How much does it all cost?

Initial costs:-
Chicken coop for up to four birds -£169 free delivery. Internet purchase.

3 Chickens plus 'starter pack' from Kirsty at HensforHomes near Stansted - £95

Starter pack includes feed for 8 weeks, spice (to add to feed) lice powder, feed tray, water dispenser, woodshavings (for henhouse floor), small bag of grit which "should last forever" We could probably have bought this starter pack for less had we bought the items separately but we paid for the convenience.

You should know that there's fierce competition in the chicken coop style wars. There's the basic triangular 'ark', the trad, square chicken house and new kid on the block the 'eglu' - the ipod of chicken des res. This looks like a discarded imac computer sitting in your garden which I'm sure many will love but with birds and feed etc comes in at about double the price we paid for everything above.

Ongoing costs - not sure, but back of a fag packet calculations have shown that we should break even on egg production/consumption costs within the year.

Cold Weather

8am, 30th December. I know it's not really cold but it is actually freezing in the house never mind the garden and I'm pleased that I was told (when I bought them and in everything I've read online) that chickens don't mind the cold. Just as well since the forecast says its not going to get any better. If they live outdoors in the winter they like nothing better than to roost overnight in trees...

I know not to seal any gaps in the coop as birds give off a lot of heat and moisture and if there's no ventilation it can cause respiratory problems. We're slowly getting to know some useful stuff.

When do we get eggs?

We've been reliably informed that we should get our first eggs by the end of January. When they're fully up and running in the spring and summer we'll be getting between 15-20 eggs a week. Apparently the first ones may have soft shells or no shells or look like chicken droppings. Mmmm

I've also found out (I'm not making this up) that egg colour depends on the colour of the earlobes. We're looking forward to brown, white and blue eggs. It's also a handy way of showing who's not pulling their weight in the laying department.

Why Keep Chickens?

Why Keep Chickens? Here's a short version.

We live in Hackney- urban wasteland, 'up and coming', Olympic village?. Not, I imagine, top of the list for urban garden farms but we wanted to give it a go.

We're not eco warriors. We ride bikes AND drive a car. But we want to bring up our kids (Ruby aged 5 and one on the way) knowing that:-

1) vegetables come from the ground,
2) if you want to eat bacon you have to kill a pig, and
3) eggs come from the backside of a chicken.

We won't be attempting number 2 in our garden but felt 1 was relatively easy and thought we'd give 3 a go as well. After wiping the poo from our shoes we might have some fun on the way.

The aim here is to share our ups and downs and... well that's it really.

thanks
Geoff (over 45), Sarah (well under 40), Ruby (over 5) & Anna (over 20).

Merry Christmas!

6.30am Christmas day. First things first. I dash downstairs to make sure they're in one piece. The prowling fox is not so cunning after all. They have survived the night - Merry Christmas Chickens!

Now we face our first problem. Family calls and we're off to Banbury for Christmas festivities for the day and - and here's the problem - the night. We make sure there's enough food and water, leave a treat of marmite and toast, (yes really), and ask our good neighbours to send us text updates. They do and everything is fine.

We're back on Boxing day afternoon and they're in great form. We needn't have worried. A well earned bottle of wine for the neighbours AND we had a lovely Christmas. This chicken keeping lark is easy...

Settling In

The wood shavings are down, the lice powder is dusted into nooks and crannies, the food pellets and water are in place. We gingerly open the boxes and put the three, surprisingly placid, chickens (Kirsty taught us how to hold them) into their new home. There must be something else we need, something else we should have done, something else we should have bought? We're not really sure what to do now, so we watch.

We watch them poo. And we address the thorny issue of names. They're not pets so should we call them anything? They poo some more. I'd call them 'One', 'Two' and 'Three'. Ruby puts forward 'Glitterball', 'Pancake' and 'Isabelle', names she has also suggested for our impending new human arrival. More pooing ensues and Sarah comes up with 'The Supremes'. We decide not to decide on names yet.

It's getting dark so we close their door. We're sure the fox will get them so we barricade them in with boxes, stepladders and upturned garden furniture. Not that we're paranoid.

Christmas Day tomorrow.

In The Beginning - Christmas Eve 2008

Christmas Eve 2008, we're in our wellies in a muddy field close to Stansted airport and we've chosen a Nera, a Gingernut and an Amber. Or at least I think we have*. I never wanted a white one myself but Ruby (5) insists and I know better than to argue. Sarah (who's idea this whole venture was) doesn't care what colour they are as long as the eggs are large and tasty.

Kirsty, the nice lady at www.hens4homes.co.uk has sold us the three hens along with woodchips, feed, feeders, grit and other essential gubbins. She's also filled our heads with so much information about feed times, chicken spice, chicken poo, pellets versus mash, worms, lice and mites, that we've forgotten everything we knew. But we DO now know with great certainty the answer to the eternal question... CHICKENS came first.

Back home in Hackney the newly assembled, internet purchased, henhouse awaits.

* So much info has gone in and out of my head I'm not sure anymore. This info may change...