- Jul 25, 2011
- 7
- 0
- 7
Hi everyone 
I am from scotland UK and live in the middle of the city.
Last year myself and my wife were driving through the countryside and seen a sign for some chickens for sale.
We went and had a look and they had so many types and ended up buying 3 hens, a mixture of light sussex, brahma and plymouth rock.
We got home and put them in beside our rabbits as the lady said should live together fine and right away they flew out.
Next day i went and bought a chicken coop with run from ebay and it arrived saying it would hold 5 chickens, so again we went and got 2 more hens to fill the space.
Next problem was that they were free ranging during the day but they were making a mess of our garden so we had some space down at the bottom so we build an enclosure to put the coop inside so they can go about all during the day.
We have had fish eaten from our pond from a fox so we made the ground slabs so that they could not dig underneath and also so that it was easy to clean, its covered from all 3 sides and also had a roof so that no water gets inside so no smell really.
This year in March I bought a basic Brinsea MINI ECO 10 incubator and went back to the lady i bought the hens from last year and got 10 eggs. I quickly realised that it was a lot of work turning the eggs 3 times a day so after my first hatch i upgraded to the Brinsea Octagon 20 Eco Fully Automatic Incubator which holds double the eggs but also auto turns saving me a lot of work.
When I was buying my first eggs the lady locally who i bought from told me she also sold eggs on ebay, this was news to me so I had a look and was eggcited so see all the different breeds so I bought a selection of eggs to try in my new incubator.
My success rate from the posted eggs was not as good, my initial hatch I managed to get 8 out of 10 eggs, the posted ones I only got around 7 out of 20 but from reading on forums this was fairly normal.
I kept researching around and found out there was an even better incubator so I sold the first 2 I had bought 2nd hand on ebay for exactly the same price as I paid for them new and bought the Brinsea Octagon 20 Ex Fully Automatic Incubator which moves the eggs but also had digital display and an external water tank so that it can maintain exactly the humidity and temperature which sounded like exactly what I needed.
My next hatch was much smoother without much interaction from myself and I got 10 out of the 20 eggs.
For my first 3 hatches I kept the chicks inside my house for the first couple of weeks then inside my shed i built a custom made brooder box from wood which looked good but after a couple of weeks i found i made a mistake as the smell was bad, it was hard to clean as was made from wood and the sawdust i was using on bottom was getting kicked all over the place messing up the whole shed and all contents.
My next move was to improve on all of this so i bought a custom made shed, I insulated all the walls with rockwoool and also silver foil then boarded up over the top, installed 6 sockets and also a main strip light. I have painted all the walls so easy to wipe down and also the floor area is painted in a special rubber paint so I can easily mop out and I built the floor up so same level as doorway so can sweet all out.
My other problem before was keeping clean so I bought 4 cages, 3 of them were brooder cages from stainless steel and have external trough for plenty of food and also made from stainless steel. The other one was for my day old chicks and was stainless steel with perspex on the sides and also has a light on the top to keep warm which is temperature controlled.
My other main issue was water, I used to have water in a standard drinker hanging from a chain but i found my chicks would run into it and spill the water all the time. I researched and found that auto drinkers were the way forward so I got my plumber friend over and dug up garden and got mains water down to the shed, I then got this coming into a controller that fills up a bucket up high similar to a toilet cystern so when full no more water can go inside. This is filled up for 1 min every 12 hours so that if there was a leak, there wouldnt be a huge flood in my shed!!! From there the water is gravity fed into each of the 3 cages into a drinker cup so i only need to do a small clean of the cup when dirty which has not yet happened and is so easy to maintain.
Each of my cages also had a grid on the bottom so the chickens are not standing in their own **** etc, it all falls through to a bottom tray for easy cleaning.
The other issue as explained above was the smell, so now as no water spillage and not standing in dirty sawdust its better but I also fitted a shower type extractor fan that will run for 10 mins of every 1 hour throughout the day to keep the air fresh.
I have also fitted electric bug killers, a sink to wash my hands and also automatic low voltage lights across each of the 4 cages that go on for 14 hours per day.
Today I finally finished everything and just wanted to share my journey, the mistakes i made, how i overcome them and also any suggested from any other forum members.
Also today was a new stage for me, out of the 10 chickens I hatched from the 1st batch only only so far i discovered was a cockrel, it was crowing a lot and as mentioned above i live in a rural location so I had to kill today. My wifes mother is over from china at the moment so she had some experience with plucking the chicken and tonight we are having chicken curry mmmmmm (only 4 years ago I had never even eaten chicken before as was fussy eater and now im raising my own for eggs and meat!!!!)
I am now looking into getting some meat birds that I can hatch and raise fast to eat as a side project and wanted to know of any breeds in UK anyone knows of as the ones I have been reading on this forum I could not find any of the eggs etc on ebay to buy to hatch.
So far I have hatched silkie black white and blue, polish, frizzle polish, naked neck, plymouth rock, brahma and also light sussex.
See all my pics below, comments welcome
Thanks
Dale
I am from scotland UK and live in the middle of the city.
Last year myself and my wife were driving through the countryside and seen a sign for some chickens for sale.
We went and had a look and they had so many types and ended up buying 3 hens, a mixture of light sussex, brahma and plymouth rock.
We got home and put them in beside our rabbits as the lady said should live together fine and right away they flew out.
Next day i went and bought a chicken coop with run from ebay and it arrived saying it would hold 5 chickens, so again we went and got 2 more hens to fill the space.
Next problem was that they were free ranging during the day but they were making a mess of our garden so we had some space down at the bottom so we build an enclosure to put the coop inside so they can go about all during the day.
We have had fish eaten from our pond from a fox so we made the ground slabs so that they could not dig underneath and also so that it was easy to clean, its covered from all 3 sides and also had a roof so that no water gets inside so no smell really.
This year in March I bought a basic Brinsea MINI ECO 10 incubator and went back to the lady i bought the hens from last year and got 10 eggs. I quickly realised that it was a lot of work turning the eggs 3 times a day so after my first hatch i upgraded to the Brinsea Octagon 20 Eco Fully Automatic Incubator which holds double the eggs but also auto turns saving me a lot of work.
When I was buying my first eggs the lady locally who i bought from told me she also sold eggs on ebay, this was news to me so I had a look and was eggcited so see all the different breeds so I bought a selection of eggs to try in my new incubator.
My success rate from the posted eggs was not as good, my initial hatch I managed to get 8 out of 10 eggs, the posted ones I only got around 7 out of 20 but from reading on forums this was fairly normal.
I kept researching around and found out there was an even better incubator so I sold the first 2 I had bought 2nd hand on ebay for exactly the same price as I paid for them new and bought the Brinsea Octagon 20 Ex Fully Automatic Incubator which moves the eggs but also had digital display and an external water tank so that it can maintain exactly the humidity and temperature which sounded like exactly what I needed.
My next hatch was much smoother without much interaction from myself and I got 10 out of the 20 eggs.
For my first 3 hatches I kept the chicks inside my house for the first couple of weeks then inside my shed i built a custom made brooder box from wood which looked good but after a couple of weeks i found i made a mistake as the smell was bad, it was hard to clean as was made from wood and the sawdust i was using on bottom was getting kicked all over the place messing up the whole shed and all contents.
My next move was to improve on all of this so i bought a custom made shed, I insulated all the walls with rockwoool and also silver foil then boarded up over the top, installed 6 sockets and also a main strip light. I have painted all the walls so easy to wipe down and also the floor area is painted in a special rubber paint so I can easily mop out and I built the floor up so same level as doorway so can sweet all out.
My other problem before was keeping clean so I bought 4 cages, 3 of them were brooder cages from stainless steel and have external trough for plenty of food and also made from stainless steel. The other one was for my day old chicks and was stainless steel with perspex on the sides and also has a light on the top to keep warm which is temperature controlled.
My other main issue was water, I used to have water in a standard drinker hanging from a chain but i found my chicks would run into it and spill the water all the time. I researched and found that auto drinkers were the way forward so I got my plumber friend over and dug up garden and got mains water down to the shed, I then got this coming into a controller that fills up a bucket up high similar to a toilet cystern so when full no more water can go inside. This is filled up for 1 min every 12 hours so that if there was a leak, there wouldnt be a huge flood in my shed!!! From there the water is gravity fed into each of the 3 cages into a drinker cup so i only need to do a small clean of the cup when dirty which has not yet happened and is so easy to maintain.
Each of my cages also had a grid on the bottom so the chickens are not standing in their own **** etc, it all falls through to a bottom tray for easy cleaning.
The other issue as explained above was the smell, so now as no water spillage and not standing in dirty sawdust its better but I also fitted a shower type extractor fan that will run for 10 mins of every 1 hour throughout the day to keep the air fresh.
I have also fitted electric bug killers, a sink to wash my hands and also automatic low voltage lights across each of the 4 cages that go on for 14 hours per day.
Today I finally finished everything and just wanted to share my journey, the mistakes i made, how i overcome them and also any suggested from any other forum members.
Also today was a new stage for me, out of the 10 chickens I hatched from the 1st batch only only so far i discovered was a cockrel, it was crowing a lot and as mentioned above i live in a rural location so I had to kill today. My wifes mother is over from china at the moment so she had some experience with plucking the chicken and tonight we are having chicken curry mmmmmm
(only 4 years ago I had never even eaten chicken before as was fussy eater and now im raising my own for eggs and meat!!!!)I am now looking into getting some meat birds that I can hatch and raise fast to eat as a side project and wanted to know of any breeds in UK anyone knows of as the ones I have been reading on this forum I could not find any of the eggs etc on ebay to buy to hatch.
So far I have hatched silkie black white and blue, polish, frizzle polish, naked neck, plymouth rock, brahma and also light sussex.
See all my pics below, comments welcome
Thanks
Dale
