Should you keep chickens?
British readers of this blog may well have seen Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s latest series of programmes, Hugh’s Chicken Run, been repulsed by the idea of intensive indoor chicken farming and thought how lovely it would be to keep outdoor chickens themselves.
I’ve already had several emails from people asking me to recommend breeds, how best to keep chickens, if we have chickens available, and where we get our chickens from.
I don’t particularly like intensive, indoor chicken farming—more on which at a later date—but I’m even more against people keeping livestock on a whim, because it looks cute, because it’s fashionable or because a television personality has prodded their conscience.
As a result, instead of giving people the answers they want, I’ve asked them to honestly answer a serious of questions before deciding whether to keep chickens and to remember that HFW’s “happy chicken” footage is only one aspect of poultry keeping.
Those questions are:
- Are you really prepared to give your chickens the respect they deserve?
- Are you prepared to learn about your chickens’ needs, in terms of feed, water, housing, health and welfare?
- Are you prepared to get to grips with chicken anatomy, physiology and psychology to best meet their needs?
- Having learned about your chickens’ needs, are you prepared to commit yourself to actually meeting them, day in, day out, 365 days a year?
- Are you prepared for the hard work of keeping chickens, the dirty, mucky, upsetting and distressing jobs that must be done?
- Are you prepared to protect your chickens from predators, spending the time and money needed to keep them safe?
- Are you prepared to meet the legal obligations of keeping chickens, as well as the moral ones?
- Are you prepared to balance your desire to keep chickens with the many and varied attitudes of your neighbours to having chickens next door to them?
- Are you prepared to keep your chickens when fashion changes and not seek to dump them on someone else?
- Back to number one—are you really, really sure you’re going to respect your chickens and treat them accordingly?
If you can’t honestly answer “yes” to all those questions, then you should not keep chickens and should content yourself with watching them on TV, over the fence or at a show.
Chickens are not dumb, feathered, egg laying, meat producing machines that happen to look cute (most of the time).
They are living creatures with a multitude of needs that must be met for them to have happy, contented lives, even if short (and entertainingly dumb) by our standards.
An amateur poultry keep who is not prepared to recognise that and care for their chickens accordingly can be far, far worse than the much-demonised British intensive poultry farmer.
I couldn’t agree more, I would love to keep chickens for egg and meat but at the moment my circumstances mean that I cannot give them the attention they need to ensure their safety and well being, throughout the summer I tend to have weekends away and it is not acceptable to put on people to look after them for me so I will wait until I move, have my little bit of land and have the time and ability to care for them, until that day comes I will remember my childhood and the bantams we used to keep in the back garden and read up as much as I can so when I am ready to get my first birds I will hopefully have enough knowledge.
How many people will be off this weekend buying chickens as a result of this programme – and how many chickens will be found wandering in six months when the novelty wears off and they get turned out.
Having re-read this post, and all the responses, I am curious to know if there was any upsurge of abandoned chickens during this last year in the UK? This isn’t something that would have made the news here in the US. I have had my small flock now for a little over a year, and can’t imagine giving them up.
Having learned about your chickens’ needs, are you prepared to commit yourself to actually meeting them, day in, day out, 365 days a year?
You should add here even when you feeling unwell and the weather is atrocious
I deliberately left out the scores of examples I could have given of the things you must do and need to do when keeping chickens. If I had given examples, such as going out to do the monthly deep cleaning in the snow despite having a broken collar bone, a virus and an infection, then this would have turned into a monster post.
Instead, I decided to stick to principles and avoid being prescriptive.
i agree – I hate so much that it has become ‘fashionable’ to keep hens.. down to the technicolour hen-house.. people who only let them out of a small pen occasionally, and then are all surprised when a predator takes them from an unproctected garden… Keeping chickens is not to be done on a whim.
Having said that, done properly, with commitment, it can be very rewarding, (particularly when you tuck into a double yolker)
Good stuff Stonehead! And it can’t be stressed enough how difficult it can be to keep foxes off your feathered friends. When we kept ours, we had a very expensive, substantial electric net fence. One foul night it snowed a blizzard. In the morning we got up to find that drifts had bridged the net, Foxy had walked over the bridge and killed dozens of our beautiful Sussex breeds (we had between 10 and 20 of every breed including the Red Sussex). We were absolutely devastated.
Keeping chickens well is very hard work. DH became ill and we couldn’t give them the time or commitment they needed so we sold up and although we’d dearly love them again, we can’t answer yes to all your questions (particularly the neighbours one!) so we have put it off til we can!
I don’t have the space for them, nor the *quiet* space for them (we live in a rough neighbourhood, on the corner of 2 roads). so doubly unsuitable: they’d be harrassed by the local kids and probably lead extremely stressed lives. Which is why i haven’t gone out to get any myself. One day though, i’d like to. like Welsh Girl, when i get my little patch of land
I find it quite hard to understand that some people have no real clue about the needs of animals – but then I remember that we are as a nation so many generations away from our agricultural roots that many people have never known anyone who keeps chickens. Yes, of course people should be very aware of what they are taking on. If they do decide to go ahead though and do take it all on board, at least it’s a step in the right direction towards being aware of where food comes from and a little self-sufficiency. ( And she steps boldly out into the mud and driving rain to check on the little flock……)
I’m glad you posted this, Stoney.
It is bad enough trying to cope with all the dogs and cats brought into the Animal Centre, once the novelty wears off and people realise that they still have to go out for walks and be cared for even when it rains.
We used to rear ducks in our garden to stock the River Tawe, once they were old enough to put in ‘Duck Island’, so we are aware of the respect that birds need and the amount of time needed to see to their safety and wellbeing.
Sadly, I can already foresee a glut of unwanted chickens in the future!
I know what you are saying but I do think that chickens are fairly easy to keep and they are the one animal that many people could keep if they are prepared to make a little effort. I would recommend chickens over rabbits or other childrens pets every time. They are just as endearing and teach children about keeping animals and food. Because they give back such lovely eggs I think you are inclined to care for them well. Once you are set up with housing and predetor protection they are also fairly cheap to keep so I don’t think we should try to put people off too much. At one time we were a nation of backyard chicken keepers and if we went back to that there would be no need for battery farms. However I agree like all animals chickens are for life not just for Christmas.
My experience is that chickens are far easier than dogs!
AS the keeper of a couple of just a couple of ducks, I agree wholeheartedly with your comments…even a couple can be a bit of a pain in the rain, cold and mud…especially if you’re unwell, but you have to do it…you owe it to them…
Dear Mr Stonehead,
I would like to keep some chickens. However, all I have seen are brown, black or red birds. PLease can you suggest a kind of ckicken that will go with the colours in my garden, of yellow, lilac and green. I know that there are white ones around, but I have white wellies, and they are hard enough to keep clean, so I don’t want to have to wash the chickens as well. I have already bought a lovely lilac henhouse which goes perfectly with my lavender and the other herbs.
Thankyou,
Miss Suburban.
lol !!! but I bet ‘they’ are out there !!!
I just came to this post today and had to comment. I totally agree that people shouldn’t buy chickens on a whim. I’m sure people do that around here when they have chicks at all the farm supply stores and it probably doesn’t end well.
Yet, I do think that chickens are only slightly more work than my 6 cats are, with the cleaning of litter boxes and feeding and giving water and attention. However, I did a lot of the research before hand, so maybe that is why I think the chickens are easy. I guess the easy part starts once they are a couple of weeks old and have a predator proof home and you have everything all set up. Of course, this is my first mini-flock (I have 6) and they are less than 6 weeks old, so maybe a year from now I will agree more with you?