hens

I love hens. I love watching them, talking to them, seeing them in the garden.  Our veg garden is never going to be a potager, with stylish planting because we share that space with hens.  Hens mean netting!   Free range hens mean grass and plenty of it.

My family kept hens, so I grew up with them.  When we started with hens here 20 years ago, we had some very sad little poppets that had been bred for battery and which were terrified of the outdoors.  We had to carry them outside and show them how to dustbathe.  Since then we’ve gone for hens that enjoy/endure the Scottish climate:  Black Rocks/Rhode Rocks and Speckledies.  The latter are adorably content and real potterers.  The former are more feisty, real explorers but lovely-natured birds, too.  They do tend to be rather adventurous, so you have to watch they don’t get away too far.  We’ve had numerous Black Rocks soar over barbed wire and away for the day and one that brooded in a nearby field for 22 days, so camouflaged that we missed her when searching and only when our dog, a Labrador, flushed her out, did we know she had covered herself and her nest in long grass and laid an egg a day for 22 days. How a fox or bird of prey didn’t find her, we still don’t know.  Minnie was wee but full of pluck – no pun intended.  Should we clip their wings? No.  With wings they have a sporting chance against predators and we interfere with them as little as possible.

If you want to keep hens, keep reading my blog, as I describe our life with ‘the girls’ – we don’t have cockerels – and how to care for them. 

 A few points to consider: 

  • Check local by-laws on keeping hens, particularly on allotments;

  • In urban areas, foxes can be more of a problem than in some rural places, so hens need to be kept safe all day and all night.  If you want them to range freely, the space will have to be protected.  As you’ve seen above, ours range all over the place.  We’ve had two fox attacks in 20 years which is why we are fairly relaxed but never underestimate the agility or the cleverness of the fox;

  • Don’t keep too many.  You’ll be overloaded with eggs and have to allocate a lot of space to a larger flock;

  • Don’t keep too few.  Chooks are flock animals.  They like company.  When one of our Black Rocks, Mona, was left last chook standing, she spent most of the time by our front door, wanting company, so we bought more chooks.  If you have a small space, buy smaller breeds or bantams;

  • They’ll have to be looked after when you are away.  Make sure the person who looks after them has either experience or common sense.  Not everyone understands chooks.  We are lucky with our neighbours who love the girls - and their eggs – and who mind the chooks and the cat when go away.  In exchange, we look after their cat;

  • Find a vet who knows and understands poultry.  In rural areas this can be fairly easy but in urban areas, vets may not see hens all that often.  Ask around;

  • Read.  There is a lot of information on the internet and also plenty of writers who understand poultry, such as Katie Thear, Francine Raymond and others.  My favourite poultry book is The Chook Book by Jackie French, an Australian writer.  Although the climate and other considerations can be different, Jackie French talks good sense about chooks and she’s fun! 

  • Get to grips with diseases and conditions that affect hens.  Some diseases are notifiable, so use authorised websites and government information to get up to speed;

  • Spend time with them, watch them and enjoy them. I find being among the girls is therapeutic. 

  • We do not euthenase our hens when they are ‘off the lay’: when they are too old and stop laying.  They can still scratch about, catch insects and after all, they’ve done so much for us, they deserve a peaceful retirement!