Important Choices

We highlight a few of the essential decisions that need to be made as newcomers to the hobby plan the arrival of their first chickens.

In these tough financial times, everyone’s looking to save a bit of money. But, if you’re also on the point of getting involved in the chicken-keeping hobby, it’s essential that you don’t extend your money saving efforts too far in that direction.

Keeping chickens on the cheap is never a good idea, and getting involved with your first birds on that basis is a bad way to start. Never forget that you are dealing with living creatures that are dependent on you for their health and wellbeing. They are the ones that will suffer if you take short-cuts, make unnecessary savings or fail in your duty of care towards them.

Cash control

Having said that, there's also little point in spending more cash than you need to on the initial equipment you’ll need; a happy medium is what you’re after, to assure yourself of decent hardware that’ll serve you and your birds well into the future. Consequently, it’s very important that you get the basic decisions right, which means doing some research and not rushing in to make impulse purchases.

The idea of this article is to highlight a few of the key areas that should occupy your thoughts when considering your first chickens. None of it is rocket science and most of it relies, essentially, on good, old fashioned common sense.

Nevertheless, it still pays to take your time with the decision-making process. The best advice will be available from those already involved, so always make the effort to chat with existing keepers who you trust. Join a breed club or your local poultry society, and pick the brains of experienced members. People should be only too happy to help and, if you come across somebody who isn’t, move on and find someone else who is.