Firstly I would just like to introduce myself to everyone and say...yes I am a newbie here and just wondered if I could ask some advice if that is all possible.
When I was younger and at high school we got given a fertilzed (don't know if thats the right wording) duck egg and so borrowed a incubator of a friend and to our suprise we got a lovely male malard out of it called "daffy" and not long after got a friend for him, a female indian runner, called "lady" they were lovely to keep and had such an amazing time with them and the duck eggs were, well, out of this world. However, when some family problems arose we had to unfortunately give them away and had kept birds since.
After seeing the program on channel for a couple of years back now I think called Hugh's Chicken Run, allowed me to remember all the great times I had and thought I would love to either keep ducks again or have some chickens. After alittle thought, I thought I would like to keep some chickens. However, I dont know the first place to start with getting poultry houses, runs, food or the girls themselves.
A couple of things I have noted though, we do have foxes regulary come onto our land and eat the rasians and berries we put out for the pheasant that comes. We also have a badger that comes and goes for peanuts. I thought it best to also speak to the local parish council about their views on keeping poultry on private land. They said " as it is on a large property, about 1 acre, but is part of a housing developent/estate the 'accomodation' will have to be self contained including runs and other equipment." Which with a railway line next door I can also see the point.
I would only be looking to keep around 7 or 8 birds in a self contained run and house, but I was wondering if any of you could give me any search tips or places to look. I have looked on the articles of this site and found many useful, but it is always good to have opinions from other experienced keepers like yourselves.
Thank you for reading my thread and I know it probably was alittle long and not the best wording.
Any help and advice is much appriciated.
Thanks again.
Mark
(Country Bumpkin)