Amusement!

Chickens make fantastic pets! Unlike rabbits, guinea pigs, and hamsters, chickens have a real character to them. Anyone who’s kept chickens before will tell you how amusing they are to watch scratching around the garden.

Eggs!

Have you ever had eggs from a corn fed, free range, pet hen? The first thing you will notice is the rich, deep colour of the yolk. It’s a rich orange instead of a pasty white yellow. unlike free range eggs from a supermarket, your hens will have a truly varied diet allowing them to make lovely eggs!

The largest difference is the taste! Once you've had a real egg you will never want to buy supermarket eggs again! The flavour is much richer and more intense. So if your enjoy cooking or just love a good food then keeping chickens is a must.

Great with children

If you have children, chickens make the best pets because they don’t bite or scramble like a rabbit, and they don’t try to escape like a guinea pig, and because they have wings it won’t hurt them if you drop them!

Children don’t loose interest in chickens because they keep giving eggs, they always love to collect the eggs in the morning,

Make a profit!

Chicken feed is not expensive, a 5kg bag of organic layers pellets costs under £4.50 and it will last for ages, in fact it’s a lot cheaper to feed chickens than to buy eggs. Infact over a five year period, the money which you saved in eggs will pay for the chickens and the housing!

If you keep four chickens and they produce 1000 eggs a year between them, that’s 3000eggs in three years. Free range eggs currently cost around 26p per egg, so that’s £780 worth of eggs in three years. If it were to cost you £60 a year in food and expenses that’s £180 in three years. The other cost if of course the housing, and a coop for four chickens costs £290 and if you get a run that makes it £430. therefore your total costs are £610 including feed. So over a three year period you could easily make £170 and pay back the cost of the coop and run. You can expect to save £65 a year for every chicken you have.

Keep out the slugs!

More than just a pretty plumage! Chickens will enhance your garden further by eating all of the slugs, as well as other annoyances such as flying ants!

 

 

 

 

2008 © Oakdene Coops    Ben Grist     01737 842520    sales@oakdene-coops.co.uk