Sallygarden Smallholding - The Forum For Sustainable Living

Keeping Chickens, A Beginners Guide

I'm proud to announce the addition of another ebooklet, 'Keeping Chickens, A Beginners Guide', to our collection. It covers everything from where to source poultry, which breed to buy to suit your needs, DIY or bought housing options, feeding and breeding. The ebooklet includes a section on plant fodder suitable to grow in and around your chicken run which is an approach that will save you money in terms of buying in food and also help do your bit for the environment by cutting down on the volume of feed you import to your home.

Keeping chickens can be incredibly rewarding and fun, but it's also a good way to take another step towards increasing your resilience to the changes in our economic communities. Producing food locally means you are less tied into the necessity to fork out yet more cash at the multinational supermarket. Anything, however small, that brings food production to your doorstep is a step in the right direction on many levels ; food higher in nutritional value, less food miles, local food for local people, a product with which you can barter in return for other food or services and perhaps surplus that you can sell to friends and neighbours. Children also benefit from learning about where food comes from and of course the responsibilities for animal welfare that go with taking care of any animal. Collecting your own fresh eggs in the morning is such a huge thrill, it never ceases to bring delight to our family!

Chickens aren't just for the rural setting, many people in urban homes are keeping a couple chickens in their garden for eggs. It's perfectly feasible and a wonderful addition.

Our ebooklet contains all the information you'll need to get up and running, it costs €8 via email or €12 via snail mail. We are also launching a new course of the same title here at Sallygardens so if you prefer to come along and learn all you need to know around the kitchen table please call to book a place (071 9632212). Courses run every weekend and cost €45 per person, places are limited to four per course, so book well in advance. You'll be cracking your very own home laid eggs into the frying pan before you know it!