, i'm going to be putting in a veggie patch so will need to make a run I think!! Do I need to clip their wings, how high would they fly!

My garden is 100% edible & the chooks free range over it but I have to fence off the vulnerable plants like berries, carrots, etc.especially when they're young. Once the plants get bigger, I find the chooks don't do as much damage (Pekins are only small & their feathered feet means they can't dig - obviously other breeds will be different). A standard-sized bird will do a lot more damage & one without feathered feet will dig around the plants, so yes - you'll probably either have to fence off the plants or fence off the chooks :)

Flightiness depends a bit on breed, size & weight. Some chooks don't fly over the fence at all. Others are really bad for it. Make sure you have noting up near the fence that they can use as a launching pad. You can also put something over the top of their run to stop them getting out. If you need to wing clip, make sure you only do one wing & it might be best to get someone (eg a vet) to show you how to do it the first time so you can wing clip properly after that (you'll need to keep doing it as their flight feathers regrow). It won't stop them flying but it will stop them steering properly, so they're less likely to go over the fence.

I have one that does exactly this (Nigella). I have four others, she tried them all, and now seems to have settled on one favourite.Nigella is the oldest and I have had her the longest.

BUGGA he is on the strangled crow i was hoping it would stay that way, if he behaves he will stay, so he better crow quietly in the future! lol

yes, miley has tried a few and has settled on ginger (also a hyline), she must be the better lover, ahahahahaaaaaaaa

bumping us to the top, drucilla and henny penny have now accepted my wee tikka and her boyfriend masala! she still trys to get out so i clipt her wings to stop her getting over the gate, im just about to get some more carex grasses to plant out in their run for shade etc next summer, they have refrained from destroying the last lot i planted only cause i put a mesh screen around each plant, they have however devoured one lavender and are attempting to get at the rosemary, do they not realise im doing it for their own shade benefits next summer! im desperately waiting for my light sussex drucilla to lay, shes past being the right age to lay, shes fat, shes healthy so basically shes just being damn lazy.maybe time for roast chicken chat! lol its ok getting one egg every second day from henny penny but it means im buying in my baking eggs wich is waht drucilla is for.grrrr chooks who'd have ah!

my sister has just purchased a new house so she has borrowed lucy and izzy to clear out part of the section.
they are loving it, they have plenty of weeds to clear and bugs to scratch and eat.
they have one of our old, smaller houses there for them to lay and sleep in, so they are right at home!

Ester's sister Polly has just died.I suspect rhubarb poisoning as the leaves had been attacked last week. She was quite young and otherwise healthy, but went downhill fairly quickly.I have since fenced off that part of the garden. Just thought I should mention to caution others.

We have just got a couple more ex-battery hens - hylines I believe.They have had the point of their top beak cut off.One, that we have named Twisty Beak, has a very long lower beak that does not line up with her top beak.We have been feeding her wet mash as she does not seem to be able to pick up the pellets.Can we and /or should we trim back her lower beak! Have other people encountered this problem!Twisty Beak is very thin and scruffy and our original hen, Big Red, just hates her and chases her away from food and so on. The 3rd one, Harriet, just wanders around looking dazed.Who would think that hens can have such diverse personalities!

chooks eat rhubarb and it doesnt kill them.kills any worms they may have.have had rhubarb plants demolished by hens more than once with different places i have been.

mine eat the leaves aswell and they are always fine :)

Bumping - to see if anyone knows if I should trim the hen's beak!

Aww poor girl don't you just feel so sorry for them.

Razell: if the overgrowth on her beak is so severe that she can't eat properly, then you should probably look at getting it trimmed (this is trimming it back.*not* debeaking her). You can do it yourself (lots of info on the net on how to do it properly but it relates more to trimming the upper beak - just adjust for the lower & watch out for her tongue) but you may be wise to get a vet to show you how to do it the first time.especially if she's been debeaked (so you don't go too far back). The beak is like a big fingernail & it keeps growing. Normally a free range bird is able to keep it worn down to the right size as it pecks around on hard surfaces but sometimes one beak will get too long (normally it's the top beak) & it can be trimmed back like a fingernail. But it has a quick & if you trim too far back, you can cause serious pain & bleeding plus irreparable damage. Hope this helps.

Tractor: so sorry to hear about your chook. It's always such a shock when they go quickly like that. However, as others have said, it's probably not the rhubarb that caused it. Yes, rhubarb leaves contain toxins but unless your girl was just very sensitive to oxalic acid, then it's unlikely this is what killed her. Rhubarb seems to be one of those things that needs a reasonably large quantity eaten over a prolonged period of time to kill a chook.& they're normally sensible enough to stop eating things that taste bitter or are bad for them (they'll nibble to taste it but that wouldn't have been enough to kill her). Lots of people I know report their rhubarb gets eaten down to the ground with no ill effects & my own chooks sometimes munch on mine (I leave it unfenced) with no problems. The only side effects I've heard about are brittle eggshells (as the oxalic acid leaches calcium) & possible liver or kidney problems. I'd personally be having a good look round to make sure there are no other poisonous plants around, bait of any kind, deceased animals or decaying fruit/vege/meat that she could have got in to. Make sure neither you or your neighbours sprayed anything in the days leading up to her death (eg maybe a neighbour sprayed along the fenceline or put down snail bait!). And make sure there are no pools of water lying round that could harbour mosquito larvae. This will rule out poisoning. Poisoning also normally has symptoms before they die (even if it's just for an hour or two).they don't just sort of drop dead. So maybe also consider your environmental conditions.was it unusually hot or cold.wet.etc. Are you sure she had absolutely no unusual symptoms! Discharge, swelling, odd poo (runny, different colour, etc), limping, fluffing up of feathers, lethargic, not eating or drinking, hanging her head, etc.! Chooks are *very* good at hiding when something is wrong & even one odd thing can mean something is wrong. By the time we notice a chook is ill, it normally requires prompt attention. At the end of the day, it could have just been a heart attack or something else equally sudden & unavoidable. Again, I'm very sorry for your loss & hope your other chooks go on to live happy, long lives.