subject: The Perfect Pet For The Children, and Adults, Is Chickens [print this page] The Perfect Pet For The Children, and Adults, Is Chickens
The perfect pet for adults and children is chickens. They are lots of fun to have around, clean up nasty bugs in the garden and give you lots of wonderful free range eggs to eat.
Many people assume that keeping chickens is just something that you can do if you live in the country. However nothing could be further from the truth and there are plenty of people living in the middle of suburbia who have the delight of keeping pet chickens, and eating fresh free range eggs.
Of course you need to check out the rules and regulations from your local council to see what you are and are not allowed to do when it comes to keeping chickens. For instance many councils don't allow the keeping of roosters in built-up areas because of the early morning noise, and also have in some instances regulations about how many hens you can have and about the building and positioning of chicken houses.
Once you've researched the regulations and found out what you can and cannot do then there is no reason why the average suburban dweller cannot keep backyard chickens.
There are a few common questions that I get asked regularly, in particular how many chickens should I have, and what type of chickens to buy.
This depends of course on your own choice, but a general rule is that a good laying hen will lay around 300 eggs each year, or around 5 or 6 a week, more in summer than winter.
You can then look at how many eggs you require to determine how many chooks to keep.
If you have too many eggs, as we always seem to find, you will also find that there are plenty of people close by who are happy to buy them from you, it's very rare for anyone with chickens to have fresh free range eggs going to waste.
Using this figure most people find that 3 or 4 chooks is sufficient.
And what type of chicken to buy? There are many breeds, and there are different ways to select your hens. Do you want wonderful looking chickens or are you just looking for hens that will produce as many eggs as possible? In our case our choice of breed is determined by both considerations.
Our children love fancy looking chickens and so we are the proud owners of some pure white silky bantams. Whilst they look wonderful and are fun to have around they lay small eggs, and not as many as some other breeds, and so are really only there for looks.
But they do look great.
We have Isa Browns for their egg laying capacity. They do not sit on eggs very well and this means they are producing eggs for more days of the year, so are excellent layers. But they won't hatch chicks for you.
Having chicks is a wonderful experience and kids love it. However there is a downside, namely that you will have to decide what to do with the roosters, and unless you want your brood of 3 or 4 hens to grow to 10 or 15 you will also have to find something to do with the new hens.
However these are small problems when compared to the delights of keeping chickens as pets, and also of having those wonderful, tasty and fresh free range eggs to eat every day.
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