So I have had chickens since around May 2017, I started off with 6 hens from Meadow I do recommend them as they are very nice and they have a good selection of chicken breeds available (not affiliated with them). I decided in June of 2017 that I wanted to try hatching out my own chicks, so we bought one of the smaller brinsea incubators. I personally do not recommend brinsea incubators I never had a good hatch rate with their incubators or any incubator that is similar in design to theirs, I believe it is really down to the design as about half of it is clear plastic. I do however recommend Heka Brutgerate incubators I have had their Heka format 90 egg incubator since I believe 2018, yes it is way more expensive then the basic brinsea but the hatch rates are 90%+ for me and was worth it so if your interested please visit their ebay store Heka or you can visit their official site Heka they are in my honest opinion worth the money.
I did breed my own chickens for the 2018 season but did stop breeding my own chickens before the 2019 season due to issues with a neighbour who did have mental, emotional and physical health issues. Very long story shot and also trying to keep it a bit vague I did become a target for the neighbours harassment and it really messed with my own mental, emotional and physical health as they were not just verbally abusive but used our local council and the local RSPCA as a form of harassment, they did eventually stop as I believe they may have been told to stop. Unfortunately Covid-19 hit and the lock-downs came in place and once again we had to deal with the neighbour and then the local police thankfully they were nice and understood the issue once explained to them sadly by that point the neighbours health had really declined and they did sadly pass on, I do not blame the neighbour for their craziness I do however blame the health system and local government for failing to make sure they got treatment. However keep my story in mind as this is a possible con if you have chickens, if you live in the UK make sure you are doing everything possible to keep your flock in good health and are following what guidelines are set out by local and country wide government offices.
Last year (2022) I hatched out a few chickens to give us hopefully a few new hens over half were roosters (cockerels) the extras were processed later. As many know the last year has been rough in some aspects for certain food items so my husband and I made the decision to go ahead and breed from our existing hens and try to get new hens as all of our hens save for the 5 hens born in 2022 are 5+ years old so we need new hens. April of this year (2023) I put a trial run of 53 eggs into my incubator in the end I had 44 hatch and 43 survived. Now at that point I did have 5 roosters running with my 25 hens, yes to many roosters to few hens I know, I know that has now been fixed and I have 2 roosters which I will not go above 2 roosters with my flock in the future. But because I had so many males chances are there is going to be a good gene pool so I should not really have to worry too much for at least one season maybe two to which I can then get a new rooster the for the following season although from my understanding inbreeding/line breeding etc does not have issues until 5-7 generations in still reading up on that.But I now have a second hatch going on as I type this out in fact 3 have hatched before my estimated hatch date by 3 days at least! At the time of posting this we have had 15 hatch, sadly I found one had died at some point after piping and so I pulled it and found it did not absorb it's yolk.
Now there are pros and cons to having chickens from a small 4-6 bird flock to a much larger flock depending on where you are and the size of your property etc. These are just my pros and cons that I can currently think of.
Now the pros are:
You get eggs, you don't have to worry about if the store has any because your hens will give you eggs.. Well as long as you feed them!
You have a meat source, if things get a little rough you could always process your less productive hen. I have not personally done this to any of my hens at this moment in time but who knows maybe down the line I will.
You could use their feathers in pillows,blankets, coats etc if you process your own chickens and want to keep their feathers. I have not done this yet but I think I might in the future.
You can make Schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) and you can have the yummy crispy chicken skin after. This is something I do plan to do and maybe see if I can maybe pressure can the Schmaltz for later use.
They are amusing especially when digging around and one finds a worm and gets excited.
They are a good way to introduce kids to livestock in my humble opinion.
Cons:
You might have a neighbour that doesn't like chickens or any animal on your property.
Red mites! You will get them, don't think you won't. Put together a red mite kit!
Feather plucking and or a rooster's favourite hen. It's going to happen so don't think it won't because it will, so you will need to make a feather plucking and or favourite hen first aid kit. In case of straight up feather plucking you should look into chicken blinders to help reduce the issue before straight up culling. As for the favourite hen you can also try chicken saddles, I personally have found them a bit hard to get on and keep on and my girls did not get on with them.
They can destroy a garden in a day or less depending on size, I did find this out the hard way with only 10 chickens. So I very much recommend a coop & run combo that gives them the ability to graze off a portion of any space you decide is for them. I get if you want to free range your chickens but with the H5N1 avian influenza, I personally would not risk my flock right now as I do depend on my flock for eggs for my immediate family as well as some of my extended family.
That is all I can think of right now I will be posting more blogs about my chickens and maybe even make a list of UK items for those in the UK looking to keep chickens. Oh and before I forget I do recommend joining Backyard Chickens they have a lot of helpful people that have been keeping, hatching, raising etc chickens, ducks, geese etc they are a wonderful forum to join even I am on it.
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