3468 Chickens

.....dig the fences in deep.

That's all I remember from a Gran who looked after chickens,[i] many[/i] years ago!

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="3"]hi

Ive kept bantams for 12 years and each one (not the males of course) seem to have had 100's of chicks!

Once when we were away a hen with chicks was killed leaving 10 week old chicks to look after!I put them in a plant propergator in a sunny porch...you must however not let them get too hot.If they are panting with their beaks open thats too hot.Feed them on scrambled eggs if they are just a little fluffy ball...if they have wings and proper feathers then chick crumbs from a pet food/farm type shop.

They must have fresh water and keep an eye out for any sign of illness as it soon spreads.

The number 1 important thing is KEEP THEM WARM.Do not put them into an outside run until they have their proper feathers.For the next 3 weeks they will sleep about 75% of the time so dont worry as they can look dead!And do get some anti bacterial handwash in if you are going to have people picking them up,particularly children.

Good luck Becky[/SIZE][/FONT]

Have a look on [url]www.countrysmallholding.com[/url] really good forum, also, Katie Thears books no nonsense, informative and easy to read.

[QUOTE=manopello][FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="3"].....Feed them on scrambled eggs if they are just a little fluffy ball...[/SIZE][/FONT][/QUOTE]

Damn, that sounds more than a little queer! Did they know? I'd freak out if I was a chick (a very remote possibility I now!) & got fed a distant cousin! :eek:

I might have to turn you in to [url=http://www.lipu.it]Lipu[/url]! :D

[FONT="Book Antiqua"][SIZE="3"]but how do you know I meant a fertilised egg? Huh? Only these can be chicks.

Becky[/SIZE][/FONT]

Thanks for all the advice, I'm a little bit more knowledgeable and 1 chick down.

The older dog got one that escaped. He's in the dog house now.

I can see the chick now.....walking round the yard, dropping dirt from Tunnel Alfie....it's Chicken Run all over again!

Seriously, sorry about your loss. Stick with it.

[QUOTE=Kirstin]Thanks for all the advice, I'm a little bit more knowledgeable and 1 chick down.

The older dog got one that escaped. He's in the dog house now.[/QUOTE]

Awww! Well, there's hope! :)

When my mother first came home with her chickens some years back, her greyhound got one too straight away! He ended up in the dog house & had to learn to accept them. It took time & some work ...

But these days they all roam the garden together... and he's very protective of them! ;) The good 'side effect' of that new friendship is that he's scaring off the foxes!!!

Once they are bigger - if you want them to roam, but not fly away - just trim down their flight feathers [the big ones on the trailing edge of their wings]

My daughter was crying and we both were its ok, it wouldn't have felt anything etc. Truns out she didn't give a toss about the chicken only she nearly fell off the chair!!! Today she's telling me she can't wait until their big enough to eat!

My Lurchers were good with the chickens, in fact one once took a bone away from Trin. but, the Husky cross Bing was terrible with them, the first one she killed, taught us the difference between our English and Italian friends, the English ones were mortified, "poor thing" etc., while the Italians wanted to know how Karen had cooked it...:eek:

I hope you enjoy my story about keeping chickens:

Since I was a little boy I always dreamed of keeping a few chickens. The idea of collecting eggs every morning and handing them to Mum to cook for breakfast thrilled me. Sadly, we never had the sort of garden that would allow it, even if my Mum would!

However, now I live in Italy things are different. Nearly every family in our village keeps a few chickens, geese, rabbits, etc. so it doesn’t get the eccentricity label that it would in England. In fact keeping chickens gives a measure of ‘street cred’ here in the Italian countryside and with our big new garden here was my chance! There was even a chicken house attached to the back of the house with a small concrete run beside it. However it was attached to the back of other (empty) side of our house and did not belong to me. I asked Mario, the owner, if I could use it if I cleaned it up and he kindly agreed. Next I needed some steel posts and some netting, so off I went to the ferramenta and bought the stuff including a feeding trough and a water container. My friend Benito offered to get the chickens for me and we took off in his cronky old car to pick them up. ‘You will need five’, he said. Five chickens! I could hardly contain myself! Carrying a cardboard box that moved about of its own accord was a weird experience. I gingerly let them loose in the run. Bewildered by their sudden freedom they stood stock still until they got the courage up to strut around the pen. I was absolutely enthralled and hurried off to find an old crate to sit amongst them. We chatted, I patted their backs, and we got to know each other really well. I taught them a bit of English and they taught me how to cluck. I gave them Olde English names, all beginning with ‘A’; Agatha, Annie, etc. planning to give their successors names beginning with ‘B’ and so on. I have since given up on this idea as it all gets a bit too personal and I often forget which was whom.

Over the following months I got four or five eggs a day from my ‘little ladies’. They began to pile up until I was begging visitors to have eggs for breakfast and trying to get them to take some home. On into the winter I still got four or five eggs a day. I proudly told my neighbours…who were astonished! In the winter they normally lay only every two or three days I was told. ‘How do you do it?’ they asked. ‘Well, I stroke them and talk to them’ I said sheepishly. ‘Eh beh!’ they exclaimed ‘Crazy English!’. ‘But who has the eggs?’ I smugly replied. England 1 – Italy 0.

Come the spring I noticed a special offer in the local shop where I bought my feed, pulcini in omaggio. Fifteen one-day-old chicks free with every sack of feed. Free! That was an offer I couldn’t refuse, so I bought a sack with the fifteen chirping chicks! The shop-keeper was bemused as I obviously knew nothing about keeping chickens in his view. I kept them in a cardboard box for the first few days alongside me in the study. They were so cute that I went back to the shop and ordered another fifteen! Well, as they all grew up I began to feel over-run with chickens, and did they ever consume food? Then they also started to lay eggs! Panic set in so the time had come to prepare some of them for the table. Well, you know what that means. Yes, I had to kill them! I wasn’t unduly worried by this but I had never done it before so, with a book in one hand and a chicken dangling and flapping in the other, I gritted my teeth and had a go. Simple! I lay it on the ground feeling very pleased with myself…until up it jumped and started running round as if nothing had happened! Attempt number two reached the same conclusion until finally I got the knack, on the third go.

I have now built a new chicken house with three sections; one for the five hens a-laying, one for the fifteen chicks a-chirping and a third section for my rabbits. Yes, I succumbed to an offer for rabbits too. They aren’t the cuddly fluffy things we knew in England but gigantic meat machines and not the least bit pretty. I started with a young male and two females and as they grew up the time came to breed them. I carefully placed the first female with a rather agitated male and stood back to see if he liked her. Liked her? No time for that! No niceties, no chat-up lines, no checking to see if the newcomer was even female! Well, the result was a lovely litter of tiny baby bunnies which grew at an astonishing rate until I had trouble determining which was parent and which was offspring. Out came the book again.

Well, we have a traditional Italian open fireplace and bought some ironwork to hold the logs and grill our meat. The smell of wood-smoke and the taste of barbecued home-grown meat, well cared for and fed decent food, with a life in the sun is incomparable. There was no going back. I can claim to have found a cure for vegetarianism. Next come the ducks.

We had a bit of spare land beside the vineyard so I decided to create a duck pond. In came Bruno with his digger and a few hours later we had a rather ugly hole in the ground, but with great potential. Off we went to the ferramenta again for more posts and netting and I fenced off a nice area around the pond.

Mario, you remember Mario, had some ducks so I asked him if he could tell me where he got them. Coyly he admitted they were wild ones. Ask no more. But, before I could even finish building the fence in flew the most enormous white duck! At least, I thought it had flown in, but we quickly began to suspect it was ‘planted’ as a practical joke by a neighbour. Weeks went by and the duck, Loretta, disappeared and re-appeared as if by magic. I fed her wheat and rabbit food in a lovely stainless steel bowl, sunk in the ground. However, I really wanted some ducks of my own and I finally found a local agricultural co-operative where I could buy a few, and that ‘chicken feeling’ returned again as I released them into the water. Out came that crate again!

I quite fancy keeping a few pigeons next. Some time ago Benito had asked me to catch one of his for him as he was too ill to climb on his pigsty roof . I clambered up a rather rickety wooden ladder. Have you ever tried to catch a pigeon? Exactly. They bluntly refuse to be caught, tantalisingly staying just out of reach, whatever you do. Benito had climbed the ladder and his face peered over the edge of the roof. He nearly fell off laughing! ‘Very funny Benito, nice joke.’ I sourly remarked. ‘Help me up’, he bellowed. I heaved him up onto the roof whereupon he walked across to a small wooden box, reached in and pulled out a pigeon. ‘That’s how you do it’ he exclaimed with that knowing, silly grin that Italians have when they show the Crazy English the way to do it. England 1 – Italy 1.

BTW you can watch my ducks 'live' on my webcam at [url]http://www.laportaverde.com/webcam.aspx?pageid=323[/url]

Love your story Graham. Well that's it. I'm gonna get chickens and rabbits too ... better get myself a crate ; )

Hey, lets go the whole hog! Maybe some ponies and a few sheep and a barn full of rats! How about some ostriches and maybe even a fox or two? :D

Just a thought ... would I need planning permission to build a chicken/rabbit house? Surely not ???

I wonder what the Italians think about how you are raising your birds/animals.

One of my neighbours breeds rabbits, chickens, etc.

She has about 10 chickens in a 2m x 3m pen, along with a couple of turkeys [they died before Christmas] and a peahen [at least that what it looks like].

In a room about 3m x 4m she breeds the rabbits - there are a couple of cages about 3m x 0.6m x 0.6m. These each hold about 10 rabbits, sitting side by side in ever increasing size [fattening pens?]. There are a couple of cages of baby rabbits and a single small cage with a very large and very tired looking buck rabbit. The rabbits, [ - skinned and gutted], are sold through a local farm [yum yum]. She also breeds Guinea Pigs in the same room, plus some birds and also gerbils

Whilst they all appeared in good condition and healthy [apart from the turkeys!], its quite obvious that she looks upon them all as simply cash crops - she wouldn't understand anyone 'bonding with chickens' for example. They are there to provide money for the family - definitely not pets.

------------------

Reminds me of what happened when an English friend living in Italy had her cat got knocked down in the street in her village. She was distraught - none of the Italians could understand why - "Its only a cat - get another one if you must" was the general opinion, and why she wanted to take it away and bury it was incomprehensible ["Leave it in the gutter"]

Different countries - different attitudes

Of course - playing Devil's Advocate - should those moving to Italy adopt similar attitudes to birds/animals to more fully integrate themselves in society there?

Lovely story, Graham!! :)

My mother's of a similar mind, and I fear that once she's got her own place in Italy, her menagerie will grow too... Apart from the killing bit which she wouldn't be able to do!

She's given all her chickens names too and they react like dogs or cats when she calls them.

Sadly her original flock was killed by a fox last summer, apart from one hen & her baby cockerel. Chirps is the cleverest hen though and she was hiding in the undergrowth while the small cockerel was in the greenhouse!

The other hens were killed but the large, beautiful cockerel she'd had gave the fox a beating before he was killed too... there were lots of fox bits all over the garden!! it looked like a mini warzone :(

My mum was abroad and their gardener was supposed to lock them up after dark - which he forgot as he got stuck in the pub!!! :mad:

Iona, I once bought a lurcher pup from a man who also bred fighting cocks, he had some photographs of one of his cockerels actually killing a fox which had managed to sneak into their pen, frightening stuff, he bred nice dogs though...

Awww... not a fan of anyone breeding animals just for killing each other ... glad the puppies were ok though!

I bet that if they're big & aggressive they can scare the hell out of any animal. My mum's was massive and had a beautiful coloured plumage! He's sorely missed... she got him (and 5 hens) years ago through a local rescue centre where she got Pepper, her greyhound, from!

Take a dog - and get some chickens for free.... sounds like in Graham's story :D

He claimed he was keeping the gene's pure, and said they never fought, but, I only saw the photo's, not the chickens themselves, so....
I wonder if I can do a take a chicken get two pup's free deal ???

Maybe you shouldn't trust the photo's you saw or the man who showed you them to you because the camera can lie and some dog breeders have smiles that never quite reach their eyes.

Anyway, isn't cock fighting illegal? Perhaps he should be reported. :eek:

LOL George... if I offered you a nice English chicken, could I get 2 puppies in return?? :D

Anastasia - George used the word 'once' ... so it would seem to have been a while ago! ;)

[QUOTE=Iona]LOL George... if I offered you a nice English chicken, could I get 2 puppies in return?? :D

Anastasia - George used the word 'once' ... so it would seem to have been a while ago! ;)[/QUOTE]

you can have 5, wrapping them now, you'll love 'em....

some people are determined to not read posts as written anyway, shouldn't worry Stephanie,

it's the fist in the bucket of water jobby...

Dogs can get in a habit of killing chickens, particularly if they are working type dogs, such as sheep dogs.

The way we used to stop our sheep dogs from killing the chooks,(australian for chicken) was to tie the dead bird around the dogs neck. We found it works best if its in an onion type bag. After a few days, less in summer, the dog gets the idea. Never had a repeat offender.

Not good if your dogs live inside though I would think.

Hi Tumblong,

Are you telling us that you have your dog walking around the house with a dead chicken around its neck for days? :eek:

BTW, chook isn't soley an Australian expression: in the north of England chickens are called "chucks" - but with the accent, pronounced "chooks".

Sorry to disappoint :p

Pace,
not really around the house, we had sheep dogs, so they had a yard out the back of the house, you wouldnt really call them pets. We never allowed dogs inside the house. Same with cats. I did have a horse that used to try and get inside though.

It works very well. On a farm you are a bit more insensitive to that sort of thing.
cheers

Well, my webcam is on the ducks at the moment, waiting for my ducklings to hatch so you can all see them.

Where to next? Let me know. Would you prefer to see:
[LIST=1]
[*]My twelve week-old baby chicks and a yellow duckling rescued by a friend of mine from the road
[*]Or five hens a-laying with my miniature cockrell in charge (as featured on TV recently)
[*]Understand the saying 'at it like rabbits' by watching my two female rabbits being 'serviced' by the male (one at a time, of course!)
[/LIST]Most votes wins!

OOoh, I think number 3 would have to be after the 9pm watershed, woudn't it? :)

...not the rabbit porn, please :(

So that's a 'no' to number three, I guess!

[QUOTE=alan haynes]Reminds me of what happened when an English friend living in Italy had her cat got knocked down in the street in her village. She was distraught - none of the Italians could understand why - "Its only a cat - get another one if you must" was the general opinion, and why she wanted to take it away and bury it was incomprehensible ["Leave it in the gutter"]

Different countries - different attitudes [/QUOTE]

Not sure about that. My neighbour downstairs was distraught when her cat went missing. It turned out just to be springtime, and from my 4th floor I heard the cat(s) in the next garden and have an eternally grateful neighbour as a result. She's not too upset that the cat might be pregnant!

Similarly at the local boccefilia the barmaid was not amused when the old guys wound her up about her cat. Maybe it's a rural thing.

Just a quick update and thank you for all your advice. Still got 9 and they are growing. Unfortunately I suspect from what my neighbour says they are boys.

Oh well that dinner srted for while!!!

Well, they should all be hens. I've had three lots of 15 chicks so far and only one turned out to be a cock. Big ugly brute too! One day he trapped me in the hen house and I had to fight him off with a feeding trough. I take no prisoners! The next day he made a chicken curry!

[QUOTE=Graham Lane].. The next day he made a chicken curry!..[/QUOTE]
Bloomin' eck! I didn't know chickens could cook! What's he like with a Sunday roast? :D

[QUOTE=Anastasia]Bloomin' eck! I didn't know chickens could cook! What's he like with a Sunday roast? :D[/QUOTE]

Priceless. Lol. :D

I'm training him to make 'duck a l'orange' now that he's mastered the vindaloo.

[QUOTE=Graham Lane]...now that he's mastered the vindaloo...[/QUOTE]
Bloomin' 'eck.. he's also a football hooligan that can sing? :D

[QUOTE=Graham Lane]I'm training him to make 'duck a l'orange' now that he's mastered the vindaloo.[/QUOTE]
Sorry, that should read 'mastered the video':rolleyes:

An update, we found our first egg yesterday. Haven't eaten it yet.

Good luck! Hope you get some competitive broodyness!

my next concern is bumping off the boys. Hmmmm

Oh that's easy..

Mia zia had to change her tactics and killed them by wacking 'em right across the head with a big cast iron skillet, after I screamed at her for stabbing them in the neck with a pair of kitchen scissors.

I couldn't be doing with all the squawking and the way all the flying feathers stuck to my eyelashes when I was trying to put my mascara on when she did it her old way..

:D :D

Get them tipsy on alcohol soaked grain.....

Sex?
Booze?
Violence?

Should I report this to Ronald?
:D

decapitation...
dismemberment....
evisceration...
maybe even some cannibalism..

it gets worse!