Keeping Chickens as Pets



 Keeping Chickens As Pets

I don't know why but a life long ambition of mine was always to keep chickens as pets. I just love everything about them, their quirky personalities, the noises they make, for some reason they just make me happy when I'm with them. So as my 40th birthday present my husband finally gave in and we went and collected Alice, Martha and Heidi.



Peacock, Bonnie & Bluebell

Since my girls came and joined the family they have proved to be everything and more, that I'd hoped them to be. As a novice chicken keeper, I chose the comical Pekin Bantam, which are a great breed to start with. A small bird, with short squat body, pom pom tail and fluffy feathery trousers. We are now on our second set of girls, Bluebell, Bonnie and Peacock. Every bird has a distinctly different personality. Bluebell, soft cuddly and affectionate, Peacock, the Barbie doll bird, a little bit ditsy but truly beautiful, and then Bonnie, a little bit grumpy and a little bit of Mrs Mangle about her, for those that remember the matriarch from Ramsey Street.

So what makes Chickens good pets?

Friends with benefits

 You get all the love and interaction of a regular small pet but of course you get the eggs, just like friends with benefits! I'm often asked how can you keep chickens and have a pretty garden. Well my garden is far from perfect but I grow a huge range of edible and decorative plants in a small space and still let my girls have free range of the garden.

 

Chickens - great pets for the garden

My Garden, not too shabby, although we have chickens

They do love to scratch for grubs and do eat lots of different vegetation but it's a balance. They keep the creepy crawlies that can harm the garden down and in return some of my plants have doily like leaves. Now I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a few doily leaves, knowing that they will be turned into delicious fresh eggs, rather than providing food for slugs, and the loss is tiny and unnoticeable across the whole garden. Perkins are also the one breed that are least likely to wreck your garden, their fluffy feet mean that they don't like getting muddy feet and consequently don't scratch up the grass. The only adjustment I have had to make to the garden is to edge the borders. The girls love where boarder meets lawn and will extend the boundary given the chance. So to keep things neat, I have edged the boards with log roll, it keeps the lawn edges crisp and gives the girls handy garden length perches. They also keep the lawn length down, together with help from the guinea-pigs, I have only had to cut the grass twice so far this year. Obviously they help keep the nutrients in the soil tip top, chicken poop is a fertilizer second to none, helping me grow a wide range of fruit and veg in a much smaller space than normally possible. Also reduced chemical fertilizers and pesticides means gardening with a clearer conscious.


A quick after school cuddle with Peacock

Chickens as family pets

Perkins are incredibly friendly, they will follow you round the garden, they genuinely want to be where ever you are. So whether you are working in the borders or relaxing reading up on the decking, they will always want to be within a few feet of you. They adore my daughter, as soon as they hear her voice, they will charge the length of the garden, doing their fly running, galloping wildly, while madly flapping their wings for extra oomph! I love the little tap on the back door while I'm cooking dinner, just their little reminder to make sure they get their dinner too.