Getting Started

Owning and keeping chickens can be great fun and they will provide you and your family with delicious fresh eggs too!  They are incredibly easy to look after and don’t have take up much room so are an ideal first addition to any would be smallholder. If your hens are well cared for they can live up to six or even ten years!

Whether you’re thinking of owning chickens for the first time, or if you’ve already got an establised brood, M A Grigg can offer everything you need! From, housing, bedding, feeders and drinkers to fencing. If you have any questions please contact us either via email, phone or call in to the store where one of our friendly members of staff will help and guide you in any way they can.

Like any animal Chickens need daily care and commitment. If you are not able to provide this for any reason you must arrange for a reliable person to care for them during such times.

Choosing your Chickens

First you need to choose your chicken!  Children love getting involved with anything like this and it’s a good way to introduce them to an informed understanding the food chain. You’ll need to decide whether you want your chickens just for eggs and a pet or for meat as well.  There are lots of different breeds to choose from. The best kind for the first time owner looking for a pet and a few eggs is probably one of the hybrid breeds.  These bids have been bred to lay regularly and can lay one egg a day.  A dual purpose bird lays eggs and is ideal for meat as well.

There are various local suppliers who will be very happy to explain the different breeds and the advantages of each. To get started, it is best to buy ‘point of lay’ chickens.  These are around 16 weeks old and as the name suggests, ready to start laying eggs.  If you visit our store there are often ‘point of lay’ chickens advertised for sale. Your breeder may also have had the chickens vaccinated but it is always best to check this with them. Cipping the chickens wings prevents them from flying away so ask whether they have clipped their wings and if not then they may show you how to do it yourself.

There are several poultry and egg showing events through out Cornwall the biggest on of the year being the Royal Cornwall Show in the Poultry section. This is an annual show held in June well worth a visit.

Chicken Terminology

Chick – a young chicken

Cockerel - a young male chicken, which becomes a cock (or rooster) at a certain age*

Pullet - a  young female chicken, which becomes a hen at a certain age*

* The age at which a cockerel becomes a cock and a pullet becomes a hen depends on what type of chicken is being raised. Purebred poultry producers have very age-specific definitions. A bird is a cockerel or pullet if it is less than one year of age. After one year of age, the chicken is referred to as a cock or hen. In the commercial industry a sexually mature male chicken (around five months of age) is referred to as a rooster.  A female chicken is called a hen after it begins egg production (again, around five months of age).

Capon - a castrated male chicken.  These are valued for their meat as the lack of testosterone and slower ageing giving more time for weight and fat gain makes for better flavour.

Broiler – a chicken reared for meat rather than for eggs.

Layer – a chicken reared for eggs rather than meat.

Broody - a hen who has laid a clutch of eggs and is now sitting on them full time.

Bantam – a miniature breed of poultry.

Comb - the fleshy red protuberance on the top of a chicken's head.

Dewlap - the single flap of skin below the beak of turkeys and some geese.

Wattles - the fleshy red things hanging under a chicken's beak.

Chook (rhymes with "book") - Australian term for a hen, as in "A flock of chooks."

Space requirements for Chickens

At least one nest for every seven hens.

If group nests are used, there must be at least 1m2 of nest space for a maximum of 120 hens; perches, without sharp edges and providing at least 15 cm per hen.

Perches must not be mounted above the litter and the horizontal distance between perches must be at least 30 cm and the horizontal distance between the perch and the wall must be at least 20 cm; and at least 250 cm2 of littered area per hen, the litter occupying at least one third of the ground surface.

Only perches at 30cm centres or more apart should be calculated as part of the perching space, although more perches may be provided adjacent to one another to make a perforated floor. Perforated floors can be considered as perching space when they have perches incorporated within the floor structure or attached on top of the floor surface.

Hens like to live in groups with a definite pecking order. We recommend a group of 3 so if anything happens to 1 then there are still 2 left. You should never keep one hen by it's self.

Each hen will lay 5-6 eggs / week on average, less or none during the winter.

No. Only if you want to raise your own chicks. The hens will quiet happily lay eggs without a male around. If a breeder tries to sell you a trio of 2 hens and a cockerel decline the offer unless you know what you're buying.

Very easy as long as you fulfil a few basic requirements.

They need somewhere dry and draught free to sleep. They don't normally mind cold weather as they are supplied complete with feather duvet.

They need somewhere safe from predators. The main one is Mr Fox who will almost certainly visit your garden at some point.

They need a supply of food and water.

They need to be checked on a daily basis and have the eggs collected.

You need to have enough room for all the birds to perch at the same time. If you get this right the house will be big enough. You'll find calculating the size this way requires a slightly larger house than calculations based on the number of hens/metre that some manufacturers use.

You should allow 15cm / bird for most breeds, adjusted for larger or smaller breeds. Allow room for an extra bird on the end so they can move about - 3 birds need 45cm + 15cm = 60cm of perch. Perches need to be 20 cm from the wall. They also need a bit of room to jump up. This gives a minimum size for 3 birds of 60x60 cm.

Due to the number of urban foxes we strongly advise against allowing poultry to free range in an urban setting. We feel a secure run is a must. You have a duty of care to protect any animal you keep from physical harm. A fox will kill all your hens but may only take one away to eat.

The amount of space required is largely down to personal preference in the back garden setting.

You could have a small run which is moved every few days to a fresh place but you may quickly run out of fresh ground unless you have a substantial garden (a 2 meter run moved once a week would need an area of 50 square meters if you are to let the grass recover underneath). Our Preferred method is to keep them in an enclosed run with as large an area as possible, ideally around 1 square meter / bird. We find that a small area requires cleaning more often.

The bottom of the run can be filled with wood chip, saw dust, pebbles or rubber chip. All these are easy to clean and will still allow the hens the scratch around. A roof over the top will keep everything drier which in turn keeps smells down and reduces the chances of the hens creating too much mud.

Based in these dimensions the majority of poultry houses with attached run, especially the cheap imported ones, are far too small for anything more than 1 or 2 hens.