Hi, I am new to the forum and new to keeping chickens. I have trawled through the forums this morning and now I am seriously confused (doesn't take much admittedly :blink: ).
Let me start at the beginning (I have a grasshopper mind so bear with me )
I got my first two chickens 3 weeks ago and so far I am loving it and them. They are about 18 months old and they appear to have settled in very nicely.
We named them Penelope and Felicity (The good Life - yes naff I know but fun
) and so far Penelope is the only one of the 2 laying eggs. Felicity had one go at it but it was shell-less and had a weird blobby thing attached to it. In hindsight I should have taken a picture of that as it didn't look right. She appears otherwise healthy and happy so I am not too worried as I have read it could take up to a month before they start laying eggs in their new environment - I guess we just got lucky with Penelope settling in faster.
My first 'issue' :I came across this post :
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=37371.0;topicseenI showed the post to my husband and he thought I had made it so similar is the problem.
I think I have been over- feeding them with treats. Tomatoes which they seem to love, cucumber cut in half - they only eat the flesh so it's a scout about to find the skins
and chicken seed & insect mix (a handful in the morning and again in the evening).
I read all the advice and will follow that and hope they start eating their layer pellets again - I did go out earlier and hand feed them, Penelope looked at me like I was stupid but Felicity was happy to eat out of my hand so I don't think there will be a big problem getting them eating the pellets again.
The issue I still have is - do I need to add anything to their pellets and/or water. I have read so much about garlic granules/cider vinegar/poultry spice that I am now wondering if I need all this stuff. They all seem to do pretty much the same thing (ok I'm a novice and probably got that one wrong too lol) Any advice would be much appreciated.
On to issue 2 :
Cleaning out the coop. It would appear, as with the treats, that I have been going overboard on the cleaning front (anyone for dinner in the coop?
). Each day I clean out the poop tray (I have a bucket next to my greenhouse which I deposit it in and that goes on my veggies and a great fertilizer it is too) spray it down with the hose and dry it off and pop it back in again.
At the end of each week I just about dismantle the coop, taking out the perches, the bottoms of the nesting boxes etc and wash them down with Poultry Shield, give everything that is left in the coop a brushing down.
When all the bits are dry I put it all back together, put clean bedding in and then use Diatom - I have a puffer bottle witch helps it go into the nooks and crannies.
I think, having read the forum, that this job could be done once a fortnight or even once a month (providing of course everything is still clean) or have I got that wrong too
I started off using straw but I bought some Hemp with eucalyptus pellets and it is so much easier to clean, it seems to stay cleaner than the straw and certainly doesn't make much of a mess and best of all the chooks seem to like it.
I will post pics of the area I have for my chickens but needless to say they are free range - we let them out of the coop at around 6:30am and they go back in around 9:00 ish at night ~ well Felicity does, sometimes I have to coax Penelope back in as she loves to wander around.
I apologise for such a long winded post but I think I overloaded on info reading various forums (this one is by far the most informative and no I am not sucking up - just being honest
) so any help or advice would be most welcome. I have attached a pic of my 2 feathered friends (just hope I get it right - I'm not the best with attachments lol)
Thanks for taking the time to read and I promise - shorter posts in the future
Kind Regards
Carol (and Penelope and Felicity)