Topic: wher to get hens from

[sid]

can any one help i am new to keeping hens and dont know wher to start to look for them i am from doncaster south yorksher also can you keep ducks in the same pen as the chucks thanks

[OliveOil]

Yes you can keep duck and hens together but remember ducks MUST have water for splashing/swimming in which will need cleaning out regularly!

depends what hens you want... hybrids are unavailable until feb/march time now which is a bugger as i am trying to get some desperately... you could get non hybrids easily enough.#

try pekinbantams.com and practical poultry forums... lots for sale on there

[Tensing]

Sid

I'm not to far from you, just up the road in West Yorkshire. We have Silkie Bantams, Ducks, Quail and a goose, and apart from the quail they all live together, with seperate sleeping accomadation. I put a seperate drinker in the hen house for the bantams as the ducks do like to make the main drinkers very dirty. My ducks have a small pond, but this is not essential, but the will need a bucket or a baby bath or something to wash the heads in.

Depending on what you are after, there is a chap over at Hatfield he makes Poultry Houses and also acts as an agent for Hybreds, His firm is called Fishers Woodcraft http://www.fisherswoodcraft.co.uk/

If you know what to look for with birds or you have a friend that does, then Selby Auction is good for both Hens and ducks, but I wouldn't recommend this if you are new to poultry keeping.

Or theres Storrs Poultry over near Barnsley, they are good and ver helpful. http://www.storrspoultry.co.uk/

Otherwise Yeller  paper normally has birds for sale.

Good luck

[sid]

thanks all will try the links out let you know how i get on

[bunjies]

if you dont want anything fancy, and dont mind some serious tlc giving get some ex battery/perchery hens.
last lot i went with a friend to get were the staggering price of 50p each  :'(
they lay amazing eggs too ;)

[Marymary]

I agree that the ex- battery hens will be good for eggs -I think many bure breeds won't lay much now till the spring - all battery hens are hybrids - bred to lay an egg a day.  We kept 2 ducks with our chickens for a while but the female was too noisy for our neighbours & the male so sexually harassed the chickens they had virtually no feathers left & were throughly fed up with him by the time we rehomed him.  Beautiful bird though - we bought him a kids paddling pool & it was a whole afternoons entertainment watching him enjoy it.  Good luck with the birds - let us know how you get on. MM

[johnjp]

I have been getting yearling free range hens for several years now. That means that they have come to the end of their viable laying period as far as the commercial system is concerned, but they will still have five or so years more laying in them. I usually pay 50p per bird but recently saw them being given away free - it saves the farmer alot if he can purge his flock that way! They will usually be available in late october/ november. They may be in poor condition but will soon grow some more feathers and after a few months will look much better. They may not lay for a while, so you`ll be feeding them for no return.  I got 10 birds about a month ago and i now only get 1 or 2 eggs a day but by early spring they should be up to full laying. Incidentally a farmer recently told me that it would be better to have only a handful of birds as they would usually all lay, so five eggs from five hens but probably only seven or eight from ten birds. I have a small shed I converted and is about 4`x4` with  four laying boxes.

[Marymary]

Johnjp, when you get the new girls do you worry about them bringing diseases to your exisitng birds?  I have thought of getting some but am worried the others will end up with something nasty.

[teresa]

What I have heard is hens from commercial farms are so injected against everything they cannot afford a illness to wipe them out.
That to buy one POL was about £18 that was if you bought X amount of them.
But with nothing to keep minds active pecking each other, lice and mites most of them need TLC and lots of greens and room to move about.

[johnjp]

Johnjp, when you get the new girls do you worry about them bringing diseases to your exisitng birds?  I have thought of getting some but am worried the others will end up with something nasty.

never had a ny problems, but always keep an eye out for things like newcastle disease

[ipt8]

I find if our ducks get in where the hens lay they mess up the eggs, but we do have ducks and hens running free together in the garden. ::)
The other problem is when you shut them in each night, which is the only way a fox wont get them, the hens roost on the perches and would you like to be a duck lying below them all night. OK you may have plenty of room but can you tell a duck where the best place to lie is :'(
We have a duck house and a hen house. We find the hens go in to roost just before dark and the ducks not untill after dark, little stop outs ;)

[Marymary]

One of our little bantams hatched two whopping great ducks last year.  They thought she was their mummy & when they went in the hen house at night they were most put out when she flew up on the perch & tried to jump & flap their wings too.  It was really amusing to watch - really silly things ducks.  :)