Wednesday came and a trip to the hospital was our next adventure, Leo took a tumble and split his forehead open, a general anaesthetic, 6 stitches and 4 hours later and our day was just about over.
Thursday and Friday were a lot smoother apart from the torrential rain I had a great night out on Friday. I went to see the production of "Cats" with my Mum, Sister and Niece. We had a wonderful "girly" time, lots of giggling and laughing.
Now that my darling husband is on board with my idea to get some chickens I am now planning where to house them. We have a very large front garden so I have decided to put them there. As they will be out the front it can't look too shabby, so I saw this iamge on Urban Dirt and thought how pleasing on the eye this chicken coop and picket fence looked. Maybe this is the look we are after, the neighbours could never complain about a messy looking front garden!!
Chickens are great, but if you are worried about what the neighbours think bear in mind that chickens scratch a lot and will wreck the grass or whatever is underfoot. They also make a large number of smelly deposits, which neighbours with sensitive noses could find offensive.On the other hand, I'm sure your neighbours would be glad of occasional gifts of fresh eggs.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how large your front garden is, but I wonder if you are more likely to get eggs or even your chickens stolen if they are so much on show to passers-by? I feel ours are safer out the back, but then our front garden is quite small.
We have a very large front garden approx 600 square meteres, with lots of trees and quite a tall front fence with big gates. So they won't be very accessible to passers by. Also by placing them out the front they won't be anywhere newar the neighbours. We are thinking of 2 or 3 chickens at this stage. Please let me know your thoughts as I am new to the chicken "thing"!
ReplyDeleteHi Sarah... sounds good to me and I love the look of the posh chicken coop. 2 or 3 sounds like a good start, but I'll bet you'll want to get some more quite soon.
ReplyDeleteI'd advise against hybrids - they lay plenty of eggs but don't seem as healthy as pure-breeds. We've found Cuckoo Marans to be great, they have a nice look and temperament and they lay nice dark brown eggs and we love our Cream Legbar, who is naughty but lays lots of nice pale blue eggs.
I'd think they would hop over the picket fence (even if you clip their wings) from time to time but that's ok if you don't mind seeing them on the lawn. They will eat some of your nice green plants but this will just make the yolks a deeper orange!
One final warning - they'e great time wasters as you watch their antics.
Good luck.
Wider Sky.
Hi Wider Sky,
ReplyDeleteLooking at a 1.2 meter high fence and the rest of our garden is fenced again, I will let them free range for half of the day or after they have laid. I am not sure if we can get those breeds of chickens in Australia. I was looking at Rhode Island Reds and Australorps, good layers and not flighty! I think 3 will be enough, I was aiming for 4 but my husband loves his garden (mainly the lawn)!!!! He will be very upset to see it destroyed. I am sure he will fall in love with the very yummy eggs and tolerate the odd little patch of dirt here and there!
Thanks for all your advice.
Sarah