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The Omlet Blog Category Archives: Chickens
Lenham Chicken Coop
The Lenham Chicken Coop is designed to provide spacious accommodation for up to 12 chickens. Its simple design offers ease of maintenance and great access.
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Tags: chickens, pets and chicken coop
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Eglu Go Hutch
The Eglu Go Hutch is perfect for keeping rabbits and guinea pigs in the garden safely. The Eglu Go Guinea Pig Hutch and run is suitable for two to three guinea pigs, and the Rabbit hutch and run is ideal for two pet bunnies. The plastic rabbit and guinea pig house is easy to clean and insulated, making it perfect to use all year round and both come with fox-resistant run.
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Tags: guinea pigs, rabbits and pets
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Eglu Cube Chicken Coop
The Eglu Cube is the ideal way to keep up to 10 chickens in a town or country garden. It is based on the same revolutionary technology as the original Eglu with slide out dropping trays, hose clean surfaces, twin walled insulated, no maintenance and our No Foxes Allowed protection. The Eglu Cube makes is easy to keep a larger number of hens in your garden and leaves you with more time to enjoy the pleasures of owning chickens
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Eglu Classic Chicken Coop
The Eglu is everything you need and want from a chicken house. Offering a standard of living not seen before in chicken house design, it is fitted throughout with a slatted floor that allows droppings to fall cleanly away protecting your chickens from walking on a soiled floor. The integrated nest box is comfortably curved in all the right places to provide a cosy place to lay eggs. To make collecting your eggs easy, the Eglu Classic has an eggport which you can open from the outside giving instant access to the nesting area.
Routine upkeep of this fantastic chicken coop is a simple 5 minute task thanks to the slide-out dropping tray and fully removable lid. You can also be sure of the time and money saving benefits of owning an Eglu because it’s made from modern energy-efficient polymers that never need to be treated. The Eglu Classic is naturally weather resistant and will last for years. At the end of it’s life it can be 100% recycled.
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Eglu Go Chicken Coop
The simple, stylish, straightforward way to start keeping chickens. The Eglu Go is the latest in the Eglu range and keeps up to 4 medium size chickens happy and healthy.
The Eglu Go comes complete with everything you need to get started. It has plastic roosting bars and a discreet nesting area which can be filled with straw or shredded paper to make a comfortable nest for your chickens. The freshly laid eggs can be plucked from the nest simply by opening the door at the back and can be served with some buttery soldiers in a matter of minutes – delicious!
You’ll find keeping your Eglu Go in tip-top condition a breeze thanks to its innovative slide-out dropping tray and wipe clean surfaces.
The optional (yet recommended) standard 2m run is made from strong steel weld mesh, virtually impossible for predators to break. A unique anti-tunnel skirt sits flat on the ground and prevents animals from digging in. The run has spacious vertical sides and gives your chickens plenty of room. You can extend the run in 1m sections if you wish. The Eglu can be positioned on grass or any other surface such as wood chippings or rough ground where the chickens can rummage.
The unique tunnel-proof panels have been proven in rigorous testing to be fox and badger resistant. The run means that when you are out and about you can be sure that your chickens are safe. The dark green coating is fused to the metal wires ensuring an extremely durable finish that looks great in the garden.
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Boughton Chicken Coop
The Boughton is our best selling traditional chicken house and provides comfortable accommodation for up to six chickens. It is the ideal solution for the first time keeper. The Boughton is specifically designed for bantams and medium-sized birds.
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The Chicken Swing has Landed
The Chicken Swing has Landed!
Following its huge success in the USA, The Chicken Swing has finally landed at Omlet, and it’s ready to bring fun to all our feathered friends.
All chicken keepers know that birds love to perch and they will hop on to anything they can lay their feet on to give them a good view of the world. The Chicken Swing provide more than just a place to perch though – it actually swings! Ideal for hanging in any chicken coop, enclosure or run, The Chicken Swing will reduce boredom and keep your pets hentertained. They’ll love being able to hop up as they please, stretch their wings and swing back and forth above their pals.
The Chicken Swing is suitable for poultry of all ages and breeds and it is a fantastic accessory for every chicken keeping area. You are sure to henjoy watching your pets in action as much as they enjoy using it!
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Brand New Eglu Go UP
Hello,
We’re very eggcited to finally unveil our latest chicken house to join the Eglu range. Introducing the Eglu Go UP – a coop with all the benefits of the Eglu Go, on legs!
A design speggtacular, the Eglu Go UP has the best features of the other Eglu products, under one roof, making it our favourite chicken house yet. Perfect for the first-time henkeeper, this looks fabulous, is easy to clean, straightforward to use and suitable for up to four chickens. Hens will love the plastic roosting bars and integrated nesting box. Simply fill with straw and look forward to collecting your first eggs by opening the door at the back.
Great Height for you and your Hens
The height of the Eglu Go UP is a real bonus. Your hens will love to roost up off the ground, sleeping in a warm and cosy hideaway, and having a private area to escape to lay their eggs. They will quickly learn how to use the ladder to climb up to their home, and the house will act as a sheltered spot for hens to play under too. It’s not just the chickens that will love the Go UP though – you will too! You’ll find that the convenient height makes chicken keeping a delight! There’s no need to bend down to clean the Eglu or collect the eggs.
The Eglu Go UP is available with optional wheels. This is highly recommended for anyone wanting to move their Eglu regularly, particularly if you are living on your own. Although you can choose to keep your Eglu in one place, you may want to move it around the garden regularly to allow your grass to recover, and give hens a new patch of lawn to nibble at. Using the easy foot operated wheel mechanism, one person will be able to simply push or pull the Eglu go UP around their own. The wheels can be used with your Eglu Go UP whether you have a run or not. You just need to have the frame to attach them to.
Convert your Existing Eglu Go
Do you already have an Eglu Go Chicken House? Convert it into an Eglu Go UP with our easy add-on accessories. Choose the Frame and Ladder to raise your existing Eglu Go off the ground, add the Wheel Set to the frame to make your house manoeuvrable, and choose the 2m Run to give your hens a secure area to roam in. These parts are simple to add to your Eglu Go. (Please note, they are not compatible with the Eglu Go standard 2m Run).
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Broody Chickens
You can usually tell if a hen is broody or not fairly easily. If she goes into the nest and doesn’t come back out again and starts making a very strange noise whilst puffing herself up like a football she could be broody. The noise they make is obviously different from the usual range of sounds and can vary from something like a very deep cluck-cluck-cluck rather like horses walking on cobbles to an ear splitting screech! Another sign of broodiness is feather pulling and you may notice that your hen starts plucking them from her breast to line the nest ready for the eggs resulting in an embarrassing bald patch on her belly. You may also spot a strange habit of picking up leaves, twigs, feathers and bits of grass and throwing them over her shoulders in an attempt to make her nest! A normally placid hen can turn aggressive and will peck you if you try to move her and the opposite can happen to a very flighty bird who will suddenly let you cuddle her till the cows come home as soon as she turns broody!
If you act quickly, you can get her to resume egg laying much sooner so try to restrict her access to the nest if possible, although this is usually very difficult if you have other hens who are trying to lay. If she sleeps in the nest, you need to encourage her to sleep on the roosting bars to allow lots of nice fresh air to circulate around her to keep her cool as she’ll get wonderfully warm and cosy overnight and that will just prolong the broodiness. If you put a brick, upturned plant pot, football or even a garden ornament into the nest, this will stop her from roosting in it but remember to remove it during the day so that your other hens can lay eggs. Keep her out of the nest if you can during the daytime. If you spot her in the garden sitting on a nest she’s made from leaves, twigs and feathers, make sure this is quickly removed and move her on or tempt her away with a treat or two.
The urge to go broody is usually caused by a rise in internal body temperature so a quick cold bath usually brings her back to normal and should stop the urge. Dunk the hen’s rear end and abdomen in a bucket of cold water until feathers are soaked. You can do this several times a day. Continue soaking until she stops being broody which should only take a couple of days depending on how long she’s been broody for. It sounds horribly cruel but they actually seem to find it soothing as they are so hot, bothered and cross that a cool bath makes them feel a lot more comfortable. Some people use an old towel to wrap an ice block or fill a plastic bag with ice cubes and put that under the hen in the nest and the coldness soon drives them from the nest. If your hens are in a run and she is determined to sit on the eggs at every possible opportunity, a trick we have used on our own hens might work for her too. We sectioned off the end of the run for our broody hen and put food and water in it. We popped her in there as soon as they woke up in the morning and kept her there until our other hens had laid. As soon as they all had, we removed the barrier, closed the coop door and let her socialise with the others. It took about a week of isolating her out of the way of the nest to break the broodiness but it worked and she’s been fine since. If your hens are free ranging, it’s even easier. You can make a separate run for her using some fruit cage netting or chicken fencing and leave her in there with food and water until the others have laid then you can let her out to join them.
You can let her sit it out if you like as it won’t do her any harm but you won’t get any eggs until she stops being broody and if she’s been sitting for a long time, this could mean no eggs for weeks afterwards. If she does stay put in the nest, try to encourage her to get up once a day to eat, drink and go to the toilet. Broody hens can lose a lot of body weight while they are sitting. It’s important that you check her regularly for lice and mites as they tend to infest broody hens because they aren’t dustbathing and preening as regularly as they normally would. A bad infestation of red mite can kill a broody so it’s also vital to check the coop carefully too as these mites live in crevices and corners of the coop rather than on the bird itself. If you happen to find anything on her, a dusting with a suitable powder or spray, repeated a week later, should remove any stowaways and there are various red mite treatments available for treating the coop. Once she’s lost the urge to sit, she’ll come off the nest and start socialising again and hopefully the eggs should start to arrive again.
A sick hen may also give a false impression that they are broody so be aware that she may not be feeling hormonal at all. A sick chicken will look completely miserable – head tucked into its neck, eyes closed, hunched up shoulders and a droopy tail. They withdraw themselves from the other hens and look unhappy and listless. A hen in lay or even a broody hen should have a bright red comb while a sick hen’s is yellowish and droopy. If you are concerned that she may be ill, it might be a good idea to take her to see a vet to get her checked over properly.
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Keeping Chickens at your School
The eglu for schools has been designed to support teachers in using the outdoor classroom as a resource across the curriculum for pupils of all ages.
Keeping chickens can help reconnect young people with their environment, food and animals in both urban and rural settings. Omlet can provide you with the expertise, resources and information to make keeping chickens in your school easy, fun and rewarding.
Children can be fully involved in looking after the chickens so that no additional staffing time is required. The eglu and chickens are creative and distinctive aids to teaching the National Curriculum. They can be used in lots of different ways both practical and theoretical to stimulate and enhance learning across all abilities.
Use the next button below or the left hand navigation menu to find out about the service Omlet provide, the fantastic award winning eglu and why your school needs chickens!
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Bleeding from the Vent Area
If you find blood on the egg shell or little spots in the nest, she may have ruptured a little blood vessel in her vent as she attempted to lay an egg or passed a particularly hard dropping. This happens sometimes and is usually just a one off event but if you notice that she is continuing to pass blood or if she develops a protuberance around the vent area, you may need to take her to see a vet.
If there is anything sticking out of the vent area this could be a prolapse and this is where the oviduct or egg laying tube has been pushed out of the body in an effort to lay an egg. It is imperative that you separate her from other hens as they will be attracted to the redness and peck at it which can cause your hen distress and even serious injury.
If there is obviously anything unusual hanging out of the vent, wash the prolapsed area with warm water with some antiseptic in it. You may see that there is an egg in the prolapse and you’ll need to carefully remove this without breaking it. If you do happen to break it, make sure that you remove any pieces of shell as they may lead to an abdominal infection if they are left. Once the prolapse is clean, tuck the hen under your arm with her head covered to keep her calm and gently push the prolapse back into the vent cavity with clean hands or wear clean rubber gloves or even use a clean wet cloth to help you push it back. Keep the hen in a darkened room or box to recover and allow the prolapse to settle back into her body. Applying haemorrhoid cream to the prolapse can help shrink it so that it’s easier to pop back into the body. You will need to stop her laying for a while to stop the prolapse from just popping back out again so make sure that she has water to drink but starve her for 24 hours. You can gradually begin feeding her again with a very bland diet such as Weetabix after that or you could try to encourage her to go broody by sitting her on a few false eggs. This doesn’t always work but it’s worth a try. She may need veterinary treatment if it keeps happening and if it does, I’m afraid that the prognosis isn’t good.
If she has ruptured a little blood vessel in her vent because she’s struggling to lay a large egg, you may be able to help her to pass it by warming up the vent area either by sitting the hen in a bowl of warm water or on a towel covered hot water bottle or by gently blowing warm (not hot) air from a hairdryer onto the area. This, accompanied by a little Vaseline or olive oil rubbed onto the vent is usually enough to relax the muscles and allow the egg to be passed. It’s probably best to bring her in to the house so that she’s nice and warm and you may find that she lays an egg and returns back to normal soon afterwards. If you give her a towel covered hot water bottle to lie on and keep her calm in a darkened room, it might not be long before she lays if this is the problem. An egg bound hen will look miserable, hunched and fluffed up. She may appear to be straining to lay an egg and she may also be panting and breathing fast. If you feel her abdomen and vent area, you might be able to feel the egg.
There’s a chance that bleeding has occurred because your hen has been pecked in the vent area by another hen as this is a prime target for bullies. If you find that this is the case, you can get a variety of sprays to use on the bullied bird which make her feathers taste unpleasant to the other birds and these are usually enough to deter pecking. When the skin is red, sore or broken, it is important to separate the injured hen straight away and you can use Veterinary Wound Powder on them to help stem the bleeding and promote healing. Hens are morbidly attracted to the colour red and will peck at wounds until they are in a dreadful state if nothing is done so Gentian or Purple Spray is very effective as it stains the skin purple and this makes it a much less obvious target for the bully. If a hen develops a wound of any kind, remove them and allow it to heal for a few days before reintroducing them to prevent the wound being pecked. All these products are usually available from animal feed merchants or farm supply warehouses – usually in the equestrian section, and some large pet shops.
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Chickens Sleeping in the Nesting Box
Some hens like to sleep in the nest and while this isn’t necessarily a problem, it can mean that the eggs get very dirty as chickens produce copious amounts of droppings overnight and these can accumulate in the nest, making it very dirty indeed.
Also in warm weather, the nest is a wonderfully cosy, warm place and this can encourage a hen to go broody as this is triggered by a rise in body temperature. If the hens sleep in the nest and get warm overnight, they may like being there so much that they refuse to get off the nest!
A good way to encourage them to roost on the bars where it is cooler and their droppings will fall into the tray beneath the bars is to put something in the nest to block it overnight. A football, brick, upturned plant pot or even a garden ornament will do the job nicely and if you remember to remove it in the morning to allow them to lay eggs, this should do the trick and they’ll learn that the roosting bars are for sleeping on.
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