first house and first chickens!!

[thomasgreen]

and so our first house is finally ours!! i really wish for it not to rain tomorrow as i am planning to chicken proof the garden ready for them to arrive sooooooooon :D i am very excited so am telling as many people as i can


but hurrah!!

[happy place]

i'm so jealouse my chickens are still in the planning stage
i nearly got them for my birthday but then my dad decided i'd prefur jeans and smart clothes still hopefully i can get them for crimbo


for your chicks

[Millymollymandy]

Congratulations but hadn't you better do the unpacking first?

[invisiblepiper]

Sounds great! I am thinking of chickens - but I watch the foxes in the garden most mornings, strutting around as though they own the place, and it seriously puts me off!

[John Headstrong]

Sounds great! I am thinking of chickens - but I watch the foxes in the garden most mornings, strutting around as though they own the place, and it seriously puts me off!

yer, I know what you mean, before my lurcher was killed last year the fox would not come into my garden, if it came near she would chase it back home, also the rabbit population has shot up, other people in the street have major problems with rabbits, I have been lucky that not to many rabbits have found my patch (luck and the lay of the land)

I am still planning on getting chickens myself, I have the area marked out, I just need to find some thick wire mesh for the fencing (chicken wire is for keeping chickens in, not foxes out)

my basic plan to keep foxes and rabbits out is tidy up fence around garden, maybe a few more posts, then build the chicken compound approx 8 foot high then inside the compound the chicken house and run.

my problem is I have not cash for it, so I am blagging the local house builders for resources and recycling stuff people have dumped.

[red]

congrats

done wory about the unpacking.. we have been here for over 2 years, in that time we have taken down a floor/ ceiling and rebuilt it, rebuilt a supporting wall, build a greenhouse, built kicthen cupboards out of bits of the old ones, re-plumbed some of the radiators in new positions, put up miles of fencing, built a hen run, got sheep and chickens, had our first lambs, had our first chicks raised to chickens, reroofed a large shed, had repairs to the house roof dug 9 large veg beds....

and we have nothing like unpacked.

enjoy!

[ina]

and we have nothing like unpacked.

enjoy!

Got the kettle out? What more do you want!

[thomasgreen]

ahahaha get the kettle out! that was the first thing we did!! i took down the old polystyrene tiles and stripped the ceiling of the dining room ready for some polyfiller and paint. Also cleaned up and boarded a fire place in the spare room to stop the draft coming down whilst its not in use.... PLUS had tim to have hour and a half lunch break for tea and toast with the very lovelly chap who sold us the house!! He explained the log burning stove to me which was handy, i didnt want to guess incase i burnt the place down

unpacking will happen later on..... after xmas maybe

the chickens are going to love playing around in the garden, there is lotsa bushes/hedges to dig in! i bet there is MILLIONS of bugs around for them to chase!!

[happy place]

unpacking only if your staying there for ever i have boxes i have moved twice and still not got round to unpacking ,maybe i should just dump them but if i do i can garentee that i will need somthing out of them(if only i knew wot was in them)

[thomasgreen]

he he he! my friends mum cleared out her garage this summer, she didnt even look in the boxes she had? She said that she hadn'y needed anything in them for the last 3 years so the contents can't be that important?! I'd be worried that there was something useul/useful (even something with useful bits on it i could whip off and use)...

chickens are arriving this weekend, i spent todat whacking missmatched bits of an old a frame coop and avary together to build a bigger coop for my new eggy pals... i am happy as i have only spent around £30-everything else was found/given to me!! cheers for leftovers and scrap eh

[Ellendra]

She said that she hadn'y needed anything in them for the last 3 years so the contents can't be that important?!

I seem to recall a lot of people getting rich finding antiques that were thrown out like that.

[becks77]

Good luck with the chooks, how many ?what make? what names? Unpacking?...still doing ours..been here 10 years

[thomasgreen]

my best friends sister has 17 chickens and is giving me 4...i am unsure of the make. We are thinking themes for names, for example our cat is hugh grant, next one that is coming in a few months will be julia roberts (from the film Notting Hill). We are thining either our female granparents (Sylvia, Doreen, Joan and Iris)?? communist leaders of histiry(Ho Chi Minh, Karl Marx etc). I toyed with the idea of calling them all Andrea in honour of my friend Andrea but thought that may confuse them??

Any other suggestions for names?!

I have just about finished the coop after my night shift last night I also got a call yesterday (which was my birthday) saying i have been allocated a half plot at the allotments 2 mins from our new house?! got the log burning stove going too I am so very excited about all of this that i keep forgetting to finish jobs that need doing to decorate the bedroom and have startedjobs in almost all other rooms :S

We are apparently in an area (Oare in Kent) that is super for birdwatching too! So if anybody is out looking or birds then pop in for a cuppa!!

[red]

it all sounds great. do some pictures when you get the chickens eh?

[happy place]

naming chooks i would never name something i may eat
i may sound harsh but i firmly believe that chooks, pigs, sheep, cows and any thing else we keep to feed us. should be kept in the best conditions we can give them but they are not pets they are food and we shouldn't forget that.
that said if you want to keep them as pets keep them past their productive prime until they die of old age; name away, as i said not my thing but if we were all the same it would be a very boring place