Is it worth keeping Chickens?

Saw this on Yahoo Finance page Is it worth keeping chickens? - Yahoo! Finance UK was an interesting read, didnt know it was illegal to feed your Chickens with kitchen scraps! i know some of you on here keep Chickens, what are your views on keeping Chickens....is it worth it? I'd love to keep Chickens but haven't got the room in my garden :(

 

if you keep everything organic and free range, it is definately worth it ....

a dozen free range organic eggs cost over £3

 

I keep 30 chucks and money wise over a year it costs,yes we have eggs to sell in the summer,which you can legally do as long as they are not size sorted!
But with cost of food and maintenance for them we dont break even.
But we have eggs that are fresh and tasty,they are food producing pets and a hobby.
They eat slugs and grubs but if left to their own devices they will wreck the garden.
If you do feed scraps the must be prepared and cooked somewhere other than the kitchen,but very rare we give them anything cooked just the outer leaves of cabbage and in season a bit of spoiled fruit.

 

If you have a garden, you have room to keep hens, and a 4 x 6 foot shed can easily be converted to a better, cheaper, and more accesible hen house than custom built housing costing a fortune.

Backyard hens are pets (from the very begginning) as well as egg producers, and their eggs will taste much, much better than anything from the supermarket. In my experience, most vets know less about hens than you can learn by reading a good book - you just have to 'sort things out' yourself (including doing what's necessary to avoid £40 bills). Those "lengthy, unproductive retirements" are easily overcome by keeping hybrid hens. It's easy to get around that scraps ban - simply prepare all food for 'your hens' and eat 'what's left over' yourselves.

That Yahoo article appears to exagerate the costs in many respects, dwells upon the negatives and ignores the positive benefits. Mrs Srcungee (main hen keeper) says well looked after/loved garden hens, will have a far, far, better life than commerercial hens (and so will their keepers).

 

I didn't realise it was illegal to give the chickens 'kitchen scraps'. Is that definitely true?

 

You can buy ready-made food that has everything chickens need to keep them healthy. It is illegal to feed chickens with waste food from your kitchen, including vegetable scraps.
Keeping chickens: a beginner's guide : Directgov - Environment and greener living

 

What a crazy world we live it. We can't give those outer leaves of a cabbage to the hens as a treat, but we can, if we want to, stick them in a big plastic container to rot for two weeks before a great lorry comes to collect it for landfill.

If we're not allowed to give veg peelings to the chucks, what does that say about the veg we're expected to eat? Its ok to feed it to your family, but you can't give it to the chucks that will happily hunt down and eat live worms, slugs and woodlice from the bottom of your compost bin, which has been filled with your kitchen scraps.

 

Rulz is for the guidance of wise men & the obedience of fools.

 

From that link:

That sounds excessive as our 5 hens (four laying + 1 retired) produce 100 eggs/month and this is how much I've previously worked out they cost over a year:

That's under £4 a month, much less than that £10 quoted, but if you buy your feed, etc. in a pet shop rather than getting the pellets for £5.95 a sack from a farm shop (saw them being sold in an MK garden centre for about £20 a couple of days ago), straw from a farm (£2 for a large bale - not those massive ones, but twice as big as a small bale - one rather than ridiculous prices for a plastic bagful from a pet shop), etc. then it will cost more. And if that sawdust mentioned is for on the poo tray it's not required, just line it with old newspapers.

Writing off the £150 cost of housing and run over 15 years (although it will probably last longer) rather than the 10 years in that article (would you expect to replace a garden shed after 10 years?) and buying 4 point of lay hybrids @ £17.50 each every two years adds another £1 and £3 respectively, so a total of £8/month or 8p an egg. The cheapest supermarket eggs at the moment are probably Asda Smartprice mixed weight eggs @ 8.3p each, which not only cost more, but are tasteless in comparison, and our hens have fun every day, plus they get to retire.

 

Thats a good write up ^ ours proberly work out more expensive because they are pure breeds and dont lay any where as often.Even at their peak they seem to lay 12-15 eggs each then stop for a few weeks before starting again,but again its a hobby so over the course of a year if I break even that is a bonus + you cant buy blue or green eggs at the supermarket.

 

Looks like i better get hid from the kitchen scrap police:D
If my cooking is good enough for me and Mr Lolimac it's good enough for my 'girls'....
I will say my lasses only get a veggie menu from me but it doesn't stop them going worm,slug,mouse hunting for themselves.......

 

Have to agree with such lunacy! So no kitchen scraps for your chickens but smoking whilst pregnant is harmful but not illegal. The logic!

 

If you are selling meet or eggs for human consumption then I think there are certain laws on what you can and can't feed them...but I think the article is s bit twisted myself.

 

The regulations outlined above cover any chickens, whether commercial flocks or non-egg laying domestic pets. But they appear particularly stupid when they even prevent kitchen waste from vegan households/restaurants being fed to hens.


P.S. I know of an establishment that holds (amongst others) courses on poultry keeping, and in their kitchen is a 'scraps for our hens' bucket..

 

Just in case you have nothing else today, you could always watch this: The HenCam

Also gives information on keeping chickens.