Essential shopping list for new chicken keepers

Our chickens are pets first and cute little egg factories second.  This means that we've spent a fair bit more than the bare minimum to make sure our girls have a nice life.  We've also tried to get things that will look good in our garden.

Most of what you need is available on Amazon, so the links below show where you can get them.  For many things this will be the cheapest option, but for some you will get better deals elsewhere.  If you have a good farm supply shop near you, you'll get most stuff you need at top prices there.  Pet shops will stock many items but prices will tend to be significantly higher.

If you're going to order a lot of this stuff from Amazon, it may be worth getting Amazon Prime to save on delivery costs.

Housing

First things first, your chooks will need somewhere to live.  They're going to need space, security and comfort.

Coops with an integrated run are a great idea for those of us who have to work for a living.  This gives you easy access to the eggs and once the pop door is shut, the coop itself is fox-proof, warm, cosy and windproof.

The run gives them some safe space to move around while we're out at work.  I wouldn't want to leave the hens in this run 24/7 because it's not really enough space to keep them happy.  Ours get free access to the whole garden as soon as we get in from work each day and all weekend, so a run like this is good enough for them.  If you're planning to keep them locked up all the time, you'll want to consider a bigger enclosure.

It's also very important to make sure that your run is fox-proof.  A nice sturdy run with thick wire mesh is a good start, but foxes can dig, so it's recommended to put paving slabs around the run.  While foxes are happy to dig under the edge of a fence, they won't tunnel all the way under a paving slab.

This coop is now a major feature of your garden, so you'll want it to look nice and make sure it doesn't rot.  We used Cuprinol in blue and white.

Food and water

Now that the chickens have somewhere to live, they'll need to eat and drink.

We got some fairly cheap plastic feed and water dispensers, which we hang from the roof of the run with bungee cords.

Tap water is fine for them to drink, although some people say you should collect rain water for them as it's more natural.

The standard feed recommendation is layers pellets .  These are designed to be a complete nutritional balance for chickens and will provide most of what they need.  You'll also want to give them treats, but we'll get to that later.

Chickens don't have any teeth, so they eat small stones which sit in their gizzards and help to grind up the food.  They'll naturally scratch around and find stones to eat, but it's best to make sure they have a plentiful supply.  A good idea is to get grit that's mixed with oyster shells , as the extra calcium helps the hens to produce good strong egg shells.

The pellets and grit will supply all the essential nutrients to keep your chickens healthy, but you'll probably also want to give them treats.  Not only do treats make them happy and entertain you watching them run after anything you throw, but a good varied diet makes a massive difference to the quality and flavour of your eggs.

If your chickens are free ranging, they'll find a lot of variety for themselves.  They'll eat grass and other plants and scratch in the ground for worms and bugs.  They'll eat mice and frogs if they can catch them, steal cat or dog food and generally have a peck at anything you happen to drop in the garden.

Most fruit and veg get a good reaction.  We've found that our girls particularly like tomatoes, melon, apple, potato (make sure you cook it first) and broccoli.  Corn is a good treat that you can control well if you want to train your chickens.  We have found that putting it in an old parmesan dish allows us to open and close the lid so we can use it as a treat for being a good girl.

The one thing guaranteed to get the little critters running at you though is sardines.  They're great nutrition, cheap and chickens love them.  They're a good source of protein for egg production, the soft bones give calcium for shell and feather production and they're full of omega-3 oils for a nice rich yolk.  Make sure you get them in either oil or tomato, not in brine as the salt is bad.

Cleaning and medical

Now that you've got all this food going in to your chickens, the bad news is that not all of it comes out in the form of eggs.  Chickens poo a lot, everywhere.  I really do mean a lot.

Your first weapon against the poo is a good choice of bedding.  Some people use straw, although that can harbour parasites.  Shredded paper could work, and I could get it free from my office, but it's not very absorbent and tends to be a big tangled mess, so hard to clean up.  Some use woodchips, which you may be able to get free from a local gardener, but again not that absorbant.  We use Aubiose Pet Bedding.   It's absorbent, easy to scoop up the poop and it composts down well.

The good news is that chicken poo isn't like other bird poo.  It's much bigger, like something you'd expect from a small dog.  Nine times out of ten, it's a big solid lump and very easy to just scoop up into a dustpan.  We found that a small coal shovel is ideal for that job.  That's all very well nine times out of ten, but the tenth time... your first cecal poo will come as a surprise.  They're soft and kind of look like caramel sauce.  They really don't smell like caramel sauce though.  No chance scooping these, you're going to need a hose .

Once you've scooped up all this poo, you need to put it somewhere.  Gardeners will tell you that chicken manure makes some of the best compost around, so get some compost bins.  Most local councils will have some kind of subsidised deal on these, so it's worth shopping around.  We got two of the big ones, and I'm starting to think that two will only just be enough for the amount produced by our four little poo factories.

Once a week, you'll want to completely change the bedding in your coop.  This is a good time to give things a good clean to keep the parasites away.

A good squirt of Poultry Shield all round should disinfect everything nicely.  You'll want to get a spray bottle to mix this up in.  Once the poultry shield has dried, new bedding goes in and everything (including the hens) gets liberally dusted with diatomaceous earth powder (DE) .  This is to guard against the dreaded red mite.  Pay special attention to the perches to make sure the nasty little bugs can't get to your girls in the night.

The ground in the run gets sprinkled with Stalosan F powder to kill off any internal parasites like worms that may be lurking there.

It's good to have a pot of vaseline to hand.  When you first get your hens, there might be some squabbling to establish the pecking order, so a good smear of vaseline on the comb and wattles is good so they can't grab each other and do any damage.  It's also good on very cold nights to prevent frostbite on the combs.

Purple spray is needed for any injuries.  Occasionally the chickens will get hurt, whether fighting, in accidents or just plucking out a feather and there will be a small amount of blood.  Chickens love blood (and anything red) and will peck at a wound and make it much worse.  A quick dose of purple spray stops it being quite so attractive and is also an effective antiseptic.

Many people will tell you to put apple cider vinegar (ACV) in the water supply.  It's supposed to be a mild antiseptic due to being acidic and may have some other trace nutrients.  I haven't managed to find any rigorous evidence that it actually works and studies conducted when it was a fad for humans a few years ago showed no beneficial effects, however it doesn't do any harm, so why not?

Storage

All the food you're storing could attract vermin, so it's important to have somewhere secure to store it.  Rats will chew through a plastic bin, so get some metal ones .

You'll also want somewhere to store everything else, so a garden storage box is a good idea unless you have a lot of spare shed space.

That should be just about everything you need to get yourself started.  Once you get into it all, you might decide to get some toys, a more comfy garden chair to watch them from, new eggcups...  But that's all for another post.

Eating out of my hands

Egg update: 

3 more yesterday.  Price per egg down to £65.16.

The eggs are amazing.  We were expecting the bright yellow, very rich yolks but the whites came as a surprise.  So much flavour.  Egg white is usually bland, but this is delicious.  Might have to make some meringues.

Two of them are producing very thin shelled eggs that crack a little too easy, but hopefully that'll change with their improved diet.  The third egg was very solid.

Gradually getting tamer

Well, at least two of them are.

We've been giving them corn as a treat when we let them out in the evening.  We put it in a Tupperware box and rattle it as we walk out of the house so that they can start to associate the sound with freedom and nice food.

Norma

Mostly we just scatter some on the ground, but we're trying to use it to tame them too.  Monday night we tried holding the box out to see who would take it.  Only Norma was brave enough, or maybe greedy enough, to take some while we were holding the box.  She even put up with us stroking her as she ate.

Last night, I picked Norma up, put her on my lap and offered her the box of corn.  She was happy to eat and kept going when I let go of her.  When I took the corn away, she stayed around for a few more seconds before hopping down to find more food.  It was nice being able to give her a little cuddle and it gave me a good chance to check her over.  Her wing feathers are just as thin as the ones on her tail and she's got a bald patch on her chest to go with the head and baldy bum.  Other than that and being a bit skinny, she seems in good health.  Nice bright eyes and very alert.

Taystee

I also got Norma to eat some corn directly from my hand, which was nice.


I started the same process with Taystee.  She was OK taking corn from the box while standing on the ground.  She was a bit more uncertain when I picked her up, but went for the corn eventually.

Taystee didn't stick around long when I let go of her, but it was a good start and again a good chance to check her over.  She's looking good.  Could do with being a bit fatter and fluffier, but we'll get there.

Big Boo and Piper didn't go for the corn when we offered it and seemed reluctant to be picked up, so I decided not to force the issue for now.

All four went to bed nicely at dusk and snuggled up for the night.

Emma decided to start a Twitter account for the girls.  You can follow them at @litchfieldhens

Freedom is overrated

Egg update:

We had two eggs on our first full day, followed by three yesterday.  We suspect Norma's not laying yet as she's still pretty ragged, but the way she's eating, she'll soon catch up with the rest.

Our first two eggs.  Thank you Piper and Taystee.

So with five eggs in, we're down to a cost of only £104.25 per egg.  Bargain.

First taste of freedom

This is as far as we're going...

Having given the girls a couple of days locked in the run to get settled in to their new home, we decided to let them out to explore the rest of the garden (and hope they don't try to escape.

I opened the door to the run, scattered some corn outside...  Big Boo stepped out to peck at the corn, the other three looked over at the open door, looked back at the feeder and made their decision.  We're fine in here, thanks.  After all the fuss Taystee made on the first day trying to get out, now she ignores an open door.

Big Boo explores

About twenty minutes later, the others ventured out.  They mostly stayed fairly close to the coop, but they had a good scratch around and a peck at the grass.  Big Boo came as far as the house, but didn't try to come in.

I managed to pick up Norma and have a good look over her.  She's very bony.  She's got a bald patch on the top of her head, her tail feathers are very thin and she's got a big bald bum.  We'll be monitoring all that closely, so expect a lot of pics of Norma's backside over the coming months.

Norma's baldy bum

As the sun went down, the girls decided it was bed time and all found their way back to the coop on their own.  Big Boo and Piper went in first and then seemed to call to the other two, who promptly trotted over and jumped up the ramp before snuggling up with the others to sleep.

It was really nice to see them going to bed by themselves.  On the first night I had to help Taystee and Norma into the coop, on the second night only Norma needed help.  Hopefully this is the way they'll do it going forwards.