Re: Keeping Poultry and Rabbits On Scraps

Alang wrote:
On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:31:25 +0000, Farmer Giles <giles@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Alang wrote:
On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:41:22 +0000, Farmer Giles <giles@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Alang wrote:
On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:19:10 +0000, Farmer Giles <giles@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Maria wrote:
MM wrote:
Reprinted in facsimile for £6.99 a copy (£4.89 from my friend, Mrs
Amazon), this Penguin wartime book will teach you how to keep
livestock to supplement the diet for free.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Keeping-Poultry-Rabbits-Scraps-Handbook/
dp/0141038624/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228653212&sr=8-1

It was my dad's dream, during the war, to start a poultry business and
in 1957 he did! This book may well have started him on the road to
day-old chicks, which he and I collected on our bikes from the local
railway station.

Even a pocket handkerchief of a garden will support a couple of laying
hens. You could probably do the "barn egg" variety in a playpen in the
back bedroom if you don't have a garden. And kids love chickens.

Doesn't take into account the swathes of complaints you get from interfering neighbours, who only remember how their mouths work when they have got something to complain about.
Oh dear, looks like someone's got the 'Neighbours from Hell'!
Nah. The days are long gone when people could keep chickens and rabbits in
the garden without some neighbour complaining :(

The worst ones are newcomers who start screaming about cockerels that
have been crowing since before the foundations of their crappy 3bd
semi were laid
My neighbours have chickens in their garden, and I've never complained.
Yebbut you are probably not an incomer and with a name like farmer
giles prolly keep pigs
Not only am I not a farmer (I have a bit of land, though, hence the handle), I don't keep pigs - or anything else, for that matter. But I do live in a very rural area, where people tend to be a bit more tolerant of such things.

Not sure that even I would be totally happy with my neighbours having chickens if I lived in an urban environment. Chickens almost invariably attract rats, if a great deal of care isn't taken with their feed dispensers, and they are more difficult to deal with in town gardens.

You get rats in towns anyway. The big furry bastards are all over
since the council started controlling dogs

You get rats everywhere, of course, but having a nice big chicken-feed dispenser lying around (or any other food source) does nothing to discourage them!
.