Help with keeping chickens.

[Onge]

Hi all

Is there a "How to setup and look after chickens" book out there that anyone can recommend?

The chicken equivalent of Ted Hoopers "Guide to Bees and Honey"

By the way I don't want anything by Omlet.

Thanks

 

[marcros]

Practical Poultry magazine is pretty good. I am slightly biased- my father does some writing for them on occasions, but of all the magazines that I have seen/glanced at, that seems approachable and interesting.

 

[Ando]

Hi Onge

This is a good book for starting off with Chickens, this is what I got when I first started with them, had 8 in the garden now have 50!! lol its a bit addictive!!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Choosing-Ke...=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270648154&sr=8-4

Hth

Mark.

 

[Brosville]

Katie Thear is one of the famous names in books for the poultry keeper, and this lot give a lot of good free advice - http://www.bhwt.org.uk/

You can build perfectly good accommodation cheaply yourself for a few quid -

mine cost me about £35............
http://farmco.blogspot.com/

-one thing that did take my eye was that you could house 12-15 hens in comfort in a Wickes 6x4 shed at just over £100 delivered.....(all it needs is nestboxes, perches and a pop hole or two......) - you could get several for the price of the aforementioned plastic beer cooler!

 

[little blue]

would also recommend Katie Thear,
or "keeping chickens for Dummies" if you want lots and lots of (American) info... but useful nuggets in there!

Haynes, the car manual folk have recently released a chicken manual (amazon have it)

I have my grandad's "Pictoral Poultry keeping" from the 1950s...

Check out your local library, and internet forums - you might not need to buy anything then!

 

[wilderness]

Hi Onge,
A couple of forums you can try - almost as good as this one .

http://www.practicalpoultry.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl
http://forums.thepoultrykeeper.co.uk/index.php?

 

[Brosville]

may be worth a watch - 8pm BBC2 tonight -

New series. Alys Fowler tries to become self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables as she uses her small back garden to plant, grow and harvest her own produce. She begins with peas and beans, and provides useful growing tips as well as recipes including broad bean falafels and pea-shoot cocktails. She also forages for willow to make plant supports and gets two chickens

I hope she's got too much taste for placcy houses

 

[Onge]

Wow thanks for all the replies.

My new chickens bookmark folder is filling up fast.

books on order.

Thanks all for the great info.

 

[Brosville]

woohoo!

Just been out to shut my bantams up, and for the first time with this flock, we have 100% lay! (6 laying birds, 6 eggs in one day!)

(By the way, beware, it can be VERY addictive, I started with half a dozen hens, and at one point ended up with nearly 3,000 - after a long break now just have a few as "pets")

 

[Onge]

Nice one Brosvile.

3000.

Good luck with sticking at 6.

 

[DulwichGnome]

Hi all

Is there a "How to setup and look after chickens" book out there that anyone can recommend?

The chicken equivalent of Ted Hoopers "Guide to Bees and Honey"

By the way I don't want anything by Omlet.

Thanks

Carefull of those London Urban foxes, remember we don't have those nice people in red coats riding thou the gardens to keep them under control!!

Good luck.

Mike.