one-day course keeping chickens

venue: Hackney City Farm, London

Chickens can play an invaluable role on a smallholding, or can be kept just as happily in a back garden. This course will cover the basics of keeping chickens and help you to plan your brood. There will also be hands-on experience of handling and inspecting chickens. This course is suitable for vegetarians wishing to keep chickens for eggs, but there will be a discussion on the use of chickens for meat, and the ethical issues involved.

The course includes:

• choosing chickens to suit you: breeds of chicken; uses of hens and what you want to get out of keeping chickens
• housing: different options for housing your hens, from deep litter to totally free range, and the associated pros and cons
• nutrition: what a chicken needs to grow healthily and be productive; organic feed, and what you can contribute yourself
• healthy, happy hens: the basics of chicken care; the five ‘freedoms’ of animal welfare; common diseases and their cures; how to handle a chicken and deal with chicken behaviour (pecking order, hens going broody etc)
• egg production: understanding how a hen produces an egg and ways in which you can help or hinder this process; artificial vs natural breeding; care of chicks
• meat production: ethical and welfare issues associated with keeping chickens for meat
• legalities: what laws/guidance from authorities that you need to consider when keeping poultry

dates: see 'book online' below

more on poultry

what it's all about - delicious fresh eggs every day

a fine-looking cock

brooder containing day-old chicks