Things You Should Know About Before You Get Chickens

Hey fans! Eva back again


Today my aim is to help those considering getting chickens to make the right decision. There is nothing worse than getting a pet and then not taking proper care of it!

• If you are considering getting chickens, make sure you get more than one! they are very social animals and need company
• A rooster is not necessary unless you want fertilised eggs
• Roosters can be vicious if not surrounded by at least 5 females, try not to have two roosters in the same coop
• Chickens can be loud, be prepared for a lot of squawking and other chicken noises!!
• Chickens poo A LOT. you must change their bedding at least twice a week in order to keep a healthy environment for them. You should also ensure that they are healthy by examining their excretions under a microscope to look for worms
• Chickens love to dig. Be prepared to have holes in your coop! if you plan on letting chickens roam free around your garden make sure to be ready for holes :(
• Chickens usually live up till they are about 10. Make sure you are ready to take care of them for all this time. If you don't plan on keeping your chickens after egg production slows make sure you re-home them or kill them and eat them in a humane way.
• Chickens can become hill and also need veterinary care. Chicken vets can be expensive as there is so few. However, chickens can be cured often through home remedies. Websites such as http://www.backyardchickens.com gives many helpful tips. Video tutorials on YouTube are also very good. you can look at a video I put in my first blog post as a reference to a good chicken home remedy.
• All chickens have different personalities. They are just like humans and you must adjust to their different personality types.

I know recently I have been putting many lists in my blog, I think lists are an effective way of getting my point across. Credit for the great facts about chickens goes to www.sustainable.org.


Sadly this is my last blog post, I really enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoyed reading it.
Thanks for reading,
Eva X

Fun Chicken Facts

Hey Guys, Me again :)


Today I'm going to give you 15 fun facts about chickens.

1. Chickens have an excellent memory! They can remember up to 100 different faces of both people and animals
2. When chickens they dream just like humans do
3. They can see all colours (unlike other animals)
4. There are over 25 billion chickens in the world that is more than 3 times the amount of humans
5. Similar to dogs, chickens love playing
6. Mother hens turn their eggs up to 50 times everyday.
7. The most amount of eggs laid by one hen in 24 hours is 7!!!!!
8. Alektorophobia is the fear of chickens
9. Chickens cannot taste sweetness however, they can taste saltiness
10.  When chickens are stressed the lose feathers
11. A chickens beak can bleed
12. The most amount of yolks found in one egg is 9!
13. Chickens are 75% water! A human is 60% water :0
14. Chickens make different noises for different things, each noise means something specific
15. The oldest chicken is 22 years old her name is Muffy

I hope you learned something new from these super cool facts. All credit goes to www.backyardchickens.com for their excellent info on chickens! It is definitely a go to website if you ever need help with chickens.


That's all for this week bye x

Silkie Chickens

Hey guys, Eva here!!


Today I'm going to write all about the Silkie/Silky chicken breed. Silky chickens are really cute and fluffy and there is a wide variety of them all around the world.


The first known written account of a Silkie chicken is from when Marco Polo wrote about a 'fluffy' chicken when he travelled in Asia in the 13th Century. They are thought to have originated in Ancient China but there is not 100% proof that they did.


Characteristics of a Silkie Chicken:

1. Fluffy plumage, that feels like silk (hence the name)
2. Black skin and bones
3. Blue earlobes
4. Five toes (most chickens have 4)
5. Calm and friendly nature
6. Hatch 3 eggs a week.

In some countries they are considered a Bantam breed of chicken.  According to the Wikipedia page on Silkie Chickens, since the start of the 21st Century Silkies have become very popular. They are kept as both ornamental and pet chickens.


Silkie chickens come in a wide variety of colours such as:

1. Blue
2. Black
3. Grey
4. Buff
5. Silver
6. Partridge
7. White
8. Silkie Chickens can also be died into an array of different colours.

http://bit.ly/2aBBBKw

 Bye for this week xox

My Favourite Chickens

Hey Guys, I'm back!

This week I will talk to you about the different types of chicken breeds. I will discuss them in order of which are my favourites and so on. I will give you a brief history and geography for each breed.

My favourite breed of chicken is the Buff Sussex chicken. I love this breed of chicken as it is so beautiful. There are two Buff Sussex chickens on the farm in my school. Much like the Bantam Buff Sussex chicken that I wrote about in my last post they originated in AD43 in the county that is now identified as Sussex in south east England. 

A photo of a Bantam Buff Sussex I took myself!

My next favourite breed of chicken is the Rhode Island Red. Rhode Island Red chickens are very popular in Ireland. They were originally bred in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the years     1831-1899. the date is unknown. They were originally bred for meat production but they are now also used as show hens.

http://bit.ly/2jYuemA

Another favourite of mine is definitely the Serama Rooster. The Serama chicken was created by crossing bantam breeds of chickens in Malaysia. It has only come about in the last 50 years. It is also very rare. They are beautiful as rooster, their feathers are an excellent colour.

http://bit.ly/2jlPyAB

I also really like the Araucana chicken that originated in Chile. It lays blue eggs and has little tufts of feathers around their beak or the ears. This make it look like they have a moustache which is very funny. I also really like the blue eggs as it is very uncommon in chickens to lay blue eggs.

http://bit.ly/2jYh09r

That's all for this week,
Bye xx


My Experience with Chickens

Hey guys, Eva here

Today I'm going to talk about my experience with chickens. In October of 2016 I purchased 6 chicken eggs from Kilkenny, Kilkenny is a county in the south east of Ireland.  I got 3 Cream Legbar eggs and 3 Bantam Buff Sussex eggs.

http://bit.ly/2k7TCW6

 According to the Wikipedia page on Cream Legbars; Cream Legbar chickens were originally created in Great Britain by Michael Pease and Reginald Crundall Punnett in Cambridge University. They wanted to create a breed of chicken that could be easily auto-sexed just a few days after their birth. They crossed two different breeds of chickens; the Leghorn and the Barred Plymouth Rock.

 As discussed on the Wikipedia page of Sussex Chickens, Bantam Buff Sussex chickens also originate from Britain. They are believed to be bred in the area that became Sussex (a county in south east England). They came about in AD 43. They are very popular chickens and are also extremely beautiful.

Out of the six eggs I got in Kilkenny only 3 hatched. One had splayed legs at birth, however after watching a short and helpful video on YouTube I quickly learnt how to fix that (the video is down below). Sadly this little chick passed away 5 days after her birth, after many attempts to keep her alive such as keeping her on a hot water bottle to keep her warm, fixing her legs so she could walk and feeding her sugar water every few hours as she would not eat, it was unsuccessful.  The other two chicks were male and they were Cream Legbar, unlike their sister who was a Bantam Buff Sussex. Sadly when they were about two months old one of the male chickens murdered the other.

I learnt a lot from these chickens and I also learnt about the harsh reality of nature. It was an excellent experience and I would highly recommend incubating chicken eggs if you are interested.

That's all for this week

Bye guys!!



 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSPbqubJlU8



 

Introduction!!!

Hey Guys, Eva here :)


This will be a cute blog all about CHICKENS!!!
I will post weekly about chickens because I love them.
This is the number one place to learn everything there is to learn about chickens.
Happy reading, I love my fans xx .