What do I need to keep chickens in a garden?

Keeping a few hens is genuinely straightforward once three things are right: the housing is fox-proof, the flock is big enough to be a flock, and the feeding is legal. The last is the one people are most often unaware of — feeding kitchen scraps to poultry is prohibited, and it is a disease control rule rather than a technicality.

Safety

Step by step

1. Check whether you are allowed to keep them.Property deeds and tenancy agreements frequently contain covenants prohibiting livestock or poultry, and they are enforceable. Planning permission is not usually needed for a small coop but can be for a large structure. Cockerels cause the great majority of neighbour complaints, which are dealt with as statutory nuisance.
2. Register with the poultry register.Registration is now required for all bird keepers in Great Britain, including those with a handful of birds, so that keepers can be contacted during a disease outbreak. It is free and done through GOV.UK.
3. Keep at least three birds.Hens are flock animals with a social hierarchy and should not be kept alone or in a pair, because losing one leaves a solitary bird. You do not need a cockerel for eggs.
4. Build for foxes, not for hens.Foxes visit urban gardens routinely, dig under fencing and open simple catches. A run needs weld mesh rather than chicken wire, buried or turned outwards as a skirt at ground level, a secure roof, and a coop that is shut every night without exception. Automatic pop-hole doors exist and are worth it.
5. Size the coop and run properly.Adequate perch length per bird, one nest box per few hens, ventilation without draughts, and far more run space than the coops sold with an integral run typically provide. Grass in a small run disappears within weeks, so plan for bare ground or wood chip and a way to rotate.
6. Feed proper poultry feed, and only that.A complete layers pellet or mash appropriate to their age, plus grit and oyster shell for shell quality, and constant fresh water. It is illegal to feed poultry kitchen scraps or any food that has passed through a domestic kitchen, including vegetarian food, under animal by-products rules.
7. Plan for parasites and health from the start.Red mite lives in the coop rather than on the bird and is the most common problem in a UK back garden flock. Choose a coop you can genuinely clean into every crevice, inspect perch ends weekly, and find a vet who sees poultry before you need one.
8. Understand the egg rules.Eggs from your own birds for your own household are unrestricted. Selling eggs brings in food safety and marketing rules that vary with how and where you sell, so check before you put a box at the gate.
9. Follow biosecurity, and expect housing orders.Avian influenza prevention zones and housing orders are imposed regularly in the UK and apply to back garden flocks as well as commercial ones. Have a way to keep birds under cover, keep wild birds off the feed, and check GOV.UK's current position.
10. Know what happens when they stop laying.Hens lay well for a couple of years and can live several more. Decide in advance whether that is acceptable, because it is the point at which many garden flocks are given up.
11. Sort out cover for holidays before getting them.Someone has to shut them in every night and let them out every morning. It is the commitment people underestimate most.

Questions people ask