Greenmeadow Poultry - Courses

Why come to me to learn?

I have kept chickens in both a smallholding and a back-garden setting at various times since I was a child. I grew up on the smallholding where I now keep my birds and during my teens I bred a number of rare breeds alongside keeping one hundred ex-battery hens for eggs, which I sold for my pocket money. In my thirties I kept hens in a village garden. I feel that my approach to poultry keeping is based on extensive practical experience as well as reading around the subject in both modern books and pre-war literature about health and wellbeing. I have a Further Education Teaching Certificate (Stage 1/Level 4) and taught in the community for many years.

An introduction to chicken-keeping

This is an introductory session for people who are thinking about keeping chickens. It is divided between theoretical and practical learning, including a look at the different breeds and housing we have and the chance to handle our birds.

• Learn about different breeds - Which are best for your situation? Large fowl or bantam? Heavy breeds or light breeds?
• What sort of housing and space do they need?
• Bedding, cleaning, health and hygiene.
• Pests, parasites and common diseases.
• What do they eat?
• How many eggs can you expect?

After introductions and a chat about what each person hopes to get out of the session, we spend a couple of hours outdoors looking at real-life examples of housing and pens, handling some birds and talking about health and feeding.

For the last forty-five to sixty minutes, we come back indoors and over tea and coffee we have a general question and answer session based around what we have seen outside. We also have a look at the fourteen-page course booklet that participants go home with, that I hope covers everything that has been talked about during the afternoon.

You will need to bring sturdy footwear and clothes you don't mind being close to a slightly nervous and potentially dirty-footed hen. If it's absolutely pouring down, the outdoor aspects of the course might be curtailed slightly.

From hatch to despatch

This is a follow-on course from 'An introduction to chicken-keeping'. Again it is divided between theory and practical learning.

• Hatching with a broody or an incubator. Selecting parent stock and eggs, humidity, egg-turning and candling.
• Brooding - Care of chicks. Bedding, heat sources, feed.
• Bringing 'growers' on. How fast do they grow, when do the pullets start to lay and when are the cockerels ready for despatch?
• Despatching - How to despatch using the 'broomstick method'.

This course is very hands-on. It will offer the chance to handle eggs to assess suitability for hatching and to candle live eggs from the incubator. It will also involve a demonstration of culling using the 'broomstick method'. You may also despatch a bird under supervision yourself if you wish.

Again, sturdy footwear and old clothing is required.

This course does NOT cover plucking or processing for the table.