The kids would like a pet. You’ve considered dogs but they bark loudly, mess up the lounge and poop in places you don’t want them to. You consider a cat but they catch native animals and aren’t environmentally friendly. Have you considered chickens?

There’s so many reasons why keeping chickens is such a great hobby, and why chickens make such wonderful pets. You’ll never hear a chicken barking, and although a rooster crows there is absolutely no need for you to get a rooster. And kids love having chickens, I know my kids spend hours playing with the chickens.

And there’s one extra bonus to keeping your own chickens, namely lots of free range eggs.

Lots of people never think about getting chickens as a pet when it comes to choosing a pet for the kids. As long as your council allows you to keep chickens it’s well worth considering. But there are some things to think about before you rush out and buy your hens. You need a good chicken house to house your chickens.

The henhouse needn’t be enormous. If you only have 3 or 4 hens then a modest size henhouse will house them admirably provided it has a nesting area and rungs for them to roost on at night.

A good hen house is easy to build. A large part of the chicken house is simply wire mesh, and building a chicken house is a simple matter of building a frame of treated timber and covering the frame with wire. It is usually unnecessary to have a floor on the house as it sits on the ground.

And a small henhouse for 3 or 4 hens, if you add wheels one end and handles the other, can be moved around the garden so that the chicken droppings can fertilise the lawn in different spots from time to time. And there’s no reason chickens can’t free range around the garden during the day.

It’s the perfect handyman project for you to do together with the kids. Buy some materials, grab a hammer and nails, round up the kids and spend the afternoon building a fine chook house for your soon-to-be chicken collection. The kids will love it.

So if you’ve been searching around for a great idea for a pet for the children and consider getting your own chickens. Spend some quality time with the kids showing in your handyman skills building a simple chicken house and you’ll have happy kids, happy chickens and lots of eggs for dinner.

Then find yourself a good recipe book, learn how to make omelettes or soufflé, cook up a fine dinner for the family and you’ll be a hero.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 at 7:14 pm and is filed under mom boys, mom of boys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.