Clucking Good Fun 🐔

09 Sep 2023 | ~3 minute read

The next step in developing our smallholding is to get some chickens. The coop is built and we picked up our 6 little feathered friends recently.

My wife has wanted chickens for as long as I can remember, but we've never had the space to do it; when we moved here, we said that chickens would most definitely be on the horizon.

Now they're here.

It was my wife's birthday recently, and knowing her better than any other human on planet earth, I knew she'd want a chicken coop for it. So I started researching coops and decided on what seemed to be a fairly good one that's big enough for 12 chickens.

I just had to build the thing...

My wife and I headed off to field and started laying the parts of the coop out. Unfortunately, she had to take one of our sons to an appointment, so I was left to fend for myself. I got it done though.

After a couple hours with some basic tools, and only a few swear words, the coop was ready...

Getting chickens

My wife wanted ex-battery hens, but unfortunately we couldn't find any that were available in our local area. So we contacted a local chicken farmer and found out that the had some really nice looking hybrids for sale that were just about at POL (point of lay).

It's worth noting here that the chickens will be for eggs only, they're not for meat. We deliberately went for a breed that enjoy being handled by people, so we can have them as pets and enjoy them as much as possible.

Yesterday my wife went and picked up our 6 chickens, and they're lovely. They were mostly timid at first, that is except for 1 chicken we have called Flo. She's definitely chief among the chicks and was immediately out surveying the coop.

Even sticking a camera in her face didn't bother her...

The first 24 hours with the chickens has gone as well as we'd have hoped. They went to bed fine last night and seem to generally be settling in.

Now they're more settled and seem content in the coop, we will likely open the door today, maybe tomorrow, and let them start exploring their new field.

I love that our little life down here is starting to come together. My wife is still trying to convince me to get 2 Shetland ponies for the big field, following my epic failure when trying to mow it. I'm not too sure about that yet though.

For now, I'd like to concentrate on all the animals we have, as well as starting to establish our vegetable patch.

One step at a time...

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