Poorly chicken

[jennym]

Hello everyone,

 

We have just picked up our eglu classic, the run extension is coming tomorrow and we're going shopping for 3 lovely ladies on Saturday. We're not sure what to do about the run - if we move it once a week or so, won't we eventually just end up with lots of eglu-run shaped areas that have all been torn up?

 

We're tempted by the idea of a permanent run but I'm not sure how it would work. The omlet guide suggests putting down edging and filling it to 5cm depth with wood chips, then raking it out once a month. Isn't that an awful lot of chips to dispose of & replace every month? I'd have thought that would get expensive. Or can you pick out soiled chips and put back some of them once you've sorted through them?

 

Thanks for your help,

Jen

[Sam]

Hello I'd suggest a permanent place for the eglu, even if you do move it every week eventually the grass will be destroyed. I know ours did after a little white and we had eglu shapes in the grass, but they've gone now. I use wood chip in their wir and have replaced it once since we first got them, which was around september. Others on here leave it longer though. I just rake over it now and again. Have fun shopping !

[gongladosh]

We've got a walk-in run, and on the floor we use bark chippings. Beneath that we have paving slabs to minimise the risk of foxes. We have a row outside the run also, in case.

 

We tend to poo-pick daily to keep on top of it, and once a month we replace the lot - the old bark chippings goes in our green recycle bin.

 

It's not too expensive - we use one 100l bag of bark chippings which costs about £6.50 - not too bad given that it lasts a month.

 

Good luck with the hens, you'll end up loving them in no time!

 

Have you thought about breeds yet?

[52fish]

Avoid bark and ensure you get wood chip - should last for 6 months so you only need to replace twice a year.

Our love mucking around in the wood chips. We added a sand bath which gets scattered everywhere and so when it rains it gets a little muddy, but not quite a mud bath - the girls love it

[migsy]

I've done the Omlet suggestion. You need to get hardwood chips for it to work. Yes, you need loads of bags but you do not need to replace the chips, just top them up sometimes. The rain washes the poo into the ground. You must rake it every few days though for this to work successfully.

[jennym]

Thanks guys, sounds like a permanent run is the way to go, and maybe not so much work. Thanks for the advice.

 

> Have you thought about breeds yet?

 

We (well, I) have been thinking about that a lot. We'll be going to www.widgits.co.uk on Saturday, and they have a pretty good selection. Mainly we want 3 QUIET (I know, it's hard to predict!) ladies, who will be happy to be in the run when we're at work. We'll let them out when we're home but there are too many foxes around here so they'll be in the run during the day. Nothing too flighty, ideally we'd like them to like us too, and come for cuddles, treats etc. We do want eggs, though we don't necessarily need 3 champion egg-layers for the two of us!

 

I'm thinking about:

 

White Star

Speckeldy

Bluebell

Warren

 

They might have some wyandottes as well, which sound lovely if they aren't too expensive. I'm hoping that we'll just know when we see/handle them what we want...

 

Jen

[billathome65]

I'm going to build a permanent walk in run where the existing run is now as it makes it a lot easier to keep them clean me thinks. It's a learning curve for us newbies.

 

Bill

[migsy]

Warrens would be very good for a run but definitely not a White Star - too flighty.