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My partner and I have been looking into rehoming some chickens for a few months now. We thought we could re home some battery chickens from the British Hens Welfare Trust or similar, however there are a few concerns we would like to address before we go ahead and get some chooks.

a) We have a really small back garden and don't think we have enough room to rotate the chooks on the grass, wondered if a more permanant enclosure would be suitable with hay/straw on a solid base, with plenty of supervised roaming on the grass.

b) We have four cats....will they get on with each other, will the cats think we just bought them a super duper dinner, will the chickens feel threatened?

c) We'd need to build a nice home for the hens - we have a shed which needs to come down and we were proposing to recycle the wood from that to build the coop, but not a clue where to start with designs etc. I just know you need a perch, laying box and access for you and the chickens but no clue on size or anything else.

Any help or tips would be much appreciated! Thanks guys!

The British Hen Welfare Trust http://www.bhwt.org.uk is a superb place to get your ex-battery hens from, because they also have back-up careline phone number if you run in to problems, and they're doing a fantastic amount of education with the public on choosing free range, and they support British Farmers, so well done you - it's where I get my ex-batteries from!

To have a go at answering your questions...

1. I keep mine on a permanent enclosure. I started out rotating an ark with run on the grass, but even if you have a big area, they soon destroy it. My girls are fully enclosed (including a wire roof) to keep foxy out, and I pick up the poo daily (my fun morning ritual !), and once a week give it a really good rake over (with girls constantly under your feet looking for bugs!). Every six weeks or so I also get in there with a spade and turn the soil over. In winter, I tend to put down wood chips as it can get a big boggy in really wet weather. I also covered part of the run with a solid roof (I collect the rainwater then too!) as it gives the girls somewhere to go when it's peeing down outside, and somewhere to hang their food and drinkers from. Where their house is I put some paving slabs down, and wash that down when I do the weekly clean out. I've kept my chickens in this way, on the same ground, for about 5 years, and have happy, healthy girls.

2. Cats have never been a problem for me - firstly, the girls are totally secure in an enclosed run - it keeps foxes out, it keeps cats out too! And the chickens soon get used to the cats and vica-versa, they just ignore each other. Secondly, if you let your girls out to free range every so often, the cats will not try and attack a chicken, they're too big, and the sight of four chickens with wings stretched out and flapping and running towards them, soon sends a cat running the other way!

3. Check out online, there are plenty of books on amazon.co.uk, and I expect there'll be plenty of plans - lots of people convert sheds really successfully for chicken houses.

Finally - good luck and enjoy it!

It should be easy to convert your shed (without fully dismantling it) into happy chicken HQ.

I personally would be reluctant to keep chooks permanantly on a small amount of space, but plenty of people do it and have happy healthy birds so I know it is doable. Maybe they all clean out the run everyday (not my idea of fun)

Similarly I decided not to go for ex-bats first time around as I felt I needed girls who knew how to be chickens... rather than poorly little things that needed nursed back from the brink... that, and the fact that there was a 2 year waiting list in our area for ex-bats.

My cat hates our chooks and keeps well away, they are bigger than her too and she is more scared of them than the other way round.


Hope some of that helps feel free to ask more here anytime

Thanks for the tips guys, its good to get a couple of different opinions on the chooks! I think I'll see what the recommended space is for each chicken before we do anything else, I'd hate to have them without enough space.
I will have a look on Amazon for plans for a house.

Will let you know how I get on!