Camp Tenko on Full Lockdown!

As some of you may have read on the chicken update page, the girls have been locked up. Our very patient neighbour came  to the door this week and said something had to be done about the hens, they had eaten all his silvet beet (spinach like), not to mention the droppings left around his [...]

Revival in Chicken Keeping

After the WWII the people of Britain were still on rations into the 50’s, so after seven or so years of powdered eggs, it seems the spoils of war didn’t include food for the people, of course everyone had been so busy building weapons they didn’t have much time for farming. To combat this new [...]

Spring Has Sprung

Hi there, not much to report of late, hence the weather report, well to tell the truth, I’ve been so busy working that I haven’t been doing much on the hen front, although I did fix the roof on the coop today, as it had partially caved in, found all the girls huddled in one [...]

5000 Visitors

Well a big thankyou to all visitors to the chicken keeper, the site got it’s five thousanth visitor today, which is almost a year to the day I started the site, I didn’t really get going properly on it til November 2008, it had only had 7 views until then, so the figures have primarily [...]

Betty Goes Broody

Broody hens can be a problem, unless ofcourse you are looking to hatch chicks without an artificial incubator. The reasons for me as to why a broody hen can be a problem are, firstly Betty has decided to go broody on the communal nest, so therefore the other 6 hens are having difficulty laying, hence [...]

Finally Renee Lays

Hi there, we have had a Light Sussex hen now for a good 10 months, we got her as a hen, she was a show bird, and the breeder saad she wasn’t sure if was laying, anyway we took her home, she looked like a good hen. She’s a big girl, and it has taken her [...]

Egg bound Treatment Works

Hi there keepers, firstly appologies to any out there who have missed my regular postings, I have been very busy at work, and therefore haven’t had the time to post daily.
Anyway on to the business of trapped eggs. If you read the previous post about Daphne having this problem then you’ll already know the treatments [...]

Eggbound Hen

An eggbound hen is the condition suffered by a hen when the egg  is stuck, it may be trapped for several reasons, it could be that the egg is very large, has been broken or the egg shell is soft, either way it is very difficult for the hen to reslove this issue.
After reading severals internet [...]

Chicken Feed

When it comes to eating, we have found that our chickens will try anything once, your toes, fingers, hair, buttons, infact anything small enough to fit in their beaks, and more often than not, pieces of bread that are far too big to fit into their beaks, but they’ll try anyway. Since getting our chickens we [...]

The Cost Effectiveness of Chicken Keeping

Hi chicken keepers, or prospective chicken keepers, I recently read a report from an american publication, about a dispute between neighbours in the city of Salem, where the city by-law says the keeping of farm animals is prohibited, domestic pets only.
 The owner of the hens is disputing that they are penned the whole time, and are no [...]