Is there anyone out there with some pearls of wisdom to share about keeping chickens in France? EG Are there any licences, registration or anything that you need even to keep just a few chucks for eggs for personal use? Has anyone bought birds from their local market and if so have they been OK? Any suggestions for the best place to buy pellets? I know in England DEFRA state that you should not feed chickens kitchen scraps are there any similar rules in France...
Oh, and our neighbour keeps those bald necked chickens which seem to be in every French garden near us and some available on the markets, but I don't like the look of them! are there better breeds that do well here?

I had English Sussex, and they were great, an excelent egg layer. Amazon has some great books on backyard chickens. The Omlet website is brilliant, every question, query and topic imaginable, and lots of their poster are spread all over Europe. My neighbours had the sad and badly kept numbers, and they were all very jealous of mine. The best bit of advise I read was 'don't buy your chickens from a market, nobody sends their best birds to market', I looked up chickens on Le Bon Coin, and got a local specialist breeder. I love chickens, a super animal which repays the attention you give it. Mine (I only had three at a time) all knew their names and loved a cuddle. I bought the Omlet Cube, hellishly expensive but a super coop. Best of luck, and do try the Omlet forum.

You'd do well to ask at your Mairie. The neighbours may have chickens but they may not be complying with the municipal bye-laws, and neither would you....
If it's of any interest, my British neighbour kept chickens until she realised that the cost of feeding them was more expensive than buying fresh eggs from another neighbour, esp. as hers weren't very prolific....

Some french friends of ours kept chickens.
Lovely fresh egg each morning!
The chickens got eaten by foxes.
No more fresh eggs.

Cyrian,
I had to read this twice.
The way it was written I expected it to ryme......

Now then, let's see........



I wish I had a chicken
I would teach it how to sing
Not just pop and rap stuff
But that Opera sort of thing

It could really make me money
Especially at the Met
Singing Pucini, Bizet, Verdi
Or even in quartet.

And if one day it’s voice broke
Now, then I’d be depressed
But that’s just life, so off we’d go
To Colonel Sanders place of rest

Do chickens sing in heaven?
Of that I cannot guess
But if they do, one things for sure
St Peter is in for a damn noisy surprise every morning before sunrise……….

- Tweedpipe

Well done Tweedipipe!

I only disagree with the last bit...chickens aren't noisy if you don't have a cockerel, my girls clucked, but no Cocorico business.

Made me smile TP - thanks

It is nonsense about not feeding your chickens kitchen scraps. Rice, pasta, potatoes etc are fine. Just don't give them meat. Gam Vert sell poultry feed.
It is best to let your chickens have a decent run. If they haven't got plenty of grass, tie some cabbage leaves together and hand them over the run so the chickens can reach them. We have kept chickens (in England) for over 15 years, no problem. And our neighbours like the sound of our cockerel.

Just leave your Defra directives and UK paranoia behind you. Keep a few hens, keep their house clean by giving it a spray down with Jeyes or some equivalent now and then, and enjoy them. They are entertaining as well as productive. When you muck out their home bung it on the compost heap. Chicken poo is very high in nitrates, etc. and certainly the stickyiest substance known to mankind. I have always bought from the market traders and never had a dud yet. Always healthy and literally at "point of lay". If they have a decent sized area to roam free in the amount of feed you need to buy is less because they scratch about and eat a lot of grass and insects. Kitchen scraps (veggie) are fine but more readily eaten if they are cooked, ie. not just raw potato peelings.

http://www.gallinette.net/index.php?page=creer

Scroll down to Réglementation and it tells you to ask at your Mairie what the local regulations are! At the very least, you should file a Déclaration Préalable before you construct a chicken-house between 5 and 20 m².

Good advice Whitetrash. If you have a wooden chicken house, as we do, rather than use the detergent, we just go over the inside quickly with a blow torch once a year.

I wish I had a chicken
I would teach it how to sing
Not just pop and rap stuff
But that Opera sort of thing

It could really make me money
Especially at the Met
Singing Pucini, Bizet, Verdi
Or even in quartet.

And if one day it’s voice broke
Now, then I’d be depressed
But that’s just life, so off we’d go
To Colonel Sanders place of rest

Do chickens sing in heaven?
Of that I cannot guess
But if they do, one things for sure
St Peter is in for a damn noisy surprise every morning before sunrise……….

Thanks Tweed pipe -great poem

Is that right, For example I thought the idea of the Garden shed and green house sizes here meant you didn't need to fill out any paper work, But to be fair they are pretty lax round these parts.

We don't need to build a chicken coop/house as we already have one that is built of breeze blocks and it all set up and ready to go after a good clean out and renovation of the boxes and perches. Its been there for about 50 years and so i assume the Marie wont have a problem with it! There is a great area outside it which we intend to fence off so birds have a reasonable outside space to roam and scratch and eat the slugs!

(DEFRA paranoia comes from the stuff we get re:transporting our dog some of which is fine, some of which is stupid! I was more concerned about feeding the chucks stuff that was not good for them rather than obeying the mighty DEFRA!)

Love the poem btw!