The Chooks of Hazzard

(Sorry, that was awful I know! I couldn't resist!!)

So here we are, another fortnight gone by, and time to clean out the hen-house again. Our neighbours on one side built a 6 foot fence the other week, so Linda and I decided to let the chickens be completely free-range, even when we're not in the garden to keep an eye on them. They've thrived since then, and the taste of their eggs is just exquisite.

But then of course, there's the 'other' stuff that comes out of that pipe... and that's not as pleasant to deal with!! When you read articles entitled "How to start with chickens", they reassuringly tell you that you'll ;just know' when they need to be cleaned out again. And oh boy, do you!! We have four females (hence the eggs.....) each coming up to six months old, and they certainly know how to poop!!

Go on, have a guess. Four hens, about the size of a curled up cat in your lap. I clean them out every two weeks. Be brave now - how much poop do I scoop out of their coop? (Now that was actually quite clever, and completely unintentional!!) A breakfast bowl? A side plate? Maybe even a dinner plate's worth? (I hasten to add that I don't actually use any of those receptacles, lest you should ever fear eating here again...)

Even if you had guessed a moderately-sized saucepan, you would still have been found wanting, for my little treasures produce two tightly packed buckets of poo every fortnight. Now bear in mind, there's wood shavings in there too, but by and large, the amount is indeed large!

So bearing in mind that there are only so many times a day you can eat eggs, no matter how good they are (and did I mention that they really are good?), I started to have a niggling fear that this might not be paying off - that it might still be cheaper to buy them from the shop. So I worked it out:


We get four eggs a day x 320 days a year (on average for this breed when kept free-range) = 1,280 = 106 dozen eggs.

Even as I write, Tesco will happily relieve you of £1.44 per half dozen = £152.64 per year

The hens cost me about £7 a month in feed, plus whatever gets left over from our plates, which we risk our lives to take out to them!! So that's £84 a year, plus about £15 a year in shavings. That makes the total cost of keeping them £99 per year.

So already we're saving in the region of £53 a year. BUT (or should I say BUTT) (Sorry about this...) Let's not forget the pure, unadulterated and beautifully potent chicken manure we (well, they, technically) produce. At around £4 a bucket-full, we save an additional £208 a year on first-rate plant grower.

So yes, on the financial side, the chickens definitely earn their keep. They also dig over anything I let them walk on, saving me hours in the garden, and fertilise it as they go! We throw less food waste away because they eat it all, and they are marvellous companions. There really is nothing quite like the feeling of wandering around bare-foot in your own Garden of Eden, to feel the tender pecking of a sharp beak against your bare flesh, then to discover that you've recoiled into a pile of what didn't make it to the litter tray!!

Yes, chickens are fantastic. So fantastic in fact, that one day I'm going to write a book about them, in which I solve everybody's dilemmas, allowing everyone in the whole world the unbridled, unrivalled joy of husbanding the most useful creatures the Lord ever made. Anyhow, it's about time I tucked them in for the night and read them a story. (Don't worry, I was kidding about the story part). Then again.......