What the Cluck? E-Book

Omlet

• Herausgeber: Inkspire
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 195

Beschreibung

Omlet's easy-to-clean, safe and stylish Eglu chicken houses became an instant design icon when they were launched in 2004. Omlet quickly became most popular brand among chicken keepers, appealing to a new generation of people wanting to keep chickens as pets in their back gardens. This complete guide covers everything a novice chicken keeper needs to know, and reimagines the way you live with and look after your chickens. From helping you select the right variety of chicken to buy and setting up your coop, through to training them, rearing chicks and even showing them at events, this really is a one-stop guide to becoming a confident and expert owner. As well as background history on the chicken, there is a wealth of information on eggs and delicious recipes for cooking your eggs perfectly. Questions posed by Omlet's chicken-keeping customers are all answered here, with special emphasis on how to look after your chickens, dealing with common pests and diseases, and a year round planner to help you keep on top of the little maintenance jobs. With advice on practical matters such as runs and coops, to what and how to feed your chickens for maximum fowl fitness, this eggcellent guide from Omlet aims to ensure you have the happiest chickens on the planet.

Leseprobe

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Inkspire

Inkspire is an imprint of Fox Chapel Publishing

903 Square Street, Mount Joy, PA 17552, USA

www.FoxChapelPublishing.com

Project Team

Publisher: Helen Brocklehurst

Text: Paul Sullivan, Linnea Rask, Chloe Welch

Designers: Omlet Ltd, Roland Codd and Tom Whitlock

Editor: Sue Viccars

Proofreader: Guy Croton

Indexer: Hilary Bird

Cover design: Omlet Ltd.

Text and illustrations © 2022 Omlet Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.

Print ISBN 978-1-913-61817-9

eISBN 978-1-913-61818-6

Contents

1. Let’s Get Cracking

2. Hatching a Plan

3. Choosing Chickens

4. Everything Eggs

5. Chicken Houses

6. Chicken Care

7. Chick Tricks

8. From Chick to Champion

9. Poultry Problems

10. Egg Recipes

Glossary

Acknowledgements

1. Let’s Get Cracking

Welcome to the ultimate guide to keeping chickens!

Omlet launched the Eglu chicken coop in 2004 with the sole purpose of making it easy for everyone to keep a small flock of chickens for the eggs and for the fun! Over the years we’ve learnt more than we ever imagined there was to know about these wonderful pets. From eggs to eggshibitions, coops to care, we’ve separated the whites from the yolks to bring you the real need-to-know information that every chicken keeper should have in their basket.

But first, let’s deal with that pesky, ‘which came first’ question once and for all...

We know you are desperate to find out the truth behind the chicken or the egg debate, but before we get into that we need a bit of background to help us all agree on the answer. To anyone who has spent time around chickens it may already be obvious that they are closely related to dinosaurs. Just watching a hen run across a wide open garden towards an unsuspecting worm is all the evidence you need that this is a fearsome prehistoric predator at work. But for some, it came as quite a surprise when in 2007, a team of top scientists announced that the humble hen is a direct descendant of the most feared dinosaur of all time – the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The evidence came from a study in which T. Rex collagen was compared to that of various modern species, and amazingly, it proved to be more similar to the chicken than any other creature alive today.

From jungle fowl to herald of the sun

The similarities don’t stop there though. The bone structure and feathers are also remarkably similar to many species of dinosaur and it’s possibly a reason why children find chickens such fascinating pets.

But when did the little dinosaurs that today’s backyard chicken keepers know and love actually emerge? That happened around 10 million years ago – 55 million years after the last T-Rex roamed the earth.

The bird from which all modern breeds of chickens descend is the Asian Red Jungle Fowl (Gallus gallus), a native of Southeast Asia. These birds were domesticated approximately 5000 years ago for a number of reasons – meat, eggs, cock-fighting and various ritual practices.

The ancient Egyptians built the first incubators to hatch the vast quantities of chickens they needed to lay eggs to feed the slaves that built the pyramids. So, without chickens there would be no pyramids!

Because of its long history alongside humans, the chicken has featured in folklore and legends throughout the ages. In Greek mythology, it was the sacred bird of Athena, goddess of wisdom and warfare, a bird of fertility for Persephone, a symbol of love and desire for Eros, and a creature of commerce and productivity for Hermes. So sacred was the bird, in fact, that the Ancient Greeks didn’t eat chicken meat, but kept the birds for eggs and religious purposes only.

A White Sussex hen, or a modern dinosaur?

Chickens celebrate the rising of the sun to this day!

In Greek and Roman folklore, and in many pagan European traditions too, the cockerel was linked to the sun, whose daily rising it celebrates with a glorious crowing that to this date is the universal sound of a new day starting.

One cockerel story tells the tale of a youthful soldier named Alectryon, who was hired by the god Ares and the goddess Aphrodite to guard the bedroom door during their illicit meetings. Alectryon fell asleep while on duty, and failed to warn the lovers that the sun god Helios was about to pay a call.

Ares vented his anger on Alectryon by transforming him into a cockerel, and since then the sleepy guard has never failed to crow each morning, alerting the world to the arrival of the sun. Cockerel-shaped golden weathervanes are an echo of this link with the sun-herald story.

Which of these came first?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

This perennial question was first written down in the philosopher Plutarch’s collected series of essays Moralia around AD100. An interesting way of looking at this popular dinner party conundrum is to question where the chicken’s ancestor, the Red Jungle Fowl, first appeared.

The fossil record is very patchy, so we’ll find no help there. But try to imagine the ancestors of the Jungle Fowl looking a bit like a scruffy hen mixed with a wild pheasant, and you’ve made a good start. Perhaps one of these birds, or its mate, or both, carried some rogue genes. The hen then laid an egg that produced a chick that was significantly different from its siblings. This bird then became the parent of a new branch of birds that were different enough from their grandparents and great grandparents that they would be considered the next step on the evolutionary path that eventually led to the Red Jungle Fowl.

This means, the first chicken was inside the egg and they actually arrived at the same time!

The most common bird on earth

It was in the nineteenth century that chicken breeding really took flight. As well as aiming at better egg production, breeders also started developing hens whose main purpose was having a fancy-looking plumage. One of the catalysts for this chicken mania was British monarch Queen Victoria, who had a special soft spot for the then very exotic Cochin chicken. Victoria was also at the heart of the new mood of animal rights and moral reform that spread from England across the world from the 1820s onwards. Her government banned cock-fighting in Britain as early as 1849.

By the end of the nineteenth century there were several poultry clubs, competitions, exhibitions and dedicated chicken breeders in Britain, Europe, the USA and elsewhere. People would pay thousands of pounds for the best, prize-winning breeding birds, and poultry fancying was a common pastime within the higher classes.

The next milestone in their history happened around the turn of the millennium. By then, chickens had become the most common species on Earth – in fact, there was more than one bird for every human by the 1950s – although more due to farming than hobby breeding. But now a new rising interest in locally and ethically produced food saw keen gardeners growing courgettes and giving ex-battery hens a new start in the safety of town and country gardens.

The art of chicken keeping was truly modernised with the launch of the Eglu in 2004. This plastic coop made it easier and more straightforward than ever to keep a small flock of chickens as a hobby. Queen Victoria would most definitely have approved!

2. Hatching a Plan

Stop Dreaming, Start Keeping Chickens

You’re probably really excited to get those chooks clucking in the garden, but before you hurry out to pick up your new feathered friends, let’s get back to basics.

How many chickens do you need? What happens when you first bring them home? How will they get on with your other pets? How does the pecking order work, and what do all those different chicken sounds mean? This chapter free-ranges through these, and other chicken-keeping FAQs.

Just like any other pet, chickens are a much loved part of the home (or garden!) and offer families across the world a great deal of joy. Here are our favourite things about keeping chickens...

1.The eggs. Chickens will lay lots of fresh eggs, and with two or three hens you should have at least one fresh egg every day. You know exactly where they have come from and they will be the most delicious eggs you have ever tasted. Breakfast is served!

2.Fertiliser. Hen poo is high in nitrogen and will need composting first, but once matured it is a free organic fertiliser that will work wonders on your vegetable patch.

3.Companionship. You may be surprised to learn that chickens can be a comforting presence to many people, including children and the elderly, and backyard hens have transformed the lives of many.

4.Pest control. Chickens love to eat all the things that crawl and slime their way through your garden, so if you have a green thumb you’ll appreciate their assistance in eating any gardener’s worst enemies – slugs and snails.

5.Educational benefits. For young children, being involved in the care of chickens is a great source of learning. Not only in discovering where the eggs in their egg-cups come from, but also through the teaching of sustainable living practices, understanding how creatures like chickens have adapted to care for themselves, and experiencing the life cycle of their pets.

6.Entertainment value. You may not know it yet, but chickens are very entertaining and unintentionally funny. Each chicken has its own personality and quirks, and that surprised head-jerk accompanied by a slow, contented ‘Borrrp’ as the hen prowls the garden is guaranteed comedy gold – promise!

7.It’s easy. Once you get into the swing of keeping chickens, it’s simplicity itself. They are incredibly low maintenance and all they require from you is food, shelter, and a sprinkle of love!

Chickens bring your garden alive

Welcome to the neighbourhood!

Am I allowed to keep chickens?

Keeping chickens in your back garden is permitted in the vast majority of countries, you just need to be aware of your local laws and regulations. For example:

Zoning laws and ordinances. These dictate how a property can be used. Some places limit the keeping of poultry to official designated zones, like farms. If you’d like to sell your eggs, you should check the small print of the ordinances in your area and seek legal advice if you are unsure.

Local laws and bylaws. These vary all over the world, and in the USA they can even vary from one town to the next, in some instances requiring a permit for the keeping of chickens. Sometimes there is a simple limit on the number of fowl you can keep, depending on the size of your plot and the distance from your home. In some instances, there are also laws relating to noise, nuisance, odour and pests. Many locations do not allow the keeping of roosters, for example. In some cities, it is often a requirement to keep hens in their enclosure at all times – and if they are not allowed to free range in your garden there’s even more reason to ensure they have enough space to live comfortably.

Restrictions for homeowners. In your home’s property deeds you may find some limitations concerning chicken keeping. However, this is usually just a limit on the number of birds that can be kept and a restriction on commercial poultry activities.

Restrictions for renters. Rented properties often have limitations on the pets and livestock that can be kept on the premises, so be sure to check with your landlord first.

Building regulations. Depending on where you live, your chicken coop design and size may need to be reviewed by local planning officers – choosing a high-quality structure, such as an Eglu, will make for a smooth visit.

Animal welfare laws. In the UK, you can keep up to 50 chickens as long as you are caring for them according to animal welfare standards. By law, any flock of over 50 chickens needs to be registered with the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA – part of the governmental department Defra). APHA encourages all poultry owners, regardless of flock size, to register on a voluntary basis – if you do so, they are able to notify you of disease outbreaks (such as avian flu) in your area.

Can chickens be kept on an allotment?

Chickens can in most cases be kept on allotments in the UK, and many allotmenteers enjoy the company of gentle clucking while tending to their vegetable patch. As long as they are not for business or profit, you shouldn’t run into any problems. However, it’s a good idea to check your local rules too, and perhaps check in with your allotment neighbours, as the authorities can remove the chickens if they become a nuisance or health hazard.

Do I have time to keep chickens?

Keeping chickens is incredibly popular because of how low maintenance and rewarding they are as pets. Your chickens are more than happy roaming around your garden or their run, scratching for food and dust bathing.

You will, of course, need to pop out and see them in the morning to let them out of their coop, top up their feed and water, check for any signs of ill health, and close their coop again at night.

What better reward for ten minutes of your day than a breath of fresh air and the promise of fresh eggs for your breakfast?! If you’re not able to close the door early enough on winter evenings, or open up the coop after an early morning sunrise, don’t worry, an automatic door opener can help you with this task.

Once every week you will need to clean the coop, but this only takes 15–30 minutes depending on the type of coop you have. Cleaning an Eglu, for example, requires a quick spray with some pet-safe disinfectant, a wipe over the surfaces and a garden hose to wash off the dirt. Twice a year you should spend an hour or two to completely deep-clean and scrub the coop and run.

As pets go, chickens are low maintenance - especially with a modern coop

How much space do I need to keep chickens?

It’s true that chickens enjoy free ranging in gardens and meadows, and likewise suburban backyards will not be a problem for keeping chickens. As long as you have enough room to accommodate a coop and a run, with some space around for them to flap their wings and stretch their legs, you will be able to keep hens happy and healthy. If they have sufficient space, food and water, somewhere to lay their eggs and somewhere to perch at night, hens are happy. They are able to entertain themselves very well, and you can easily help with them with a few slow-release, treat-dispensing feeders, like a peck toy. The more space you have for your chickens the better, as room to roam encourages happier relationships among the flock. If you can’t let them free range at all it is even more important to have a larger enclosure, but if they can get out into your garden for long periods of time each day, 2 square metres (21.5 square feet) per hen is a good starting point for their run.

Everyone in the family will enjoy chicken keeping

Don’t worry if your garden doesn’t have a grassy area for the chicken run, hens will not pine for grass as long as they can scratch and search for bugs in wood shavings or bark chippings. Changing the chippings and moving the run to a different spot regularly will help the ground stay dry, or a larger space enables your hens to scratch in different areas without damaging the ground – they will wander from one end of a plot to the other several times over the course of a day.

Use fencing to keep your chickens and prize pumpkins apart

Should I let chickens free range in my garden?

Chickens search for food by scratching, an instinct that your lawn or flower beds won’t thank you for, if they’re allowed to scratch there all year, but a necessary part of a hen’s daily activity.

In an ‘untidy’ garden of rough grasses and semi-wild borders, the hens will scratch without doing permanent damage; but you won’t be able to teach them which plants they are not allowed to dig up, so in a formal garden it might be best to keep them away. Hens are omnivorous and eat pretty much anything, which means they will peck at any leaves or plants within reach.

You can still give your hens the run of most of your garden but protect your plants by containing your flock within some chicken fencing, and by making dust baths in specific places to discourage them from making their own next to your favourite rose bush. The treat-dispensing toys we talked about earlier will also help keep their attention away from your prizewinning vegetable patch!

Can chicken poo be used in the garden?

Chicken droppings make great fertiliser, they just need to be composted first. The poo itself is actually a mixture of faeces and urine, and contains a perfect cocktail of nutrients (notably nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus) for vegetable patches and garden plants. If the droppings are used they are too fresh, the nitrogen in them will be too strong and will burn and destroy plants. By combining soiled coop bedding and droppings, turned frequently in a composter, you will have a rich chicken manure garden fertiliser six to nine months after the last raw droppings were added.

Dug into soil, this manure provides a great environment for vegetables of all kinds. Many chicken owners swear their crop is bigger and better as a direct result of chicken poo.

How many hens should I keep?

The answer to this depends on several factors:

The part of the world you live in. The USA, as mentioned earlier, has local ordinances and bylaws that can affect how many birds you can keep.

The space you have available. Think about how often you can let them out to free range, as explained on the previous page.

How many eggs you want. There’s nothing quite like a fresh egg for breakfast! With two or three hens you will have at least one fresh egg everyday, so do some chicken maths to calculate how many you need for your breakfast and baking requirements. See the Best Breeds for Egg-laying on page 49 for more information on calculating the egg count.

Can I keep just one chicken?

Chickens are social animals and are stimulated by each other’s company. Just watch a group following each other around, or roosting, scratching and resting together, and you’ll see how much they love company. They will often pine and may stop laying, if left alone. A hen who has been left as a singleton after the deaths of other birds should be introduced to new companions. There are a few counties in the USA where one hen is the maximum limit allowed by local law, but in most places, including the UK, there are luckily no such restrictions.

Chickens are happiest in a flock

A chicken has a brain programmed to do what a chicken has to do – and even when there are no other birds around, a hen will perch, lay, eat, sleep, scratch and forage as normal. They are, when it comes down to it, very independent birds, able to look after themselves from when they are just a few hours old. However, they take comfort from knowing their place in the ‘pecking order’ (even if they are actually at the bottom of the pile) and may become nervous and stressed if they find themselves alone. That’s why you should always try to keep a minimum of two or three chickens.

This Polish rooster has perfected his autumnal camouflage!

Should I keep a cockerel?

Folklore maintains that hens will only lay eggs if there is a cockerel in the flock, but this is nonsense. Hens will lay the same number of eggs whether there is a male bird around or not. The only difference is that hens kept with a cockerel may lay fertilised eggs. These can develop into chicks, but only if they are incubated or kept warm by a broody hen. If you don’t want the fertilised eggs to develop, simply collect them every day and keep them in the fridge – they look and taste exactly the same as unfertilised eggs.

Most chicken keepers limit their attentions to hens and eggs, as cockerels are territorial, keen to defend their flock of hens, and famously noisy first thing in the morning. Then again, they are beautiful birds, and if you intend on hatching your own chicken eggs, you’ll need a cockerel.

Cock-a-doodle-doos

Cockerels look fantastic as they swagger across their territory. Their huge combs and wattles quiver like jelly, their pointy rear-end feathers and ‘mane’ of spiky neck feathers are wonderfully showy, and their posture suggests someone who has just strutted onto the dancefloor to show off some amazing moves.

But it’s not all about beauty. Cockerels always have an eye out for danger, and will fight off any intruder they think they can tackle. The bird is not silly enough to attack dogs or cats, but it will make it clear to them that they are not welcome, through body language and alarm calls. This gives the hens time to flee for shelter, and the rooster will retreat too if things start to look too dangerous. A rooster will also add harmony to a hen flock, making sure none of his birds are bullied, and keeping everything in order, a bit like a hands-off sheepdog.

Cock-a-doodle-don’ts

If you live in a town or village, noise might be an issue with the neighbours. In many places in the USA, roosters are banned for this reason. If your local bylaws don’t place an outright ban on male chickens, you may still want to consider your neighbours.

Many who keep cockerels – and many others besides – do enjoy the early morning cock-crow. It’s a much better start to the day than car engines and slamming doors as people prepare for the morning commute. If we can live with the sound of road, rail and air traffic, surely we can get used to the wonderful sound of a full-throated rooster celebrating the sunrise?

Unfortunately, in some cases, a crowing cockerel can be the subject of disagreements among neighbours, so it’s an important factor to consider. Fortunately, there are a couple of ways of keeping the cockerel quiet before the breakfast plates have been cleared away.

Artificial light. This can reset the rooster’s biological clock. The light is left on inside the coop until late evening (between 9pm and 11pm), controlled with an automatic timer. After a week or so, the cockerel will be sleeping and waking according to the pattern set by the artificial light. That means the biological instinct to crow will kick in at 8am rather than 5am.

An anti-crowing coop. When it’s time to sleep, cockerels like to hunker down on a perch, just like hens. If their house has a very low roof – high enough to hunker but low enough to prevent a neck-stretch – the rooster will not be able to crow in the morning. This is because they have to throw their heads back in order to crow.