Poultry Pages

Poultry Help - Backyard Hens to Ducks & Geese

A Warm Welcome to The Poultry Pages

When I was a child I came home with a book - Poultry Keeping for Beginners – which stated ‘All you want to know about poultry keeping whether you start with day old chicks, 8 16 or 20 week old chickens or pullets in laying condition’

This was not well received by my parents who felt getting me to clean out the rabbit hutch was work enough and the book went to the shelf to remain there for 40 years.

Then, in the 1970’s, I came back from a holiday in Wales with the Backyard Dairy Book and the Backyard Poultry Book. Dreams of a smallholding, milking the cow and eating eggs still warm fresh were not, sadly, to become reality.

Jobs that involved staying away and working all hours didn’t fit with milking the cow and feeding the hens but the dream remained smoldering in the back of my mind.

Fast-forward to a couple of years ago and I took on my allotment. Growing my own vegetables and actually becoming self-sufficient to a degree fanned the smoldering dream back into life.

Around this time, I wanted to use an illustration from an old copy (1977!) of Practical Self Sufficiency magazine. This sent me to Broad Leys Publishing and Katie Thear who granted permission to use the picture. Some talk ensued and I took over the task of producing her web site. Katie Thear is an acknowledged expert on poultry and I obtained some of her books to update my knowledge before jumping in to keeping chickens. You can buy her books direct from Broad Leys via this site.

Next was a bit of a battle w+ith the local council, which resulted in permission to keep poultry on the allotment. Our back garden isn’t really suitable for a number of reasons but mainly our cats. It's not that the cats would hunt the chickens but that the cats are phobic about large birds after living for three years by the seaside and being subject to attack by seagulls. Hence the great keeping chooks on the plot war with the authorities.

Being nearly ready to go I have been doing research and this site will pass on the results of that and my experiences. At present I’m holding back as the avian flu scare is continuing. I am not personally concerned about it but some of the other allotment holders have reacted as if I proposed to bring the Black Death onto the site!

Who knows, when I retire I may even have that smallholding.