Re: Holiday / Vacation care

From: Ray Drouillard (cosmicpam2_at_comcast.net)
Date: 09/27/04 

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 14:31:47 -0400

"Simon Smith" <sslsmith@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:42696ece.0409270504.7faf5ff@posting.google.com...
> I'm looking into taking up hen keeping - mainly for pleasure and as
> 'pets' for the children. We'll probably get 2 or 3 birds in one of
> those Eglu type enclosures i.e. a nest house with an attached run.
>
> Reading through the information on the internet it seems that chicken
> keeping is pretty straightforward (I don't know why more people don't
> do it) allthough one thing that is glossed over or not mentioned is
> what happens when you're away.
>
> We have relatives that could come around once or twice a week but I
> couldn't really ask them to come round everyday.
>
> Is it feasible to load up the feeder and leave them for a week without
> any attention, like you would with a hamster ?

You can load a feeder for as long as you like, but you need to make sure
that they have fresh water. You can probably get a waterer that'll last
a week or two for four or five hens, but it would be really bad for the
birds if something happens to it when you are gone. If I was going to
leave the birds alone for any length of time, I would improve the odds
by using two or three waterers.

That's assuming, of course, that they aren't laying yet. Once they
start laying, you want to collect the eggs once or twice a day.

Ray Drouillard

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