Welcome to my Poultry & Chicken Keeping Blog
This is a a bit of a mixture of diary and articles about poultry keeping we hope you find interesting. Unusually for a blog, some is written by John Harrison and some pieces from his daughter Cara Martin.
Our grandson with 3 of our hens that he’s helpfully named Charlie – all of them are called Charlie!
Back Garden Poultry Runs with Chickens, Ducks & Quail
We, John & Val Harrison, live in Snowdonia, North Wales on a smallholding. Cara, her husband and son live nearby in a village.
Prior to joining us in Wales, Cara lived near Leeds where she kept chickens, ducks and quail in a small back garden.
The ducks and chickens were kept in fenced off runs with the quail in an aviary on the patio. I made a few videos in the backgarden there.
It isn’t only people with acres of land that can have their own small flock of happy and healthy birds. Whether you have a small city or suburban garden, an allotment, or a larger garden or smallholding – you can keep a flock of hens for fresh eggs in the morning.
We’re not trained experts but we’ve picked up a lot of information and experience over the years. We try to share this with you through this website and blog.
We also write a monthly newsletter so any questions please feel free to contact me with them and we will answer them in the newsletter or on here so that your questions can also help other poultry keepers.
You can keep poultry in town or country
We’ve kept hens in a small urban space, and now on a larger smallholding. Both present their own challenges, but no matter how much land you have there is usually a way to keep back-garden poultry happy and healthy.
More Help on Keeping Poultry
Don’t forget that we’ve a lot of information to help you on the site with articles covering other poultry such as ducks, geese and quail as well as chicken keeping help.
Mucky Runs & Mucky Bums PLUS Avian Flu Update
It hasn’t stopped raining here for the past week. In John’s most recent blog post you can see just how bad it got up at the smallholding. I know in many places they have had it far worse than us…
Chickens and Land Management – Omlet Fencing
Over on the smallholding we’re tidying up for the end of season and getting in the cold-sensitive crops. Unfortunately almost as soon as we have cleared a bed the chickweed starts to take over again. It won’t be long until…
We have a Layer!
The time has arrived and on opening the coop we found our first egg. Unfortunately though they had laid it under the perch and it got broken in the morning scramble to leave the coop. We worked out that it…
Cock-a-doodle-doo! 16 Weeks Old and Reaching Maturity
Well, the time came last weekend and the three big Light Sussex boys were awakening us at 5am with a rather loud cock-a-doodle-doo. One of them sounded more like he was being strangled each morning; somewhat akin to a teenage…
10 Week Old Chicks & Juvenile Moult
The chicks are all ten weeks old now and going through their juvenile moult. We may also have more girls than we thought as all three Spangled Orpingtons appear to be girls!
Favourite Chicks plus Omlet’s “Hentertainment” Bundle Review
The chicks are now all over 6 weeks old and almost fully feathered. Only Little John the Brahma is still to fully feather up, but even she is nearly there. Brahmas are always slow to feather and grow, but they…
The Back Garden Flock
