Chickens.

Basically, my sister has decided that sanity is too good for her and is buying a pair of chickens.

She's intending to order an Eglu. So, considering at some point I'll be asked to look after them, I was wondering if anyone had any experience with chickens, knew what to expect, or anything like that.

Any precautions I'll have to take with foxes, disease or anything like that. The site gives a basic idea, but, I'd rather hear it first hand. Although, I doubt anyone has first hand experience... But, regardless...


Yes... I am aware that asking a forum full of teenage gamers will give few results, but, hey, let's keep things interesting.

If anyone else suddenly feels like getting chickens as pets... Erm... Right...

Why chickens?

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Originally Posted by Paladin Catling

Why chickens?

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I honestly have no idea.

She's been visiting farms lately or something. I can only assume she got inspiration from there or something.

Chickens are only useful crispy fried :3

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Originally Posted by Paladin Catling

Chickens are only useful crispy fried :3

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Unless you like eggs I guess...

I get the sudden feeling that Omelet is going to be a heavy part of my diet after she buys these...

Coming from Guatemalan parents I have had a lot of pets in my life. Chickens being one of them. (approximately 80+) Anyways, there is nothing really special to do O.o..You feed them...They eat...Lay eggs...Just make sure to keep them away from dogs.

Wait... you could train them and then make them fight eachother. Film it and broadcast it over the web for bets. Yea?

Sorry... couldn't resist posting this ....

On a more serious note...

http://www.birdhobbyist.com/articles...tChickens.html

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Originally Posted by limabear

Coming from Guatemalan parents I have had a lot of pets in my life. Chickens being one of them. (approximately 80+) Anyways, there is nothing really special to do O.o..You feed them...They eat...Lay eggs...Just make sure to keep them away from dogs.

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Ah. I own quite a large dog who will probably be sharing the back garden with the chickens... So... Any advice on that?

That's illegal paladin, and besides, it's only cocks that do that, not hens.

As far as I know.

The chickens I currently have now love eating pebbles. So, I don't think that Chickens havea strict diet lmao. One of the roosters is total bad *** though. He LOVES trying to hump the turkey lol. Also, if the dog isn't accustomed to chickens, he obviously will devour them. My mom used to smack my dogs when they got close to the chickens, turkeys, ducks. The dogs learned eventually...There was a little slip up where my duck was torn to pieces though..

Yup... Cocks do the attacking most of the time, except lazy ones...

True, I have only seen cocks fight eachother so far. XD

http://provideocoalition.com/images/...liveasthis.jpg

Joking.

I used to have a coop of chickens back in Nigeria, they're easy to maintain as long as you keep them in their own spacious area and feed them properly.

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Originally Posted by Oisterboy

They actually make really good "pets" So long as you leave some feed out for them, they will stay in a relatively small location. They need a coop at night, but won't really need that cage thing. They stake out their territory, and its usually no bigger than 1/2 of a persons yard as it is.

A lot of people around here have chickens. They don't go in the road most of the time, and I never see them run over. And the people who own them live on a really busy road.

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Hmm. I have a pretty large garden, however, foxes are quite present in the area (My neighbours rabbit was killed about a week ago.), the back garden is completely fenced and walled to about 2 meters high. Plus the Eglu claims to be 'Fox proof'. So, that should keep them out.

My sister doesn't want to order an Eglu from ebay for some reason, they're a lot cheaper than the ones on the site, however, for some reason she just doesn't want to...

Actually, a funny story about chickens (kinda, if you have seen them).

They walk around pecking the ground kinda slow...just chilling really. Well, the other day I drove by a place where they must have just let their chickens out for the first time (because all the snow is finally gone) and they were running around and jumping and pecking the ground like there was no tomorrow haha.

I guess you kinda had to be there, but it was really funny to see :p

Hmm. What are you supposed to do with them in the winter anyway?

Are they fine with it or do they have to live inside or something...?