Hello from the West Midlands

[Susie Lovett]

Hello there,
We are looking to start keeping chickens, well to re home about 3 -4 ex battery girls. This will probably be around March time, as we want to get the worst of the bad weather out of the way and also this gives us time to set up a coop and run for them and to research and gather info. My cousin has kept chickens in the past and now he lives in a more rural spot he keeps and rears ducks and geese so we have his expertise also to help us out.
It would be nice to have some fresh eggs, however it is more important to us to give a nice home for some poor hardworking girls.
We are thinking of purchasing a purpose built coop and run and then putting this within a fenced in secure "compound" with a wire roof and a covered part to give them a nice dry area. So in the day they can have the security of the larger compound area, and at night when in the coop they will have double protection, as we do have foxes around in our area. We live on the edge of Sutton Coldfield a couple of roads away from fields. We previously built a dog run for our puppy last year as he was wrecking the garden and now as he has grown up and the run isn't used, we are looking to adapt this for the chicken compound.

Have you any comments on our ideas, or any advice for us taking on ex battery girls.

Thanks

 

[Marigold]

Hi Susie, and a big welcome to the Forum. Your plans sound excellent and I think you are wise to wait a while before actually getting your girls, and get everything ready first. I'm sure you've already looked at the website of the British Hen Welfare Trust, the charity which campaigns for exbatts and arranges rehoming. Exbatts do have somewhat different needs to ordinary hens and their website has helpful advice on looking after them, especially in the first few weeks. If you look through the posts in the General Chickens forum you'll find some posts by people who have recently rehomed some exbatts as their first hens, which may interest you. There are quite a lot of posts about types of coop as well, were always discussing them! You could also have a look at the Poultrykeeper website, see link at the bottom of the page just above the advertisements, for lots of help about caring for chickens. If you want to ask any more questions do post in the General Chickens section as not everyone will read new posts in the Welcome section.
We shall look forward to hearing how you get on.

 

[chrismahon]

Hello Suzie and welcome to the forum. We used to live in Lichfield then moved to Barton under Needwood. Left there last September.

Secure compound is a must have in that area. Loads of urban foxes looking for an easy meal. We lost a lot of birds in three separate fox strikes in what we thought were secure areas. We now have a large enclosure here. It it pretty 'fox resistant', but hunger this time of year could see a desperate fox jump it as it is only 5'6" high, although it is loosely wired to make climbing over very difficult.

Run through the old posts as several people have ex-bats.

 

[foxy]

Hello Susie and welcome to the forum, 99 yes as has already been suggested, ex-batts need a little extra tlc in order to minimise the stress and help them adapt from a physical point of view to their new environment outside the cages.

You might find this article helpful from our website here at the poultrykeeper ...

http://poultrykeeper.com/rehoming-battery-hens/tips-on-re-homing-ex-battery-chickens