4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[Drew and Alan]

Hi everyone

We are Drew and Alan, a gay married couple both originaly from the UK, now trying to live the good life in our tiny small holding in mid west France.

We are currently 'chickenless' as we are renovating our old stone chicken house. We are new to keeping chickens and its going to be a few months till the renovation work on their new house is finished (doing it ourselves!!). We were wondering how many chickens we could / should house in our chicken house. the internal measurments are 3m by 3m by 2 mtres high. Outside run / free ranging space is not a problem, nor are neighbour worries about noise etc. We havent been able to find out any space limits per hen. Also do you have to introduce the hens in one go, or stagger their introduction like you do when stocking a fish tank for example! We dont want them chocablock in there, but would they get scared or nervous if there were too little hens in such a space? luckily we have a few months to get more clued up!!

 

And we also do not want to keep cockerals either, and would prefer mid sized (not dwarf) hens just for eggs / to be part of the family and not for meat if that makes any difference.

 

sorry if this is an obvious / stupid question to post! but we are new to the site and to chickens!!!

 

thank you for taking the time to read this post and for any advice you could give us! And if on the off chance anyone on here is near to us in Deux Sevres, Poitou Charentes, please feel free to pop in for a glass of wine and talk 'chicken' )

 

kindest regards

 

a plus!

 

Drew and Alan

[tom123]

Hello!

 

In that house you could technically have about 81 hens at night but I'm sure you wouldn't want that many! I would say a minimum of about 20 ish

 

I would go with some hybrids to start of with like warrens and black rocks then build up to Sussex, wyandottes, Barnvelders, welsummers etc All these are mid-sized including the hybrids which you will get LOTS of eggs from

 

Good Luck

Tom

[kitbag]

Hi guys! I'm not sure about how many chickens,(I am fairly new to chooks too!) but just wanted to say welcome to the forum! Sorry Im not much help!!

[KateG]

Can't offer any more advice but would love to hear more about your French adventure - sounds like pure bliss to me!

[Ness3103]

i can't offer any advice as i'm a newbie but just wanted to say hi

[Drew and Alan]

thanks for the welcome everyone!

Will add some photos once we work out how to resize them!!! Too tired to try to figure out how to do it tonight as have had a busy day taking down the old roof on the chicken house and its 300 years of neglect, dust, dirt and dried old chicken poo.... not a nice task!

 

thanks again!

 

Drew n Alan

[K-F-C]

I suppose numbers may be influenced by how many eggs you hope to get... do you plan on selling them? If so... how many do you think you could sell / consume per week?

[hilda-and-evadne]

would prefer mid sized (not dwarf) hens just for eggs / to be part of the family and not for meat if that makes any difference.

 

I would have lots of marans - handsome bird and a French breed. As you see, I have only one maran but if I had the space I would have so many more. How about buff orpingtons - child's picture book hens, nice temperament. Then gold laced wyandotte and silver laced wyandotte. Oh, I am so - lots of pictures, please, when you get your hens.

 

Edited for typo.

[Drew and Alan]

Hi! thnx for that! wont be selling them (great idea though), but would like around 24 eggs a week, but more wouldnt be a problem! so many recipes to try! and then again Alan loves pickled eggs which we cant buy in France so having jars full of those would keep him happy!!

 

81 hens would be too many!!!!! gona cost us a fortune buying all these chickens!!

[chick wiggle]

Hi guys and welcome. This forum is great for any help and advice you may need. Your set up sounds idylic except all the dust and dirt etc that comes with building Good luck with it all and yes piccies would be great (not that we're a nosey bunch you understand )

[poachedegg]

Can't offer any more advice but would love to hear more about your French adventure - sounds like pure bliss to me!

Me too!

 

Welcome to the forum.

[ubereglu]

You need to have at least 1 square foot per bird and then one nestbox per 4 birds.

 

I have 4 chickens and am getting about 20 eggs per week, so if you got 5 or 6 you'd easily have 24 eggs per week, which you said you'd want, depending on breeds. Hybrids tend to lay 6 eggs a week, but pure breeds will lay 4 or 5. The only limitation to which breeds you get are what you can get hold of locally.

[Samuel Morse]

Hi guys, I'm a newbie too, but welcome from me. Your French adventure sounds great. Best of luck.

[K-F-C]

Hi! thnx for that! wont be selling them (great idea though), but would like around 24 eggs a week, but more wouldnt be a problem! so many recipes to try! and then again Alan loves pickled eggs which we cant buy in France so having jars full of those would keep him happy!!

 

81 hens would be too many!!!!! gona cost us a fortune buying all these chickens!!

 

 

Welcome to the forum guys!

 

Yep 4 or 5 chickens should be good for that amount of eggs! They will have loads of space in your chicken house... it will be a real chicken palace!

 

Make sure you share any good recipes!

 

Dave

[Redwing]

Hi and welcome, what a lovely part of the world to live in, we have had some happy adventures in mid west France and the food there is somthing else, you lucky things

 

Hybrids will lay like little machines but only for a couple of years then things start to slow down a bit, if you stock up now you will end up with lots of retired hens later. Pure breeds will lay for more years but less eggs a week

 

Perhaps start with a reasonable amount with a view to adding to the flock later down the line to stagger retirements

[Drew and Alan]

hi everyone!

 

thanks for the help! its getting us all excited about the thought of owning chickens!!! just need to find someone whos selling them. Have come up with names for 6 so far!! Alan isnt too keen on having more than 6 to start with ! but we'll see! still trying to convince him on getting a goat or pig for our pig house....

 

have figured out how to add an avatar pic of us . have no idea if we can add other photos! would like to add some of the chicken house so people can give us some much needed advice on it! have so many questions to ask.... but dont want to seem stupid or annoying!!!

 

a bientot

 

Drew n Alan

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Hi Drew & Alan .

 

You ask away . We never get fed up of hearing about people's plans, especially when they're a bit different, like yours .

 

Your question about how to introduce your hens hasn't been answered yet - you really are best to get them all together as if you have more than a few days apart between them, there can be bickering & fighting. If you get all 6 (sounds like a good number!) from the same place, they'll all be friends already and will settle in really well .

 

Here is a guide to adding photos. Not that we're in a hurry to see your photos or anything .

[MadAboutChooks]

Hi There.

Welcome to the forum.

[Lewis]

Sounds like a good idea

Introductions can be hard, so you're best to get them all at the same time, not stagger it like fish

 

Goats and pigs would be very

Would you raise them for meat or just as pets?

Maybe you could get some meat birds for the hen house, or some turkeys (though they shouldn't really be kept with chickens), sounds like you have plenty of room or am I getting a bit carried away?

[quickcluck]

Hi Guys,

 

Just wanted to say helloooooooooooo

 

You will love chicken keeping, I'm fairly new at it and loving every minute!

 

Have you looked to see what breeds you have locally? I'd get a mix of pure breeds for their lovelyness and hybrids for the egg production! And as Redwing says you can add more at a later date to stagger the retirements!

 

Do you have foxy loxy in France? I only ask incase they will be free ranging without protection!

 

P.S great avatar, but which ones which

[Cinnamon]

Hi & welcome

 

Lovely to have you on board.

 

You might like to speak to jackiepoppies, a forum member who is also located in France, although I am not sure where.

 

A couple of points have come to mind reading through all the good advice I have seen here.

 

Firstly,if you maximize your space,that would be a good thing for the hens. They love little ledges,perches & things to jump about on,so if you can manage to incorperate those into your pen,it will only help them to be happy hens.

 

Secondly if you do go for pure breeds,not only will they lay fewer eggs a week,but they will stop laying altogether over the darker winter months,which is a huge factor to consider.

 

Personally I have a mix of hybrids for the big year round eggs & pure breeds for the longevity & for their beauty.

 

Hope this helps

 

ps - I am on a promise to my husband that one day we too will live in France

Just got to get rid of the teenagers first

[Daphne]

Welcome - you're living many people's dreams!

 

My SIL and MIL live in Normandy and I'm doing my best to persuade SIL to get hens. I've already succeeded with my brother who lives in Oz so it will be done!!

 

You've got heaps of space there - you need to make sure all gaps in the mortar/stones are plugged to stop any rats (they can make off with eggs/chew feathers). It'll be nice and cool for your girls in the summer as I guess heat can be a bit of a problem? I'd consider plenty of perches/ledges indoors for amusement in case they do go in more.

 

Re breeds - if its eggs you want then I would go for a mix of pure breeds and hybrids as the PBs don't lay thru winter. I'd check out the French breeds and see what you can get hold of. How exciting

[ClaireG]

Hello. Everyone has given you great advice and i can't think of anything to add at the moment!! I'm looking forward to seeing some pics of your chook palace.

[Drew and Alan]

Hi / Morning everyone!

 

thanks for ur comments! everyone is so friendly on here!!! wow!!!

 

its absolutely chucking it down with rain here today so work on the chicken house has stopped... so we are gona head in to the town 20kms away and price up bits n pieces for it! and then go to our nearest village and as around about chickens! Our french isnt the best, and no one speaks english but we get by!!!

 

dont think we have foxes here, well, never seen any or signs of them so hopefully not! we have no outdoor lighting so when it goes dark , its dark so we cant see out lol! but we will fit some before the chickens arrive. The hens will have a large run too, depends on how much mesh we can afford but it will be big! would love the birds to be out of it alot of the time too. We only have an acre of land (not rich!!! lol ) and we have fenced it in so it should be safe for them. hopefully it will be warm in there fore them in winter, as we had minus 12 in the day time for like 2 weeks last Jan.... and a foot of snow...!

There was a big run on the chicken house but it was rotten and dangerous so we ripped it down when we moved in to the place. Nothing had been done on our house for atleast 50years so the place was a bit neglected! the previous owners were selfsufficient but due to ill helath n age they could cope with the house maintainance etc but we have electricity now!!! and the rain no longer pours in to the house when it rains!! lol!!

 

The hens will be for eggs and pets, so would any futher aditions to the family (ie goats!) as Drew is vegan (for religious reasons) but Alan loves eggs!!!!! Alan can have the eggs, Drew can have the courgettes! Alan despises courgettes as we had like 100 kilos growing in the veg plot last year and it was all we ate..!

 

and for the avatar pic, Drew is the tall one, Alan is the short(er) one!! )

 

thanks everyone once again for making us feel so welcome!!!

 

a bientot

 

Drew n Alan

[quickcluck]

You should check out Angels4 I know he is in the USA an had very low temperatures!!!