Selfsufficientish.com

This is our garden



The shed is going and will soon become a veg patch. The light is not an angel, it is because I took the pic from inside our sliding door and forgot to take off the flash!!

We want to keep some chickens, how many could we keep in a garden this small? And how much space will they need? I don't want the whole garden given over to them as my LO loves the garden. I would like to keep them penned but let them roam free when I am about.

We also have 2 bunnies who currently live in the shed but once it has gone will be getting a smaller hutch and run to live in. How do chickens and rabbits get on and are there any pests/diseases that can pass from one to the other?

Oh yes, and we will be getting ex battery hens.

I have bought hens three times in the past week, and they all came from houses with back gardens the size of yours. Two of the three places admitted that they just did not have the room to keep chickens - but thought they had. The problem is if you have them penned in, it gets muddy, if its really wet weather. I did notice that the gardens I picked the hens up from were all soggy and dirty from the hens. They all had children and had ended up with nowhere for them to play properly. They had let the chickens out while they were at home, but had to keep cleaning the poo up (hens are messy in this department!).

I am sure you can keep hens quite easily in the space you have, but do think carefully before taking the plunge. where the chickens are walking in and out, and even yourself to see to them, it will get muddy, and what will you do with them then? Are you prepared to sacrifice your garden to the chickens to make a muddy patch out of!!!

perhaps start off with two or three and see how you go on?

Many years ago, when we got our first chooks and still lived in suburbia, their house was on a concrete slab. They were let out each afternoon for a few hours to scratch pretty much everywhere, except in the vege patch when there were young plants they could damage (temp fence went up). That removes the muddy house floor problem. Alternatively, you can build them a raised run, completey off the gound, with a plywood floor. Easy to clean and maintain. You could make a nice large raised run for both chooks and rabbits. We routinely keep a couple of hens or a hen and chicks in our largest rabbit run (about 64 sq ft), in which there are usually 2-3 adult does. The hens turn over the bedding constantly, so it breaks down quickly, and there is no odour. Every 4 months, I scoop it all out and use it in the vege patch. I would probably keep no more than 3 hens in your size garden, especially as their space will be limited.

Go for it!

Cheers
Andrea
NZ