The Basics – The Essential Starter Kit for Keeping Hens

This post has been sat as a draft since the start of September after I wrote ‘Every Girl Needs a Shed’. I wasn’t going to publish it as I thought everyone would already know about what I call ‘The Basics’ for hen keeping. Anyway, after having done my other posts I decided I’d just publish this one too, after all, someone somewhere might find it useful!

It’s a bit longer than my other blogs but I’ve tried to cover the basic items you’ll need for keeping hens. I haven’t covered housing here because I’m going to do a separate blog about that another day.

Food

I feed my girls on Dodson & Horrell Layers Pellets which is effectively a complete food containing all the essential ingredients for strong egg shells and healthy hens. They have this ad lib in the run in two feeders and the amount of food I put in them at any one time depends on the number of hens I’ve got.

Once every three months I worm my girls using Marriage’s Layers Pellets that have Flubenvet in them. At the moment, this is the only licensed in-feed wormer available for hens and is effective against a number of worms including tape worms. You simply replace their normal pellets with the medicated pellets for seven days and withhold treats to make sure they’re not filling up on those instead! The idea is that over the week, each hen will eat the correct amount of medicated food for her bodyweight. There are herbal products available such as Vermex but my personal preference is Flubenvet.

Mash

When it’s cold I like to make up a warm mash for the girls simply by mixing the layers pellets with some water. If they’re having this in the evening then I might add sweet corn to it to help keep them toasty warm on a cold night. It can get very messy when they all start to eat so don’t stand too close! I also use a mash when I get new girls. Ex-caged girls who have been fed on crumb (which is little more than a fine powder) don’t always recognise pellets as food. I start them off on the mash and gradually introduce pellets into it.

Grit

Hens should always have access to grit/oyster shell and I have this mixed in two small plastic cups in different spots in the run. Making perfectly packaged little eggs takes a lot of calcium. Oyster Shell ensures the hens have enough for themselves and enough to form good shells on their eggs. Hens don’t have teeth (hence the saying!) so grit is essential in helping them grind food down so it can be digested. Food passes though the crop and then goes either into the gizzard or the proventriculus. Food that’s harder to digest goes to the gizzard where a combination of the insoluble grit and strong muscle contractions help to physically break down the food. The gizzard in ex-caged girls is usually quite weak as they’ve never really had to use it to break down food. This something to bear in mind and I’ll come back to this in the section on ‘Treats’.

Corn/Scratch Mix

I use the Dodson and Horrell mixed corn and I bought the Scratch Mix to try the other day too – this was very popular with Annie who didn’t even wait until it was in her bowl! The girls absolutely love corn and it’s great to throw it into the run or the garden and watch them scratch around for it with the excited little clucks they make! It’s also great for training them whether you use it to get them back into their house or run, or to get them to jump on your knee or come when called – some people call in bribery, I call it positive reinforcement! My girls only get corn at the end of the day – if I left it in the run it would be all they ate! I like to give them corn before bedtime in the winter as it breaks down slowly and can give them that extra little heat boost through the night. During the summer or on particularly warm days they get less corn as I don’t want to make them any warmer!

Treats

I’ve tried a few different treats with my girls and firm favourites have emerged but equally, they’re not shy at turning their beaks up at things. None of my girls have liked Blackberries and if offered them, treat them with great indignation! It’s a shame as we have loads of them growing in the garden. I remember giving them some left over vegetable ‘mash’ from a Sunday dinner – parsnips, carrots, sprouts, sweet potatoes, peas. I put it into a few bowls and within no time at all the bowls were empty apart from little piles of peas! They do like banana though – Ruby goes crazy for it and anything yellow that could be a banana therefore deserves to be pecked – my marigolds are like a sieve! The girls love tomatoes, apples, strawberries, chopped grapes, melon, corn on the cob, broccoli, cauliflower, spring greens and cabbages to name a few! To give them something to do in the run I hang up spring greens, broccoli or cauliflower so they can have nibble throughout the day. It’s great at Christmas when the sprout stalks are in the supermarkets – hang one of those in the run and it keeps them entertained for days! I always make sure that any treats not eaten get picked up out of the run as rotten mouldy food isn’t good for the girls and leaving it increases the risk of attracting unwanted pests! If you’re not sure whether you can give something to your girls, a quick Google search should always provide an answer.

A cautionary cabbage tale…….

I had a little hen called Sprout, a poorly that I brought home from a Lancs rehoming day. She wasn’t expected to survive the night but against the odds, she did. When she was well enough to leave ‘the big house’ and go into the run with the other girls, she ate cabbage like it was the most exciting thing in world. There was no delicate nibbling, she ripped it off in huge chunks and swallowed it whole. As her gizzard was still weak, she couldn’t digest it and ended up with an impacted crop. Fortunately, my vets were able to operate on her (a ‘croperation’!) and empty out the contents – a big green mass. Now when I get new girls, no cabbage is allowed for a few months and I even tear the leaves off a cauliflower before I give them that too! Something else to keep an eye on is the length of any grass where your girls are free ranging as if this is too long, it can get tangled in the crop with the same result.

Feeders

I have two feeders for the Layers Pellets both of which are hung from hanging basket brackets attached to the wooden frame of the run. I don’t have the feeders next to each other as I want all the girls to be able to access them easily and if there’s a bit of bullying going on by one feeder, at least there’s another one that they can get to. The feeders are plastic and the base just twists to lock or unlock. They’re plastic so really easy to keep clean and they get scrubbed out regularly.

Water

Drinkers

I have two water drinkers in the run (spaced out like the feeders) and each one holds 3 litres. These are also made of plastic and get scrubbed out at least every other day. The benefit of plastic drinkers is that you can use Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) in them whereas if you have galvanised drinkers you can’t. The drinkers I’ve got can be used in 3 positions as they have folding legs– they can be flat or raised to two different heights. I have mine at the highest level on slate slabs as the floor of my run slopes slightly. These also have a twist and lock/unlock base but here’s a word of warning…….(!) the drinker is turned upside down so it can be filled up, the base is placed upside down on top of it and locked into place at three points before the drinker is turned the right way again. Always double check that the base is securely locked before you pick the drinker up by the handle because if you don’t, when you’re stood there holding an empty drinker, looking at the base floating on 3 litres of water all over your kitchen floor, you’ll wish you had done!

Galley Cups

I always find it handy to have a few of these little plastic cups and have just ordered some more. I use them for the grit, corn and for food and water if I have a poorly girl in the house.

Sand bath

Hens love to dust bathe and it’s essential to their heath and wellbeing as it can help rid them of any pests. They’re quite good at choosing their own spots and I have several hen sized holes in my garden which prove this! A friend of mine has hens and he made them a sand bath out of an old tyre and he very kindly made one for me too! He gave it to me as a leaving gift when I moved jobs and it had a huge yellow bow tied around it – it was the most thoughtful, perfect leaving gift ever! (Thanks @gladyschicken). I fill my tyre with sand and a generous helping of Diatomaceous Earth and they love it – watching a hen have a dust bath is definitely one of life’s little pleasures.

Leg rings

I used these when I first got my hens because I had no idea what they’d look like when they feathered up and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. I don’t use these any more because I can tell who is who and it may sound silly, but I want them to be completely ‘free’ and I feel that if they have leg rings on, then they’re not. Probably sounds daft I know and I’m sure if you have a large flock then leg rings would be invaluable. If you do use them, always make sure they’re the right size and check that they’re not rubbing or causing sores on your girl’s legs.

In case you’re wondering where to get things from, the internet is usually the first place I look but more and more garden centres and pet stores are selling chicken products now. These can be a bit more expensive than other places though so it’s always worth having a look round first. I buy my Layers Pellets from a pet shop but order my pellets with the Flubenvet in online. My drinkers, feeders and other bits have predominantly come from eBay and have all been reasonably priced and good quality.

I think that’s about it for the basics – was that a sigh of relief?!

I hope it’s been useful and if you have any other ‘basics’ that you use, then I’d love to hear from you. Better still, why not find me on Twitter @tattyhentales or post some of your hen pictures on my Facebook page – My Chickens – Tatty Hen Tales? I would love to see them.

Keep an eye out for new blogs coming soon on choosing accommodation for your girls and extras that I have in my run. If you don’t want to miss these, why not subscribe to my blog?

Sam x