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Another New Newbie

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Hello All,

 

Just thought I'd introduce myself. Had my Eglu delivered this week - hope I get eggs as lovely and yellow as my Eglu :) - unfortunately I haven't got any chickens yet so it will be a little while before I find out!!

 

I am hoping to pop along to a local poultry agent tomorrow to get some but can't decide what to get. I am thinking of getting one Meadowsweet ranger (working on the theory that that is what the good people at Omlet supply so they must be good) and a White Star. Anyone got any views? The chicken lady I plan to get them from told me that White Stars are "a bit flighty" :?

 

Red (continually looking out of the window at her new Eglu)

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Hi Red WELCOME to the forum.............

 

I have 2 Omlet chickens and a Cream Legbar the Omlet chickens are good layers and the Meadowsweet Ranger lays quite large eggs, they are also easy to tame and are very brave when food is on offer..............Not sure about the Whitestar Lesley may be along later she has one called Mrs White...........

 

Hope you are lucky tomorrow let us know which breed you decide on and have fun..................Keep posting and join in the chat in the nesting box we are all very friendly.....Honest..... :lol::lol:

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Hi Red, welcome to the forum and to Eglu owning!

 

How frustrating to have to look at an empty one though! Hope you get your chickens quickly!

 

I've got 2 Omlet chickens and as Nicola says, the Meadowsweet Ranger is a lovely hen - full of character and very cuddly and friendly. I'm on the look out for a 3rd hen for my Eglu and have set my heart on a Speckledy. Hopefully I'll get one for my birthday - fingers crossed!

 

I'm sure Lesley will be along to sing the praises of the White Star anytime!

 

Good luck with whatever hens you decide to buy and don't be a stranger on the forum when they arrive, will you? Keep in touch :wink: .

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Yes - I'm here! Welcome Red.

 

Mrs.W is a bit flighty but very friendly and we can pick her up easily. Tallulah is the easiest - probably because she's so greedy and doesn't want to miss any food by running away.

 

You can also choose by the colour of egg although the Pepperpot s seem to lay varying colours of egg. Ours are just brown, Speckledy lays dark brown speckled, Bluebelle lays very pale tea colour(we thought they would be dark brown!), Mrs.W lays big, pure white eggs and lots of them. Ellie will lay blue eggs - any day now!

 

It is very handy for knowing who has laid which egg!

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Thank you all for such a lovely welcome to the Forum - I must confess to having been a lurker at the Practical Poultry forum for the past couple of weeks - so I feel I know Lesley already! It's sooo nice to belong to the Omlet Club. :D:D

 

I have to agree it is rather frustrating looking at my empty eglu - I have eggsperimented ( :lol: sorry!) by putting our two cats in it but it just isn't the same. I am very eggcited ( :lol: sorry again!) at the thought of two little chickens pottering around the garden. Keeping chickens seems such an eggcellent hobby ( :lol: sorry yet again - the novelty will wear off I'm sure!)

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I've got a Bluebelle and a Black Rock and I can highly recommend both of these. Syblil, the black rock lays virtually every day but Pollo isn't that far behind. Like Lesley I was expecting dark eggs from the Bluebelle since they are a Rhode Island x Maran, but Pollo's eggs are a light pinky beige.

It is worth getting 2 hens that lay slightly different eggs so you can tell who is pulling her weight. Apart from that I would stick to a modern hybrid - significantly more eggs per year than a pure breed and much less chance of a hen going broody. And yes I agree that white hens can be 'flighty' - however in the ''pet' situation you get with an eglu then you should be able to tame anything.

good luck with your choosing - see which hen you like the look of on the day and ask the breeder's advice :D

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By the way - I've done Imogen's questionnaire for anyone who's interested in knowing a wee bit about me. Good questionnaire - I've had a quick look at a lot of people's likes and dislikes and am beginning to get the measure of some of you :wink:

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welcome to the forum Red. i'm sure whatever chickens you choose, you'll love them instantly, as we all love ours, and they'll give you endless hours of amusement. one word (or sentence!) of advice though- never underestimate a chicken! they are a lot smarter than people think! good luck and happy easter!

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Just a quick posting to share my sadness - I still haven't got my chickens yet :(:cry::( I have decided to pop over to our local agricultural merchants but this weekend has been a bit tricky because of Easter. (Plus it was absolutely glorious weather yesterday) So, alas, I have spent my first weekend as an eglu owner staring at an empty eglu!

 

I have used the time wisely though and have made some basic preparations to the garden. Which leads me to two questions: -

 

Firstly, is it absolutely impossible to stop chickens from trashing a garden?

 

And

 

Secondly, I have read elsewhere on this forum that Laurel is poisenous to chickens - will they instictively know it's bad for them and avoid eating it?

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Oh Red sorry you still don't have your chickens, hopefully it won't be long. Sorry I can't answer about Laurel but I can tell you that the only way to be sure they don't trash an area is to supervise their time in it. My girls only get out when I'm there and they are starting to learn that certain areas are no go, but I think if I wasn't there watching it would be no holds barred. They can't help it, it's instinct to them to scratch and see what they find and if they find goodies they seem remember that area, any other place is always worth checking :wink:

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Thanks Trish. I can't quite decide what to do with mine if I'm honest. My parents used to keep chickens when my sister and I were very young but that was in a very rural spot and the chickens had their own big run plus there were about 10/12 of them so it's hard to imagine what sort of impact just two would have in my garden.

 

At the moment I plan to keep them on the lawn and keep moving it every couple of days but I'm beginning to wonder about that - simply because not many other people seem to be doing it. I plan to keep them in the run during the day when I'm at work and let them out to free-range when I get home and at the weekend but I am a bit concerned about my lovely lawn :?

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My milkman keeps chickens to sell the eggs and says that if you want an area clearing then chickens will do that for you very quickly, espcially in winter when the ground is wet and the grass doesn't grow back quickly. I decided to go with bark chippings just because I knew I wouldn't keep up to moving the run often enough. It's not much work to change the chippings that often and my girls get out almost every day so they aren't missing out on anything, very spoilt actually :?

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Hi Red,

 

Sorry to hear you haven't been able to get your chickens yet. I'm sure you'll be filling that Eglu soon :wink: .

 

Re: Laurel - I get the impression that chickens won't eat anything that's bad for them. We have all sorts of things that you aren't supposed to feed to chickens and yet they all remained intact while the girls were free ranging. If you're worried if you've got a Laurel, could you somehow fence it off from them so they can't get near it with some netting or chicken wire?

 

My girls free ranged from June until a fortnight ago. They totally trashed the lawn to the point where we had no grass at all - just a mud bath. They are now confined to a large run at the bottom of the garden and the lawn has been reseeded! Yes, they did cause havoc in the garden but with a little foresight, this can be avoided. They dug in my pots and kicked out bulbs and herbs but if I'd done as SarahJo suggested earlier and used paddle stones on the pots, this wouldn't have happened. We fenced off certain areas in the garden like the pond and the vegetable garden with fruit cage netting which is almost invisible but works as a great hen deterrent so half the garden stayed unmolested. I'm sure if you do keep the girls in the Eglu run during the day while you're at work, damage will be kept to a minimum and if the Eglu is moved on regularly, you'll give the grass chance to recover.

 

Good luck with the garden :wink: .

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Hi Trish - I'd noticed we had the same hen signatures.

Sybil is the best layer of my pair - last summer she was on 14 eggs per fortnight compared to Pollo's 13 per fortnight! Having not kept modern hybrids before this astonished me. Over the winter it has kept up much better than I expected - Sybil perhaps missing one day a fortnight and Pollo one day a week. The eggs are about 5 - 10g smaller than in the summer. I'll be interested so see how long they keep this up. They are certainly not being kept in 'intensive' conditions with artificial light and heating and they get far too many treats - for best egg production I should feed them only on layers mash/pellets.

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I have to move the eglu every couple of weeks and the back lawn is looking very sorry It isn't in great condition but i have plans to have it nice I will eventually have a pen for them but i have some other work to do the back garden first. I was going to let them free range a bit but now I know how destructive they can be no chance. If you value the lawn don't let them roam unsupervised :)

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Thanks for all the advice everyone - I guess it's just a case of give it a go and see how much the garden can tolerate!! I don't have a huge garden so far as the lawn is concerned but I do have lots of shrubby areas and trees etc and I suppose I am hoping that they will have more fun scratching around under the trees and shrubs than digging up the lawn :?

 

Certainly there are lots of interesting little areas in the shrubby sections with lots of twiggy leafy stuff to scratch in. I'm sure they will find it more productive bug-wise too. If it all gets too much we'll have to resort to the bark trick!

 

Maybe if I bury some bits of sweetcorn in the shrubby areas every now and then they will develop a tendancy to dig in those areas in their continual search for sweetcorn? Has anyone else ever tried this?

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No but they love it if you go digging in the flowerbeds with a hand trowel! They'll unearth all sorts of bugs and worms and it'll keep them off the lawn for ages!! You don't need to do a lot of digging to keep them happy either - just a little hole with some overturned earth will do!!

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