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Chickens
by MollyWH I have kept chickens for about the last two years now and my parents also kept chickens while I was growing up so they have always been a household pet for me. Where Do I Get Chickens From? Good question, because you don't exactly see chickens for sale in pet shops now do you? We got most of our chickens from battery ... farms, quite often in our local paper, they advertise chickens free to a good home. This is because they only keep chickens in battery farms for two years as they believe this is the best laying period for them. After this time, they get rid of the hens as they do not produce as many eggs. If the hens are not re-homed, they are killed so we are more then keen to go and collect some more when we see the advert. Another place you can get chickens from are local breeders. There are so many different types of chickens and people that are really into keeping chickens will probably obtain their hens from a specialised breeder. Quite often you will see adverts in pet shops and newspapers for local breeders. What Do Chickens Live In? Chickens will need a hutch. My Dad actually built our hutch which is obviously big enough for all the hens we keep. Your hutch will depend on how many you keep, when we lived in town and had a smaller garden; we obviously had a smaller hutch. At the moment, we have ten chickens, two turkeys and an Indian runner duck who all live together in a hutch that is 5ft by 3ft. Chickens will also need a 'run'. Chickens love to scratch around with their feet and peck at the ground so as well as the hutch, they will need an area to exercise and scratch. Our chicken hutch has a run around the outside of it which measure approximately 8ft by 8ft. You will need to make sure your chickens will be safe from predators such as foxes. We have a large 6ft fence all the way around the outside of the run and also have netting across the top of the run as a fox had the cheek to jump the 6ft fence and get into the enclosure last summer! Attached to the run, is a small ramp which the chickens use to go in and out of their hutch. At the top of the ramp, we have built a door which can be lifted up and down. This is extremely handy as at night time we close the door which means that if a fox manages to get into the run, he cannot get into the hutch. Inside the hutch, there are a couple of things you will need. One is a perch because at night time, chickens like to roost and naturally they would pick quite a high up point to do this. The other thing you will need are nest boxes filled with fresh hay. We have six nest boxes at one end of their hutch and then a big roosting pole that sits the whole length of the hutch. Remember that the hutch will need to be waterproof and we have used felt for the roof of the hutch which ensures the hens stay dry. The front of the hutch is on hinges which means the whole front comes away which makes it very easy for cleaning out the hutch. Their run has concrete slabs as flooring because we found that if you give them soil and grass, they just scratch it until it becomes mud and then in bad weather the run becomes almost swampy! What Else Do Chickens Need? Apart from the above, there is not much else that chicken's need except for food and water (I will explain more about food later). We have a feeder that hangs from the bottom of their hutch which means the food is always available to the hens and because it is placed under the hutch, it means it does not get wet. Chickens will also need fresh water. We have two dog bowls in the run with them which we fill up on a daily basis. What Do Chickens Eat? In short, chickens eat literally anything but obviously they do have specialised food as well as all the leftovers! We feed our chickens on layers pellets and mixed corn which we buy from Pet's At Home - the food is £6 for a 20 kilo bag. As well as having this food, the chickens also get the leftovers from dinner and any food which is a little past its best. One thing that is quite worrying is that chickens actually eat chicken meat!! We have fed them the leftovers from a roast dinner and they even ate the meat which I thought was a bit wrong! The chickens also love fresh cut grass which my Dad outs in their run after he has cut the lawn!! We feed our chickens every morning and fill their feeder again during the day if they empty it. Cleaning Out We don't actually clean our chickens out that much because they spend most of their time outside of their hutch either in the garden or in their run. We clean them out about once every three months or more often if they look dirty. We use sawdust for the bottom of their hutch so we just sweep the sawdust out and replace it with new. We replace the hay in their nest boxes once a week. Eggs We have found that our chickens tend to lay more in the summer than they do in the winter. At present we get about seven eggs every day from ten hens so that's pretty good going. About half of our hens are battery hens and they still lay lots of eggs. We collect the eggs on a daily basis and then date them before putting them in the fridge otherwise we lose track of how old the eggs are. Our chickens lead such healthy and natural lives and due to the fact that they are fed on a diet of corn, the colour of the yolk in the eggs they lay is a striking orange colour rather than being a dull yellow as most of the battery eggs are. Exercise We let out chickens out of the run every day for at least 4 hours. Although they have plenty of room in their run for exercise, they absolutely love coming out into the garden for a run. It's lovely to watch them scratch around in the grass and finding all sorts of small bugs and worms to eat. When we first let them out, they go running up the garden flapping their wings and they really do seem content. Dust-bathing This is one of my favourite parts of keeping chickens, watching them dust-bath. To start with, they find an area of soil which is nice and dry and begin to scratch at it with their feet. Eventually they end up with lots of loose dust. They then, throw themselves upside down into the dust and roll around on their backs fluffing up their wings to get all the dust in between their feathers. Our chickens dust bath quite a lot in warm weather so I'm pretty sure that it actually cools them down. Keeping Chickens Together You can keep as many hens (female chickens) together as you like. However, problems will occur if you try and keep two cockerels together. They will fight until one dies so you can only keep one cockerel in with as many hens as your hutch will allow. We have ten hens and one cockerel and they all get on very nicely. As I mentioned earlier, we also have two turkeys and an Indian Runner duck in with our hens and luckily they all get on really well. It's amazing how protective the cockerel is of all his hens. Even to the point when he sometimes tries to attack one of us if he thinks we are getting too close to one of his hens! Last year a fox managed to jump the 6ft fence around the chicken enclosure and get in the run with the chickens. If it wasn't for the commotion that the cockerel made, then the fox would probably have killed all the chickens. Sadly he still managed to kill two of them but because of the noise the cockerel made, my Dad was woken up and managed to scare the fox away. You could see blood on the fox from where the cockerel has attacked him trying to protect his girls. Obviously when you introduce new hens to your group, you will need to keep an eye on them to make sure they will all get along. To start with there will be a small amount of bullying where the existing hens let the other know that they are boss but after a couple of days, that behaviour dies down and they all get on very nicely together. Clipping Their Wings We have to clip our chicken's wings because although technically they are not flying birds, they can still fly to a certain extent which means when they are running loose in the garden, they can lift themselves over the fence into the woods behind the house. Clipping their wings means they have no chance of flying and are therefore safer. It is not actually cruel to clip their wings (I used to think it was) but it is actually done to make sure they remain safe. You can find advice about clipping wings in many internet sites so I won't bore you with the details. Summary For anyone who has the room, I would highly recommend keeping chickens. They are interesting to watch and you also get something back from them - fresh eggs everyday! I really like it when we get a new battery hen and it's lovely to watch them experience grass and exercise for the first time ever! Some of them have even been really unsure of walking of the grass because they have been cooped up all day with no room to exercise which is very sad. Once you have the hutch and run, chickens are very inexpensive to look after as all you really need is the food and hay. Keeping chickens might seem a bit odd but I really enjoy keeping them and I think it's great that we can give battery hens a second chance at a decent life. Read the complete review |
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Cats in General
by catrocks03 I've always been more of a dog person if I'm honest. I grew up with dogs, my family got their first when I was 2 and our second when I was 6. When my parents seperated and there was nobody to stay in the house during the day with the dogs they decided to get them rehomed and I have to say it was really hard for me. I'll never forget them ... and always wondered what happened to them. It was nice knowing that they got rehomed together but I wish I'd known what kind of family got them. We got out cat just under a year ago now. A friend of mine living in the block of flats had two cats (male and female) who had just produced a litter. She offered us one for free and we accepted. We had wanted a pet for a while but as we had a 6 month old we thought it best to get a puppy or kitten so they could be raised together (which has worked out well!) We decided a kitten would be the better option. Cats are in a sense easier than dogs. Although I am a stay at home mum if we were going on holiday we have family members who could visit the cat to feed him and such. Whereas you couldnt really leave a dog alone for a big part of the day like that. Dogs also need a walk or 2 everyday and Ive never really mastered walking a dog along with a puschair. When we went to see the litter they were all a beige, browny colour apart from the runt- a black one with white "socks" my boyfriend immediatly decided this was the cat he wanted. We got him when he was 10 weeks old and it took us a few days to work out a name. We tried out a few and in the end opted for tigger. A strange choice as hes not ginger but he was just so bouncy as a kitten (in some ways he still is!). Raising him as a kitten alongside our baby was a good choice. Our now toddler is very loving towards animals, smothering them in kisses, strokes and hugs. Having visited friends I know that some animals find this hard to handle but Tigger is VERY tolerant of Tyler. Hes play nipped at his hand a few times but most of the time he revels in his attention and sometimes goes to him for strokes. If Tyler ever gets to much he just jumps over the stairgate! We dont have a cat flap at the moment. In the summer we left a window open for him but he lets me know when he wants to go out and meows loudly enough for me to hear when he wants to come in (although ill often check if hes in the garden especially if it starts raining). He rarely goes out overnight, we dont like to let him out after 11pm just as we're worried he might get into a fight with a fox or badger and come off worse for wear! Hes only been overnight twice (once because he didnt come back in time, once because he ran out just as I opened the door to put the recycling out) and I was worried the entire night! I dont know if its because we dont have a cat flap or because he has a bell on his collar but as of yet Tigger hasnt brought us any "nasty suprises" as I've heard many cat owners talk about. We feed him a mixture of wet food and kibble which I put in his bowl in the morning and night. If he runs out he'll meow at me and I'll put more kibble in. Litterwise he stopped using his tray about a fortnight after we started letting him outside and in the end we got rid of it and hes only ever had 2 accidents which were overnight. He'll usually meow at us in the morning to be let out if we're not up in time for him. Hes a very loving cat who'll often jump on my lap (especially at inconvinient times). Ive also found him in the middle of the night in our bed asleep! Hes quite a licker (which i always thought was more of a dog thing) and he likes to try and groom people, especially me with my long hair. As I've met other people with cats I've noticed what different personalities they all have. I wouldn't say I'm converted as I'd still love a dog one day but for now I love having a pet cat! Read the complete review |
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Basset Hound
by Dawn Rawlings We got Henry from the National Animal Welfare Trust in Somerset on Friday 13 Jan 12 - lucky for him as it turned out. Previously we had owned a miniature smooth haired dachshund who was an absolute delight. Unfortunately she passed away in Dec 11 and we decided not to get another dog for a while - yeah right! Anyway one morning while ... my other half was in bed nursing the mother of all hangovers, I decided to have a look on the Internet to see if there were any mini dachshunds looking to be rehomed. Unfortunately there weren't but I did find Henry, staring back at me from the pages of the NAWT website. I rang the rescue centre and made an appointment to go and see him and following a home visit where he was introduced to the cats and chickens without too much of a do, he came to stay. Initially he could be very aggressive - he bit my partner a couple of times and had a go at me on more than one occasion although to look at him you would think that butter wouldn't melt. However 9 months on he's still with us and has turned into the most lovely, affectionate dog. We believe he was a stud dog before he was unceremoniously dumped at the rescue centre which could explain his intial mistrust of humans. He still has his moments but that's usually with other people who like to play rough with him despite our warnings! Despite being a lovely dog he does have traits that are less than appealing and I would strongly urge anyone who hasn't owned one before to think carefully about whether they could deal with Bassets' little peculiarities. They are extremely stubborn - if they say, "No" then it's 'no'. This can be embarrassing if you are out walking and they decide they've had enough. Henry regularly 'goes starfish' as we call it (lays down on the ground with paws outstretched and won't budge). This usually occurs in the middle of the street in front of an audience - very amusing for them, not so for us. They are also extremely dribbly. We have old towels situated around the house for mopping up saliva off the dog, the furniture and walls. I'm not sure if this is peculiar to all Bassets but Henry does love to roll in the most disgusting of substances. The worse it smells, the more he likes it. It's impossible to get him in the bath so we regularly have to wash him off in the back garden. Despite being short-haired their coats are really thick and absorb water like there's no tomorrow. Consequently getting him dry is an art form in itself. They are led by their noses. If they are off the lead and pick up a scent or, in Henry's case see another dog, they'll be off and you won't stand a cat in Hell's chance of getting them back. Calling them or even shaking the treats bag will prove utterly fruitless. I've lost count of the amount of times my partner and I have legged it across some field or other to fetch him back. That said, we love him to bits although if I'm honest I wouldn't have another one! Read the complete review |
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