I have been thinking of british scale garden amounts.. but looks like I should be dreaming of bigger and better gardens & land, veggie plots & flocks of assorted chooks!

how did you all learn about keeping chickens? did you do a course or just self taught? I'm definitely scaling up my dream garden to acreage now!

Like ours..............we have 3!!

Still, enough for us!

Here in the UK we've had our names down for an allotment for aaaaages but still no sign of one becoming available . We'll prob be in NS before one ever becomes available!!! I think it'd make sense to start with a small number... just to learn what i'm supposed to do then depending on how I get on I can see my numbers increasing!

1. Don't buy Storey's Guide to Keeping Chickens. Every possible approach to any chicken related issue is recommended on one page or another rendering it useless. The quality of the writing is such that it seems poultry scribbled it.

2. You don't have to do much, chickens are alive or dead, no need for a vet, grooming, any great attention.

3. To raise chickens for the pot, chicks sold as meat birds, you need a strong stomach. Those genetically modified freaks can't be free ranged because in moments they reach a body size such that their legs cannot carry them.

4. Dual purpose or laying hens have no meat on them.

5. We learned about chicken slaughter from this web page: http://www.gatewaytovermont.com/thefarm/chickens.htm Eviscerating chickens is not a pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Pictures of the process somewhere way back in the blog. More graphic pictures available on request.

6. Chickens are very low maintenance. Mine are cared for as follows. Twice daily, fill feeder. One daily, collect eggs. Semi-annually, shovel shavings and shit from chicken coop on to manure pile. Occasionally, collect remains of dead chicken.

7. Not much of a facility is required, a shed, an old truck trailer, any sort of structure will do but it needs to be insulated and the insulation protected from pecking. Lots of chickens are easier than a few chickens as they can huddle for warmth, you want to fill your structure.

8. A heat lamp is needed over the bucket, or whatever, so their water doesn't freeze over. This means having power to the structure. Filling the bucket in winter requires running water or carried water, think about that before setting them up in a structure far from the house and/or tap.

9. Contrary to popular perception chickens range quite widely, my wander over a radius of half a mile from their coop, so you might want to think about proximity to roads and the like.

I think that's a comprehensive statement of my knowledge of chicken keeping.

My other half has a couple of books, not sure which and we get advice from the guys at the feed store or local farmers that we have come to know.

As dbd33 says they are very simple to keep, especially if you only have a few.

we do not dispatch our own birds. we send them to a man who slaughters and dresses them for $3.50 a piece. Worth evry cent in my book.
He does the turkeys for $6.50.
If we had to dsipatch them we would not eat them. I know,,,, I am not a real farmer, just a glorified townie playing at it, but most of the farmers I know send them in to be slaughtered too.

We raised meat kings (the commercial meat birds) last year and didn't like it as they hardly moved and just sat and got fat, no free ranging involved, but we have just go anther 15 and they seem to be more mobile that last years. Next week we will put them out in the day and let them scratch about.
I know dual purpose birds won't be as big, but I am going to try some in the spring and see how it goes.

oh good I'm so glad someone else would do the necessary for us and i agree worth it as scuse the pun.. but I know I'd be too chicken to do it! I never realised there were so many different breeds of chickens depending on what you needed them for..

Signs beside the roads around here offering "Custom Killing" were an eye opener at first....my first thoughts were "Hang on a minute , this isnt New Jersey!"

We used a chicken facility the first year but it seemed like cheating so then there was this:

http://upperappalachia.blogspot.com/...-plucking.html

.

I have one of those for the horse trough, the chickens' bucket isn't big enough for one. It still needs power.

Are there rules about selling the eggs? Or can you just sell them at the gate like you do here?

The rules are different between the provinces.
Here in NB we can keep up to 200 commercial birds before becoming licensed. In ON I believe it is 100.
Herritage breeds are unregulated (so I have been told).

Our farm insurance covers us to sell from the farm and on farmers markets.

Again ON may well be different.

The laws governing agricultural products in Ontario would make an EU bureaucrat proud. Basically, you can keep up to 300 chickens so long as they're registered and you track purchased feed given to them. However this doesn't mean that you can sell poultry products.

There's a "farm gate" exemption for eggs sales, meaning that you can sell them over the fence but it's not lawful to sell free range eggs, all eggs for legal sale must come from chickens raised on concrete floors or in cages. If you do want to sell eggs you need an egg sanitizing machine and a quota (good luck with getting one of those, the cost is such that it only works if you're running a chicken concentration camp).

In consequence of the regulations a distribution network similar to those for marijuana or raw milk has sprung up around me. I drop off eggs in dark places ar strange hours and money, cash only, small bills, flows back to me. Note that there is a strong "**** the government" attitude among many people in the country so places like the feed mill and the poultry dealers make an effort not to comply with the regulations; 99% of the chicken feed I've purchased has been by unrecorded transaction, it's only the TSC store that requires your SIN, sample DNA and a photograph of your gun licence before selling you grain.

Wow!!! That I did not expect! Thanks so much for all the info Am thinking I may well wait a while before I look into getting my Canadian Chicks!