In starting this thread, I'm hoping that other poultry keepers will add their advice to it and in doing so, help create some sort of guide for the novice chicken keeper.
For what it’s worth, here's my ten pence worth.
I think that the best advice that I can offer is patience. Don't impulse buy. Chickens are not something that you can throw into the back of the wardrobe and forget about if you make a mistake. Think long and hard before you make your initial purchase. Why do you want to keep chickens ? Keeping them is not all that time consuming in itself but you are committed to attending to them morning and night, if only for a few minutes, 365 days a year. Before taking the plunge read as much about the subject as you can and even better still, try and talk to somebody who actually keeps or who has kept chickens. In other words, try and get as much advice as you can and by preference, this advice should not be coming from the person who is trying to sell the chickens to you.
The next thing, is don't be tempted to get too many chickens. Most people start to keep them for their eggs and you should be aware that two or three good laying birds will provide more than enough eggs for the average family.
Housing
Long before you buy the chickens, you need to have looked at what housing there is available on the market. This can be a bit of a nightmare for the beginner, with highly priced housing with fancy sounding names, that are on occasion designed with catching the poultry keeper rather than the hen’s welfare in mind. My advice would always be to get housing that makes tending the birds a pleasure for you and not an arduous task. Make sure that they are going to be easy for you to clean out. Doorways should be broad and situated in such a way that you don’t have to crawl in on hands and knees to extract eggs and chicken poo. If through poor design looking after your chickens becomes a real chore, then you are far less likely to look after them properly.
The security of your chickens from both four footed and two footed predators should always be born in mind and whilst big isn't always beautiful, I'd always go for as big a coop and run as possible. The more space that your birds have, the happier they will be.
Choice of chickens
There are all sorts of breeds of chickens and I don't intend to go through them but the one thing I'd like to do, is to state the obvious and say that an unhealthy chicken eats as much as a healthy one and that it certainly costs you more in the form of medicine and worry. In other words you should always buy the healthiest looking and active birds as possible.
This means being meticulous in selecting your birds. Don't buy the fluffed up chicken that keeps closing its eyes, don't buy the shitty a***d ones, don't buy the dirty bald ones, don't buy the runty one , don't buy the scaly legged ones. Don't buy old chickens, somebody else will have had the best from them. Buying healthy point of lay birds is by far the best bet for a trouble free entry for the new comer to poultry keeping.
Try and find a truly reputable breeder, HARDEN YOUR HEART and don't become an easy touch. Go back to the start of this post, be patient.
On Mixing Chickens
It’s obvious that at times, poultry keepers will add to their stock and through lack of housing have to attempt to mix them. This is when serious grief and trouble can come to your bird keeping hobby. My advice would be to try and avoid having to do this if you can. Life will be much easier for you if, whenever possible, you keep each batch separate. Why ? Well, if you can resist having one from here and one from there. You will drastically reduce the likelihood of bringing disease into to your flock. Secondly, by adding to flocks you increase the tension within, as each new bird has to fight to assert its place within the pecking order. This can lead to bullying and nasty injuries.
Very tricky to do this I know, but when you see a new colour of chicken that you fancy, try and resist.
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weve had no trouble keeping up when ours were averaging 6 a day.... the latest advise is that eggs are nutritious and for most people have no effect on blood cholesrerol levels (in the telegraph last week).
