The Blogger’s Potted History

I think before I go any further I should give you a potted history of this Blogger.

First of all I am not a journalist, I am a doer. I came into writing half way through my life because I was being asked the same questions time and time again, and I thought the best thing would be to write a small book that would supply the answers to all those questions about keeping poultry. The result was the first book in the Gold Cockerel Series, Chickens at Home.

I come from a farming/industrial background, and on my fourth birthday I was given a trio of white Silkies. That was the start of my passion for domestic fowl, and when I visited Slimbridge at the age of 7 or 8 and met Peter Scott, this no doubt seeded the idea of one day creating a Domestic Fowl Trust.

Although I started in a small way at Dorsington, Honeybourne was always going to be the main centre. It was a 44 acre site with no house or buildings, and the Council, obviously convinced the project was doomed to fail, gave Planning Permission only on condition that any buildings I put up were temporary. The property was in poor shape, and I had to fence hundreds and hundreds of yards, not only against foxes but for sheep and pigs too. (See our book Farm and Smallholder Fencing in the Gold Cockerel Series for everything you need to know about fencing.) The place was alive with vermin, and in the first year 44 foxes, 48 magpies and numerous carrion crows were taken out. (Modern Vermin Control in the Gold Cockerel Series.)

As time went by the centre expanded, and was visited by the great and the good in growing numbers. I have written more books which Sara illustrated. I designed most of the poultry houses that are still sold at the DFT, and designed many more which appear in Poultry House Construction and Making Mobile Hen Houses, both in the Gold Cockerel Series.

In 1997 I decided to sell the business because my back was failing, and I had to have an operation. Sara and I moved to Devon to concentrate on writing. Where appropriate we ask relevant experts to produce books for us, but still write many of them ourselves from a position of first hand experience. We hope you enjoy reading them.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Michael Roberts

Worming Poultry

Most people who start to keep poultry, whether it is hens, bantams, ducks, geese, or turkeys never think about their birds having worms. They will happily worm their pets such as cats or dogs, but poultry is outside and not considered at risk. Poultry worms fall into three main categories, Round, Hair and Tape worms, but there are two other kinds, Caecal and Gape worms which are rarely seen in poultry. How are worms spread? They are picked up from the ground, but are mainly spread by wild birds, which is why nearly all commercial poultry production is now indoors. So what are the signs of a bird with worms?

In pullets, the signs are that the bird is not developing, not laying on time, always hungry, and light weight. In adult birds there may be no visual signs, perhaps they seem a little lazy and certainly hungry; they may have gone off lay, and can have loose whitish droppings turning to green at the end. But it is not until you pick the bird up that you know you have a thin bird on your hands. Duck and geese are very good at disguising the fact that they have worms, because of their thick feathers. The only visible sign is they become rather lame. Birds eventually are found dead under the perch, in a nest box, or outside, and you will be surprised how light in weight they are. Once you have experienced this you never forget it and that is why you should always have some worming powder in your medicine cupboard. What happens inside the bird? Depending on the type of worm and where it multiplies, it either blocks the intestine, gut or windpipe preventing the bird from ingesting nutrients, or it bores through the wall of the gut or intestine causing septicaemia. That is a very simplistic view of the cause of complaint or death.

How to prevent it? There are some herbal remedies on the market which I must confess that I haven’t used. The main reason for this, is that I was told by the ‘rep’ from the makers of Flubenvet that they use this drug under another name Mebendazole or Albendazole on babies in the developing world.

It is a very safe drug if used according to the maker’s instructions, and what I like about it is that you can eat the eggs from your birds during medication. But there is a 7 day delay after medication for the slaughter of any birds. Because it is such a fine white powder, I find that a little olive oil mixed with the food, be it pellets wheat, or cut maize, helps to combine it with the drug; otherwise the powder tends to collect in the bottom of the feeder. About day 5 or 6, watch out for packages of thin spaghetti-like dead worms which will pass with the droppings from some badly infected birds. This is most satisfying to see.

Janssen, the makers of Flubenvet, have very conveniently packaged this product into a small plastic self sealing pot, which is only about £18-00 as against the larger pot that was over £60.00. This blog sounds like an advert for Flubenvet, but believe me, from hard won experience, it is a marvellous drug and in most cases you will only need to worm your birds once a year, but because it is so safe every 6 months gives you peace of mind. Please see Poultry and Waterfowl Problems

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Walkers, Footpaths and Stiles.

10th August 2010

Most people who use the huge network of footpaths that criss-cross this country have little idea of their history, why they were made and the reason for stiles, often called obstacles in some guide books.

Why were footpaths made? The simple answer is that they were the shortest and often the straightest distance between two points. They were originally made by prehistoric man to get from one camp to another, one holy place or shrine to another, from mines, burial grounds, the sea or rivers. These paths were often marked by large stones, boulders, stone crosses, oak or yew trees, and passed through church yards, cathedrals, and by old wells. They were first described by Alfred Watkins, who gave them the name of ‘leylines’ in 1921. Ley can be spelt in several ways, lay, lie, lea, leye, according to the vernacular, hence we have so many names including or ending with ly, ley, leigh, etc. What I didn’t know until recently was that these lines can be dowsed (as in water), and it is possible that racing pigeons use these lines for navigating.

Obviously, these paths have been added to and altered over the centuries,

to enable people to walk to towns, villages, churches, wells for drinking water and to work. In fact people used these footpaths for the same sort of reasons that people take their cars out nowadays: to go market, church, fairs, funerals, the doctor, to get something mended, to sell goods or other services, and more importantly to go to work. I remember that until recently, an old man who worked as a gardener locally, walked 3 miles to work and 3 miles back again in the late afternoon. He said the footpaths were more direct than the roads. Why did people prefer to use footpaths rather than roads in the past? The answer is that roads in wet conditions were very muddy and mucky, because of the horse and cattle traffic, also wagons and coaches; footpaths offered stepping stones over streams and rivers, whereas roads normally had fords. Women always wore long skirts in the past and it wasn’t correct for them to hitch them up in those days.

Along the way, there were stiles; these were cattle proof gaps or ways through or over the fence, hedge, wall or dyke, which enabled the traveller to cross over boundaries between church land and other estates, from one enclosure/field to another. They were constructed mainly of local materials, stones, rock, slate, wood and latterly metal. Most of them were individually made.

There were many stiles built during the various Enclosures Acts prior to and during the 1800s when stiles could be bought out of Estate Catalogues. Some stiles are as old as the paths.

There are Cornish grid stiles, step stiles, ladder stiles, squeeze through stiles, mechanical stiles, clapper stiles, turnstiles and a host of ingenious farm made stiles. One of my favourites is a metal stile, from Monkton, near Bath. It is called The Fat Man’s Agony, or Fat Boy Slim stile. Perhaps it should be installed outside takeaway food shops!

There are over 160 different kinds of stiles and gates illustrated in our book Gates and Stiles from the Gold Cockerel Series, a popular classic about rural walks.

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Red Mite - Hens and Wild Bird Nest Boxes

29th June 2010

Red mite are normally seen in England in warmer weather. Their most active time is from April/May to October, but they can be active throughout the year in warm winter sheds. What are Red Mite? They are tiny insects (Arachnids) and belong to the same family as spiders and surprisingly scorpions with the Latin name Dermanyssus gallinae.

This implies that they live entirely on or by hens, but in fact they are carried and spread by wild birds, which is one of the reasons why wild birds can be seen taking a dust or water bath, sometimes even in a red ants’ nest, to get rid of mites, ticks and fleas. (This is why it is important to clean out wild birds’ nest boxes as this blood sucking creature will make the life of young birds in the nest a misery and they become anaemic and die.)

After hatching from tiny white eggs, which are normally laid in woodwork, the first phase of the life cycle of this mite is in nymph form which looks like white dust in and around the crevices in the wood work. Tongue and groove boarding makes an excellent home for these microscopic things. They have no wings but are able to float on the air in swarms. They are attracted by heat and dark places and require fresh blood to grow and mature into pin-head sized opaque or red adults (red if they have had a feed of blood) before laying eggs. The life cycle is very quick, 6-10 days in ideal conditions, but red mite can lie dormant for several years. The adults collect in clusters in the hen houses, near perches, on the walls, under faeces or nesting material, anywhere within easy reach of the next ‘meal’ - a sitting, laying or perching bird. If you squash a red one with your finger, there is always a smear of blood.

How do you know that you, or rather your hens, have Red Mite?! Apart from the visual signs when you open the hen house or nest boxes, in bad cases you will experience an itching sensation on your head and hands. Red mite don’t normally bite humans, but these insects have been known to be carried into the homes of people on their clothes, and end up on their chairs and sofas and even in their beds! In fact it makes me scratch to write this! If you have a bad infestation in your hen house(s ), you will probably have to undress in your garage and put all your clothes straight into the washing machine for a ‘boil wash’ when you have finished cleaning, spraying or painting the house!

What happens to the poor birds? As I have said it will kill young birds and growers as well, if there is a large colony of red mite in the house; it must be truly awful to be shut in a hen house overnight with these creatures itching and biting.

What are the signs? Adult birds will look pale, anaemic, and listless, (you have to think they haven’t slept a wink). They go off their food and often stop laying. There is a reluctance to be shut up at night, quite naturally, and the birds can be heard stamping up and down on their perches, as the mite crawl up their legs to have a feed. Broodies will ‘stand up’ and leave their eggs, and often there are the tell-tale signs of red specks (mite) on the warm eggs. So all in all, a rather tiresome pest to have around and nearly everyone experiences this at one time or another. What to do about it? In the old days creosote was used, and still can be, but it is a wood preserver, not an anti-mite solution. It is fine in hen houses which are not being used, but it has quite a strong smell. You can use a plumber’s gas torch, to attack the worst clusters, which is very satisfying as long as you don’t set fire to the whole hen house, but nowadays, there are several sprays, liquids and powders, based on pyretheum which do the job without harming the birds.

The secret here is to repeat the treatment every week for 3 weeks to break the mites’ life cycle, and then monthly, never forgetting that red mite is borne in by wild birds. I should mention the construction of hen houses and wild bird nest boxes. Never use roofing felt. Once it is fastened down, the underside cannot be got at and this is just the place where red mite love to be, dry and warm. If you can buy or make a hen house in sections so much the better, as it can be taken apart and cleaned thoroughly. This is particularly important if it is a second-hand or used one.

Alan Fenn - Trap designer and maker 1916-2001

10th June 2010

Alan Fenn at the Game Fair - Longleat 1962



His Fenn Trap Mk6 & Mk 4

His live catch double entry trap

The only other traps approved by the Ministry the Juby and the Imbra

Assortment of banned Gin and Pole traps

Alan was born in 1916 into a Norfolk game keeping family and followed his father into this profession. He moved to the Spetchley Estate near Worcester as an under keeper and it was here that his interest in making traps flourished. Redditch, the centre for spring making, vital for his traps, is nearby. Throughout the war he worked on a farm, supplementing his income with the trapping and selling of wild rabbits using his own traps; rabbit meat was much in demand because of war-time rationing. It must be remembered that mainland Britain was awash with rabbits until the disease myxomatosis arrived in 1954/5.

He was married in 1940 and later had three children. After the war, the method of catching rabbits and vermin with Gin traps was banned, and the Ministry of Agriculture put out a tender for alternative trap designs.

The Gin trap was just a smaller version of the man trap, which caught humans poaching on large estates, holding them by the legs and often breaking them. The Gin trap, a generic term, as there were several manufacturers, came in several sizes, and it rarely killed rabbits, but held them by their leg(s). Hence it was called a ‘leg hold trap’ There was also the pernicious and indiscriminate Pole trap of similar construction, which was also thankfully banned.

About 230 traps were submitted and trialled by the Ministry. The traps had to have a 99% kill rate, and Alan’s Fenn Mark 6 trap, as it was later called, was the winner. There were two other traps approved that completed the trials for trapping rabbits, the Juby and the Imbra, but they never caught on, being too heavy and expensive.

The Fenn trap was patented in 1960 and there are two sizes, the larger Mk 6 for rabbits and the smaller MK4 for ground vermin like mink, squirrels etc. These traps are light, compact, easy to set, and stackable. Over the years the design has been slightly improved.

The traps were made at Astwood Bank, near Redditch, and Alan was helped by Joseph Archer to set up the manufacture, production and sales of this trap and others, which included live catch mesh traps.

I had the pleasure of meeting Alan several times at his factory, when he designed and made a folding live catch magpie trap to sell at the Domestic Fowl Trust. It didn’t catch on as most people preferred to make their own along the lines of the Larsen Trap.The idea was to make an easy portable trap which could be carried across a field but ATVs had just arrived then, and these heavy wooden affairs were transported by them.

Alan was of the old school of countrymen, and could read a hedgerow, field or wood, for tracks, signs, nests, incidents etc and together with his knowledge of metal work, it seemed that trapping and trap making was natural to him. He loved pigeon shooting. He never travelled abroad.

Alan died in 2001 but his traps live on and are still being made in Astwood Bank by D.B.Spring Ltd. (00 44 (0) 152 7893 220.

Siskins and Cats

14th May 2010

I just thought you would like these three photographs.

We have had for a number of winters Siskins (Carduelis spinus) over wintering with us but this year they have stayed on or moved into the area, and have bred. We were quite surprised to see three fledglings with their parents turn up at the bird feeder outside our kitchen window, at the end of April. They love thistle seed. They are members of the same family as Goldfinch and Linnets. Before wild birds were protected, you use to see these birds in little cages outside people’s houses and the Siskin was also caught, for its sweet, lively and tolerable song. You still see this practice in parts of the southern Mediterranean. Years ago Siskins were winter visitors coming in from Scandinavia and Russia, with the occasional bird staying over. They like pine woods, along with Firecrests which frequent our neighbour’s garden.

The other photograph is of our neighbour’s cat, 15ft up, sitting beside an occupied nest box, ever hopeful. It is a salutary reminder that wild birds are not entirely safe in a nest box and the lids of some wooden nest boxes need to be made secure.

For further reading try our book, Making Wild Bird Nest Boxes.

VERMIN CONTROL

4th May 2010

When keeping livestock, and poultry in particular, there is always a risk of attracting animals and birds which could be a danger to them. In fact, anyone hearing that you are about to keep chickens will certainly tell you that you will be encouraging rats and foxes. So let us look at ways of minimising the attention of rats, predators and other freeloaders, and also some safe methods of deterring and getting rid of them.

RATS
If you live in a rural area, you will find rats coming in from the fields in autumn after a prolonged bout of rainy weather. Their food will be getting scarce and the holes that they live in, mainly in hedges and ditches, are becoming waterlogged. In towns it is a little different as rats will move from one location to another depending on the food source. What are the first signs to look out for: rat runs from under the poultry house to hedges, buildings and compost heaps, diggings, holes and fresh mounds of earth, food in the trough looking as though it has been ground up, and at the worst, holes in the hen house. The runs are very clear to see as the rats race along them at top speed, trying to get to cover as quickly as possible as they have a fear of open spaces. Also, as they are incontinent, they urinate as they run, killing the vegetation, so these paths become dirt tracks. Deterring rats is a question of good husbandry. Make sure that the food hopper or trough is elevated off the ground at about shoulder height for the birds, which will prevent them from scratching and flicking the food all over the place. Remove the food hopper at night-fall when you shut up the hens. If you feed scraps, bread, apples etc, clear these up and take them away, so there is nothing left to attract the rats. You hardly ever see one unless there is a plague of them and a lot of competition for food. Rats will rarely kill full grown poultry but when they have young to feed they will kill chicks and growers. They will also steal eggs. To catch rats most people use bait boxes with a specially prepared poison; this is coloured green and is a mixture of kibbled wheat with the poison added. I use Neosorexa with Difenaoun which is a blood anti-coagulant, but I do like to ring the changes by buying other makes of poison sometimes, so that the rats do not become immune to a certain brand. You can buy these products in plastic tubs from agricultural merchants; the minimum size is one kilo. I always add a tablespoonful of icing sugar to a kilo pot, as it ‘helps the medicine go down’. Because you are dealing with a poison, it must be placed in proper bait boxes so nothing else can get at it, I am thinking wild birds, children, dogs, cats, pigs etc. Plastic bait boxes can be bought or you can make your own, see photograph and drawing. Tell-tale signs that rats are eating the poison mixture are, the mixture going down in the bait box and needing to be topped up daily, and the rat droppings becoming greenish in colour; there may also be traces of blood as rats don’t heal while eating this stuff, and as they are great scrappers, they get bitten and scratched, causing bleeding. Normally rats die in their holes, but if you find a body pick it up with gardening gloves, wrap it in some newspaper and burn or bury it. Always use gloves when handling them, as rats carry fleas, and if a flea feels the rat’s body temperature dropping, it will jump ship onto your warm hand. Rats are notorious as carriers of disease. If you feel up to trapping, and have been given practical instruction and advice on how to do it, then use a trapping box or wooden tunnel on the rat run. Trapping boxes are a similar construction to bait boxes. Traps are lethal machines and can maim a cat or dog. The best trap for rats is a Fenn Mk4, which is available from most agricultural merchants. Place the box on the rat run or under the poultry house and sprinkle the trap plate with some hen food. If the food disappears and the trap is still unsprung, this is the work of mice, so put more food in the next day. Always wear heavy gardening gloves when trapping, as you need to disguise the human smell; also, if your fingers slip (and on ice cold days it is easily done) the impact of the trap is a little less. Leave the safety catch on until you are ready to replace the lid of the box, and then flick it off with a twig. Always put a couple of bricks on the lid to ensure it is as secure as possible.



A combination of trapping and poisoning works well as a mature rat is often nervous of one or the other. It is important to keep the area in and around the poultry enclosure as tidy as possible: remove all logs, wood or rubble and cut all grass and vegetation short and rake up the clippings. Rats are mega intelligent, and they know what is solid and immoveable and will use that as a base. If they go under the concrete floor of a shed, poison or trap them, before ramming home the earth they have dug out. In the old days people used to break a bottle and put the glass shards down the hole first and then ram the earth in on top just to make sure rats wouldn’t use that tunnel again. The sure way to check if rats are using a run or tunnel is to put a small handful of grass across the opening and if it is disturbed then you know they are still about.

FOXES
Everyone knows foxes take poultry, and the annoying thing about them is that they will not take just one, but like to play with and kill most of the birds in the pen. There are three methods of dealing with foxes: first, fence them out, with or without electric fencing, second, trap them, and the third option, shoot them. I have described fencing against foxes in an earlier article. It is expensive, but if you value your birds, it is the best option. Trapping foxes works in towns and villages but rarely in the country: country foxes are too wily. Traps tend to be expensive so if you can borrow one, so much the better. They are made of weld mesh and are about 6 to 8ft long, 2 to 3ft high and 3ft wide. The dimensions vary as some are home-made affairs. The trap is baited with a freshly killed chicken or rabbit, the fox walks into the cage to grab the bait and the trap door closes behind it. Some people put down straw, soil or leaves round the trap and inside to cover up the weld mesh. The fox is despatched with a rifle. The third method of control is shooting. Most people have not got a rifle licence, but you should be able to find vermin controllers advertising their services who are trained marksmen, and use rifles with moderators (silencers to you and me). They will come and kill foxes in country and urban areas, always at night, and get rid of your problem for you. A rifle with a moderator is almost silent, so there should no disturbance for your neighbours or their animals. This method tends to be a last resort.

MINK
These were mainly released by animal liberation people who didn’t think of the consequences. Mink are now a real scourge in this country. They don’t take poison, but shooting them is okay if you ever happen to see one; they are very shy creatures and have no predators in this country, so trapping is the only option. But they have one weakness, they love anything fishy, so will readily come to a trap baited with fish. Mink kill like foxes, not one at a time but the whole lot if they can; they will clear a lake or part of a stream or river of most of its inhabitants, including fish, frogs, coot, moorhen, water voles etc. Mink are normally caught in cage traps, live caught just in case a vole or other non-predatory creature is trapped and so can be let out. The traps are placed near streams, ditches, rivers or lakes as mink are excellent swimmers. Bait the traps with kippers, mackerel, sardines or even fishy cat food. If you catch one shoot it with an air gun; you are NOT allowed to release it. Wash the trap in water to get rid of the alarm smells, and then set it again as mink often work in small parties. Mink pelts are normally a dark chocolate brown, and some are quite attractive. The largest one I’ve seen was dead on the side of the road; it was 26ins long!

GREY SQUIRRELS
Another introduced mammal and the damage it does to young beech trees is incalculable. Squirrels are normally attracted to poultry by the food, but will also take eggs and young birds, particularly from wild bird nest boxes. Apart from shooting them, you can poison or trap them. Before you take any action, it’s important to make sure there are no Red squirrels in your area. Poison is placed in special hoppers, off the ground, and on trees which grey squirrels are known to frequent. The hoppers allow only squirrels to feed from them and will require topping up from time to time. Trapping squirrels in cage traps baited with maize works well. Once caught, they have to be dispatched by law and are best killed with an air gun. The trouble with cage traps however, is that they are likely to be destroyed by any foxes or badgers in the area which have found a meal inside and are trying to get it out. I looked at this problem, together with the damage grey squirrels do to wild bird nest boxes, and came up with a design for a squirrel trap (which has been BASC approved). The trap can be fixed to a tree out of reach of badgers, foxes and also humans, and consists of a square wooden tube, just big enough for a squirrel to get into, either from the top or bottom. Halfway up the tube there is access to a wooden chamber which is baited with maize but also contains a Fenn Mk4 trap. The squirrel travels up or down the tube and squeezes through a 2.5ins diameter hole onto the plate of the trap. The wooden tubes containing the traps can be fixed about 5ft off the ground, or, in public places or gardens, 10 to15 ft high out of the reach of people. They can be accessed and serviced via a small light ladder. One version I made looked like a nest box and had an outside indicator to show whether the trap had caught anything without having to open it up. Traps must be inspected every day.

CROWS AND MAGPIES
Neither of these birds is a big problem outside their breeding seasons, but when they have a nestful of hungry young (and in the case of magpies there can be as many as 10) they become a real menace. Both birds are very watchful and cunning, and will wait until you go shopping or on the school run before they strike. They will take not only eggs and chicks, but in the case of crows, poults as well. I once had a large flock of young ducklings about 8 weeks old, and I suddenly started to find a dead one in the morning and another in the afternoon, all with the same killing pattern: flesh stripped from the back of the neck and in some cases picked clean off the bones. After the second day’s raid, I set myself up in a nearby henhouse and waited. I was convinced it was a stoat or maybe a mink as the site was near water, but I was greatly surprised to see a large carrion crow land in the pen, choose a duckling and jump on its back. I had a lucky shot: the duckling ran past an Eltex metal drinker with the crow on its back, and I fired my gun, killed the crow and the duckling ran away. Luckily the metal drinker took most of the shot which didn’t do the galvanising much good! Magpies will systematically work a hedgerow looking for nests or will wait for young nestlings to grow before making a raid. Crows on the other hand will find a nest and pull it and the contents down to the ground before eating them. Magpies can be caught only during the breeding season from March to June. This involves a Larson live catch trap, which can be bought or borrowed. You will need a live magpie as a call bird. A good hen bird (they have shorter tails than the males) will really pull other magpies in and will catch carrion crows as well. Of course while the call bird is in your care, it must be fed and watered on a daily basis.

BUZZARDS
A passing mention of these birds is necessary. Buzzards have become very numerous in some parts of the country, and are shy birds which normally keep away from human habitation. They will strike in rural areas when feeding their young, normally during June, July and August, and they will take poults. They often attack just before dusk.

SPARROWS, COLLARED DOVES AND PIGEONS
These aren’t vermin but pests, and they come in and eat food, despoil the area with their droppings and can spread disease. The way to deal with this problem is to avoid feeding your poultry in the open, so feed only in the house or use treddle feeders. Sparrows are very adaptable and will find the food in the house, so a door curtain is necessary; you can make one using either strips of thick black plastic sheeting or pieces of light chain cut to the right length. The hens take a little time to get used to pushing past this barrier, but it does deter the sparrows.

There are other animals and birds to look out for like hedgehogs, badgers, ferrets, tawny owls, stoats, weasels, etc. Some of them are protected in law but we mention these and much more in our book “Modern Vermin Control” in the Gold Cockerel Series.

Was this an early battery cage?

27th April 2010.

The photograph, which I took yesterday, shows an antique wooden box of French origin dated 1815, in which domestic fowl were kept in farmhouses for fattening. A bird was placed in the box by sliding out an iron rod from the top. The round front door was probably used for passing in food and water, and the bird was more than likely force fed (gavage in French). We placed an old Light Sussex hen of mine in the box to demonstrate this contraption which allowed the bird to stand up and poke its head and neck through the bars. There was scarcely any room for the bird to turn round, and cleaning it out would probably have been impossible. We found this interesting and thought we would pass it on to you.

POULTRY HOUSES

22nd April

I often wonder how many poultry owners have lost hens and ducks to the fox because of poorly designed or constructed poultry houses. I have certainly been one of them: a fox once lifted the nest box lid and got into one of my hen houses, killing some Rhode Island Reds whose quality and blood line were irreplaceable. So when I design and make a house I always have Mr. Fox firmly in the forefront of my mind. In some areas badgers can also be a nuisance, usually old ones which have been pushed out of the set; if they have difficulty in foraging they will sometimes go for a softwood henhouse, an easy option for them. Fortunately this is a rare occurrence.

I feel that people should think carefully about the kind of housing they are going to buy or, better still, build for their birds, and I have put together some important points to bear in mind. Birds can vary enormously in size and shape, and their needs are correspondingly different.

Most small poultry houses are made of wood although there are plastic houses on the market. My feelings about these are rather mixed; I used to sell them years ago and found they were easy to clean and of course did not rot, but in frosty weather they were very cold inside and sometimes suffered from condensation. For the same reason metal roof sheets should always be used with a wood lining to avoid condensation dripping onto the birds and the litter. While we are on the subject of roofs, it’s important to remember never to use roofing felt inside a poultry house as it provides a wonderful home for red mite, and it’s impossible to get at them to deal with the problem.

Wood

The wood used for hen houses comes in different types: tongue and groove, feather edge, ship-lap and external plywood. Avoid wafer and chipboard as, despite what the manufacturers say, these materials gradually absorb water and will warp and collapse. External plyboard must be raised off the ground as it can de-laminate or peel if it gets wet.

Wood treatment

Most commercially produced wooden poultry houses are treated with an orange preservative. Before they are assembled the sections are dipped into a tank of the mixture which is usually heavy on colouring agents and light on preservatives. If you are building the house yourself you need to know the best thing to use. There is a choice; preservatives are either water based or spirit based. The water based products such as Sadoline are excellent for houses which are raised off the ground whereas spirit based preservatives such as creosote are recommended for fold units or houses that sit on the ground. Cuprinol is available in both kinds. There is a new formula creosote available now that seems to be as good as the original. Always apply the spirit based products when the poultry house is empty and allow it to dry before you put the birds back in. This is better for them and also avoids the possibility of eggs becoming tainted with the smell. There is now a good range of colours to chose from, particularly in the water based products.

Some poultry houses are made of pressure treated timber, often called tanalised wood, which gives them a good start. It is as well to treat the parts which are in contact with the ground or in damp areas, with a spirit based preservative each year.

Floors

Hen house floors must be solid to prevent rats and mice from getting in. They should always be covered with a good layer of straw or shavings to absorb droppings and also provide a soft landing for the hens when they jump off their perches. Without a soft layer to land on hens can develop a condition called Bumblefoot which causes the foot to swell up. Slatted or wire mesh floors are fine for growers which do not require perches.

Pop holes

Pop holes and their doors are very important. I frequently see ones which are either too small to allow the birds proper access or too big which means the house can be very draughty and rain can blow in. It’s a good idea to have more than one pop hole in a large house, then they can be used according to the wind direction.

Pop holes can be tailor-made for the breed that is going to use them; for example, 9” x 9” is a good size for Black Rocks.

There are many ways of closing pop holes: you can have doors that slide vertically or horizontally, or are hinged. I prefer vertically closing doors where there is room in the construction of the house, as they don’t get clogged up with mud or freeze shut in winter, but the choice is up to you.

There is an automatic pop hole closing device on the market. This is excellent for letting birds out early on summer mornings if you have a fox-proof run or electric fencing, but I do wonder about the other end of the day when the hens need to be shut up; can it count them in….? There is always one bird out after a late worm.!

Nest boxes

The nest box must always be in the darkest part of the house i.e. under the window or if possible at right angles to the pop hole. It should be raised slightly above floor level but must never be higher than the perches.

The size of the nest box will be determined by the breed of hens that you keep, for example 7” x 7” for Belgian bantams, 8” x 8” for Polands, 9” x 9” for Black Rocks and 14” x 14” for Cochins. As a broad average 12” x 12” is more than enough. It is important that the nest box is large enough for the hen to stand up in and also for the cockerel to get in and out of, as he will sometimes want to show a hen where to lay and will often make a scrape for her to lay in. The ratio of birds to nest box space should be 3 to 1 or 4 to 1.

I have always preferred communal nest boxes to individual ones. With individual boxes you often find that the hens have favourite places and most will lay in the same box, resulting in cracked or broken eggs; in a communal nest box there is plenty of room for the eggs and hens to spread out. Providing you have about a 3” depth of nesting material you should have few breakages, and if there are any, shavings will absorb the egg better than straw. I have seen straw filled nest boxes with wire mesh bottoms in old fashioned poultry houses; the wire mesh allows any broken eggs to drain through. Damaged eggs can often lead to egg eating which is one reason why nest boxes should be as dark as possible. You can ensure this by stapling some strips of black plastic to hang over the entrance. Of course there are other reasons for egg eating such as poor rations, lack of grit, boredom or stress.

One way of avoiding cracked or dirty eggs is to use roll-away nest boxes. These will only work if the hens are introduced to the system before they start to lay. If you leave it later than that they will lay anywhere but in the proper place!

It’s essential to be able to see easily into all the corners of your nest box, not only for cleaning but so that you can deal with a broken egg or outbreak of Red Mite as soon as it occurs. A view from above is best and there are two good methods of securing the nest box lid described in our latest book “Making Mobile Hen Houses”.

Perches

The number of birds you can accommodate in a house is determined by the length of perches provided and the size of the floor area. Obviously some birds are larger than others and require more perching space, but if you allow 5” per bird for Sebrights, Dutch etc, 6” to 7” for Silkies or miniature Wyandottes, 7” to 8” for Black Rocks or Leghorns, 9” to 10” for Sussex or Marans, and 12” for Buff Orpingtons or Cornish Game, you will be all right. Some people think that a hen stands all night on her perch, but in fact she sits with her breastbone resting on the flat top and steadies herself with her feet. The soft feathers on her breast keep her feet warm when the weather is cold at night. The perch size needs to be 1.5” x 1.5” for bantam breeds and 2” x 2” or 2” x 3” deep for larger birds. All perches must have chamfered top corners and need to sit in deep sockets so they cannot be knocked out of position.

As I’ve already mentioned, the perches must be above the level of the nest boxes; if they are not the hens will roost in the nest boxes and foul them which could easily lead to contaminated eggs. This is a common fault in some small houses. The height of the perches will be determined by the size, weight and agility of the breed. An Old English Game bird will fly up to 4 or 5ft if given the space to do so, whereas a heavy Indian Game bird will probably only manage 6” off the floor. An average height for perches is about 18” to 24” and the space between them will again vary from 12” apart for small breeds up to 22” to 24” for large breeds like Brahmas

Floor size

The area of the floor will determine how many birds are kept in a house; it’s always better to have too few rather than too many. A typical 3’ x 4’ house gives a floor size of 12 sq ft which is suitable for 10 Rosecombs, 8 Pekins, 6 Black Rocks or 4 large Faverolles for example.

Droppings boards

Very few hen house manufacturers put these in. A droppings board will save you a lot of time as well as shavings because you only need to clean out the floor of the house every 4 or 5 months if you have one of these in place. Droppings boards need to be 6” to 9” below the perches and should be cleaned every 3 to 4 weeks. Because they help to keep the floor of the house free from droppings they reduce the risk of contamination as the birds walk into the nest boxes.

Ventilation and Light

It is important to have variable ventilation so that a house can be virtually closed down in bad weather and opened up on warm summer nights. You can achieve this by using sliding mesh covered vents; position them as close under the eaves as you can to prevent rain getting in. Vents can also be used as windows to increase the light coming into the house; they can be made of glass or 4mm Perspex. It’s important to have plenty of light as it stimulates egg production. However, avoid using clear sheets of plastic or fiberglass in the roof above the perches as hens like darkness above them while they are perching, a trait that goes back to their ancestors roosting under the canopy in the jungle.

Access

It’s vital to have good access to the inside of your poultry house. You must be able to clean it, spray it and observe it all round without having to bend double or kneel in the mud, so wide doors and sliding roofs are essential

Mobility

I have dealt with the many different ways of moving poultry houses in my new book “Making Mobile Hen Houses” from the Gold Cockerel Series; (this book also covers a number of other interesting forms of poultry housing and is not restricted only to mobile ones.) A lot of people are content to have a static house raised up on bricks to prevent rats from making a home underneath; this also provides shelter for their birds of course. But for those who have a vegetable garden or smallholding a mobile hen house is a serious option.

When keeping poultry, particularly chickens, it is a good idea to have a secure covered area available outside the hen house. This means that when it’s raining or you’re out doing the school run or shopping etc. your hens can be happily scratching about outside safe from foxes, dogs or other predators, and sheltered from the weather. It’s simply not an option to keep them shut up inside their house, however large, on a summer’s day, just because you have to go out. When I see birds confined in a small run attached to an ark with no shelter from the elements I feel they are almost as badly off as hens in a battery house.

A decent sized enclosure should be at least 6’ x 10’, south facing with a clear plastic or fibre glass roof. The sides and back need to be clad with wood or iron and the front should be open but covered with wire mesh. You will need to put a wind excluder 2’ to 3’ high along the front of the enclosure, and the floor should be raised with soil, sand or ashes by 4” to 6” for drainage; this would also prevent surface water from flooding the area. Put down a good layer of straw and hang a water font from the roof so it won’t get knocked over. You can feed your birds here as well with a wire mesh hopper on the wall for greens, lettuce, swede etc. and you can scatter some wheat to keep them busy. When the straw gets dirty rake it out, compost it and put down some fresh straw. The whole area can be fox-proofed by digging the sheets of tin into the ground, and like this you can leave your hens safely scratching about and enjoying a dust bath, secure in the knowledge that they are safe from Mr. Fox!

BREEDING

21st April 2010

First of all you need to know a little about the different types of poultry and the best times of year for breeding them.

Large fowl really need to be hatched by April at the latest so that they have the whole summer to mature and grow to a good size. Like this they should be laying by the autumn (with extra lighting). People keen on showing like to have chicks in January so that their birds are in peak condition in time for the late autumn and winter shows.

Miniatures, that is to say small versions of large breeds, need to be hatched during May, June or July so that they don’t grow too big and end up somewhere in between, neither large fowl nor miniatures. True bantams such as Sebrights, which have no large fowl counterparts, can be bred any time, but in order to keep them dainty it is best to do so during the summer months. Incidentally, if you have a nice trio of laced birds and want to breed from them, the resulting progeny will not necessarily look like the parents. This applies to many pure breeds of fowl, and for information and guidance on how to achieve beautiful birds from your hatches you will need Grant Brereton’s new book “21st Century Poultry Breeding” in the Gold Cockerel Series.

If you have hybrids like Warrens or Black Rocks you may be tempted to put a cockerel with them and hatch some eggs. They will be fertile but the resulting progeny will not have the laying power of their mothers as hybrids are developed from very complex lines of breeding.

Assuming you have a trio or more of birds and want to breed from them, then the best place for it is a large shed or stable; if your birds are indoors there is less chance of dirty eggs although there may be some contamination from droppings. Washing eggs does reduce the fertility by 5 to 10%. Another advantage of being indoors during the winter is that there are no problems with freezing water and the birds can be cleaned out in any weather.

You will need electricity so that you can give the birds extra light on winter mornings if you want to, see our book “Modern Free Range” in the Gold Cockerel series; (of course you could always supply light to a hen house via a long electric lead and a timing device). When they are breeding, poultry normally do better inside during the winter months, particularly in the North, as mud, rain, snow and ice aren’t very conducive to making fertile eggs. If you only have a trio of birds it’s a good idea to put a couple of ‘gaiety girls’ like Black Rocks in with them so that the cockerel is not mating too often with the original trio.

When they are breeding, poultry need more protein and vitamins in their food so you will have to change from layers’ pellets to a breeders’ ration which has 25% protein rather than 18% to ensure maximum egg production.

Make sure the perches in your birds’ accommodation are higher than the nest boxes so that the hens always roost in the highest places, on the perches. Nest boxes must be in the darkest area and can be quite simple boxes with a strip of wood across the front to prevent litter and eggs falling out. Shavings are the best and most convenient material to use for nest boxes and poultry housing generally; they break down well in the compost heap, but won’t be ready to use for about a year.

If you have several breeding pens, whether they are indoors or out, you will have to make sure that you keep the cockerels apart with solid 3ft partitions of plyboard so that they can’t see each other; if you don’t they will spend a lot of their time sparring through the netting instead of looking after their hens.

Eggs

If you have pullets that have not laid before you will have to wait 2 to 3 weeks until their eggs are a reasonable size; by this time they should all be fertile as well. Carefully choose the eggs you are going to set, discarding any that are too small, misshapen, thin shelled or cracked. If you are not sure about an egg being cracked you can gently knock it against another one, then do the same with two that you know are perfect and you should be able to hear the difference quite easily.

As you collect the eggs mark them with a pencil or waterproof felt tip pen so that later on you can identify what has hatched from which hen. Wash any dirty eggs gently in tepid water, using a sponge or abrasive pad. If you plan to set dozens there are egg washers on the market (Rotamaid is one) and special detergents like Deosan or Virkon S.

Storing eggs

Hatching eggs should never be kept longer than 10 days before setting, 8 days are preferable. The eggs should be stored in a cool place – an old fridge, not turned on, works well – and they should be turned daily. There are two schools of thought about how to do this: some people lay the eggs down with a cross on one side and an “o” on the other, and turn them by hand each day; others prop up the egg tray with a piece of wood 4” or 5” wide, first under one side then the next day under the other side. The reason for turning is to prevent the yolk with the germinal disk from sticking onto the membrane inside the shell.

Candling

This is a method of checking whether or not eggs are fertile and making sure they are developing as they should. It was called this originally because people would use the light of a candle in a box which had a round hole in one side; an egg would be held against the hole so that the development inside was revealed. Later oil lamps were used, and now there are special hand held electric torches which do the same thing. Just be aware that the bulbs in some of these electric candlers do give off a lot of heat so should only be held against the eggs for a matter of seconds. There are some candlers available with cool bulbs.

Incubation periods vary with different species: 21 days for hens and bantams, 26 to 28 days for ducks, 28 days for turkeys and 28 to 30 days for geese. Do candle the eggs during the incubation period, at 10 days, 18 days and just before hatching.

At 10 days you can easily see the clear eggs which are infertile with nothing inside – these should be removed as they could turn into ‘bangers’ and go ‘pop’, ruining most of the hatch. Why does an egg go pop? This is caused by a build up of bacteria inside which creates a gas, and the heat of the incubator makes it explode. At 18 days the chicks will be developing fast and should look like dark blobs. Some embryos may have died and will appear smaller and different from the healthy ones – remove these as well. Just before hatching you should be able to see the live chick recoil from the candling light, a sign that it is healthy and should hatch normally.

If an egg shell becomes cracked or dented at a late stage in the incubation period you can save it by painting over the damage with clear nail varnish.

Incubation

There are two methods of hatching eggs: under broodies or in an incubator. We will look at both.

Incubation under a broody hen

Choose your birds carefully; some hens will pretend to be broody for a week or two, while others are rock solid. Don’t use hybrids as they normally get bored after about a week. It’s a good idea to sit more broodies than you actually need in case one ‘gets up’. The reason for ‘getting up’ is normally fleas, lice or red mite

The best breeds to use are feather legged hens such as Silkies, Pekins or Cochins, but having said that, some game birds and light fowl such as Leghorns or Anconas can be excellent sitters. Professional people who use broodies, mainly for ornamental pheasant eggs, often use a Silkie/Wyandotte cross which is a semi-clean legged bird. The reason for this is that the leg feathers on a pure Silkie can be very pointed and sharp, and some chicks, like pheasant and quail, are very small and delicate when they hatch and could easily be damaged by them.

Obviously, before you place your hatching eggs under the hen you have to be sure that she is broody and sitting well; if you put some crock eggs in the nest boxes right at the beginning, they should do the trick. Before you move her to the incubation box to start sitting on your eggs, turn her over to check the position of her pelvic bones: they are found either side of her vent and should be close together, meaning that she is not laying. While you have her in this position you can give her a good dusting with flea/louse powder so that she won’t be irritated and restless while she is sitting.

There are two main ways of looking after your broody while she is incubating the eggs. You can remove her from the nest at the same time each morning and tether her nearby with a cord round her leg, then feed her with straight wheat and give her water; alternatively you can take her off the nest and shut her in a small grass run next door to feed and water her. Make sure that she has emptied herself before you put her back– you don’t want her to do it in the nest and ruin the eggs. If she is reluctant, pick her up and drop her onto the ground a few times; this normally has the desired effect.

Always walk the hen back onto her nest so that she can see the eggs and settle herself onto them without damaging them; if she is a little too eager hold her by the tail to slow her down. Never put a broody straight on top of the eggs as she could break them with her scrabbling feet.

Make a note of the date of hatching on a card and fix it to the inside of the broody box with a drawing pin. When hatching day arrives don’t feed or water the hen, just leave her to get on with it and remove any egg shells from time to time. There may also be the odd egg that doesn’t make it despite being fertile.

Before the chicks hatch you must prepare the broody coop so it is ready to receive them and the hen. It’s best to line the floor with corrugated paper or cardboard ‘cobs’ –cardboard boxes chopped up into small squares which make excellent bedding, or shavings are a good alternative. Put in a dish or chick feeder of chick crumbs and a chick water font; there are good plastic ones on the market for about £1.50 each

Once the chicks that are going to hatch have done so, put them and the hen in the broody coop. The hen will almost immediately produce a large smelly mess which will need to be cleaned up with kitchen paper and thrown on the compost heap.

Incubation in an incubator

This has become much easier in the last ten years as more and more sophisticated machines have been designed, most rock the eggs but some turn them as they incubate; (a broody hen instinctively turns her eggs during the weeks that she sits on them). When you are choosing your incubator it’s a good idea to pick one that has a separate compartment for hatching, or alternatively buy a separate machine altogether for the hatching. The reason for this is that there are a lot of bacteria flying around as the chicks come out, and it’s much better to keep this away from any eggs that are still incubating.

Before you start using it you should carefully clean and disinfect your incubator with Virkon S or other suitable disinfectant; then turn it on and run it for at least a week to warm it up and make sure the temperature holds steady at 37.5 degrees C with the thermometer on a level with the middle of an egg. This is particularly necessary with still air machines, although most newer ones are fan assisted with the air circulating round inside ensuring there are no cold spots. It is advisable to have two thermometers in the incubator in case one is faulty – you don’t want to lose a hatch just because the temperature was too high or too low: too hot, and if some chicks do make it they will come out early; too cold, they will hatch late if they come out at all.

One of the great problems when using an incubator is knowing how much water to add while the eggs are in. I am going to dodge the question and say, ‘look at the manufacturer’s manual’. So much depends on where the incubator is situated, the temperature outside, the time of year and the species of bird’s eggs you are hoping to hatch for example. It can be frustrating when you start, with a certain amount of trial and error involved, particularly with smaller machines. It’s a different matter when you are dealing with the modern 500 to 5,000 egg incubators where sophisticated electronics smooth out the problems for you, providing the place where you have it installed is suitable.

If you have not got a separate hatcher or hatching compartment you will have to turn off the rolling mechanism in your incubator as soon as the eggs start to hatch.

Rearing

There are two easy ways of artificially rearing small numbers of chicks: in a rearing box under a heated lamp, or under what is called an electric hen; this is a square heated pad which is supported on four legs and can be raised or lowered according to the size of the chicks. An electric hen is suitable for bantam, hen, turkey, pheasant or guinea fowl chicks, but not for ducklings or goslings as it is not warm enough.

If you are going to use a heat lamp choose a dark heat ceramic bulb (75 or 100 watt) rather than an infra red one. The dark heat will allow the chicks to sleep whenever they need to which is important as they do a lot of growing in their sleep. They also tend to develop fewer vices such as toe, shoulder and wing pecking. The heat lamp comes complete with a porcelain bulb holder and metal shade; use a chain which you can adjust (not the electric flex) to hang the heater about 6 inches above the bedding in the box. If you are rearing in the early Spring you may want to use additional timed lighting: a 40 watt electric bulb for the mornings so that the chicks go to sleep naturally in the evening. You may want to turn on the light at night to check that all is well, so use a dimmer switch that will gradually light the bulb and not alarm the chicks; also, when you turn off the light it will not leave any little bird in the dark away from the heat source.

Find a suitable large cardboard box or make a wooden rearing box approximately 3ft long by 2ft wide by 1ft high. You can keep up to 35 chicks in a box this size. Spread a bed of shavings about an inch deep and hang the heat lamp at one end, then put in a pan of fresh chick crumbs and a 1 litre plastic chick drinker about 6 inches away from the heat source. You can add some probiotics or electrolytes to the water if you want to, and dip each chick’s beak in the water before you place it in the box under the heat lamp.

For the first few days the chicks will not seem very interested in feeding: when a chick hatches it absorbs its yolk sac through its vent and can survive the first 48 hours without food.

After a week replace the food pan with a 1 litre chick feeder to prevent the food being scratched out and wasted. At the same time spray the chicks and their housing with Virkon S; this helps to control any viruses or bacteria such as E-coli. A sure sign that the chicks are doing well is when they start sparring or fighting. Don’t forget to raise the heat lamp as they grow. The bottom of the shade may initially be several inches above the floor but you will have to raise it for large goslings to avoid singeing their heads.

After a couple of weeks you can introduce your young birds to some goose grass or chopped lettuce which they love. Gradually raise the heat source and remove it after about 4 to 6 weeks, depending on the temperature outside. By this time you will be cleaning out the rearing box every other day. Once the chicks have grown some body feathers they will be ready for a broody coop with a floor and small grass run; cover the run with clear plastic sheeting to prevent them getting soaked in a sudden downpour. When they are a few weeks older the youngsters can be allowed more space to roam.

Egg Colour.

February 17, 2010

When I was a boy, I enjoyed fin