What Chickens for sale do we have?
Here at Hedgerow Henporium you will find that we have a varied selection of sweet-natured hens for sale. They are all at different ages depending on their hatch-date. We generally have between 50 and 150 birds available. Our poultry stock changes frequently throughout the year. It may turn out that we don’t have the age you are currently looking for, but we probably will in a few weeks time.
If you have questions or need more help please give us a call on 01244 =646 o26
Browse our Chicken Breeds Pages
Browse through our breeds pages as this lists what hens for sale we currently have. Click on the pictures below, or the breeds are also listed as a submenu of our chickens for sale menu. This will also give you more background on some other popular chicken breeds. We hope that this further information will make your decision easier.
How to Choose your chickens
Julie or Keith will be on hand to help you make your choice. Our suggestions for hens for sale based on what is suitable for your situation. We factor your skill level, and which will also be the most compatible with your household into consideration. Choosing a chicken is a bit like choosing chocolates because not everyone likes the same. You may find that once you have seen our girls, then you might even go home with something completely different from your original intention. I put this down to the chickens themselves because they are very capable of captivating their new owners.
Our top priority is to match you with your birds rather than just to make a sale. Any alternative suggestions we make are to improve harmony within a flock. Well matched flocks are more peaceful which in turn causes less stress to their keepers in the long run.
Our Ethos
Rearing and Pricing
Our chickens are not mass produced, so you won’t find our birds crammed into a warehouse by the thousands. Warehouse birds are not socialised and have no better conditions than battery hens.
We don’t “pile ’em high and sell ’em cheap” but we do charge a fair price for our chickens for sale. This accounts for the amount of work we have devoted to our lovely ladies. There are plenty of people who will sell cheap birds by cutting corners but this is not our way.
We do not sell single birds on welfare grounds because chickens are flock creatures. A flock would be a minimum of two birds, but three is a better number in case one dies for any reason.
We sell birds from day-old up to retirement age. Popular breeds get sold out quickly, so consider taking them as younger birds. Young birds, however, cannot mix with adult birds so you would need temporary alternative accommodation. It is rare we get to keep our stock so they become point of lay.
Outsourced Birds
We always like to know the history of any of our hens for sale, so we will never visit auctions to buy birds to sell on. You cannot guarantee the health status of any bargain-basement auction birds. Healthy chickens are very important to us and we won’t risk that for anything.
We do buy hatchery chicks in at day-old for some of our hybrids and our Muirfield stock but we raise them our way. The parent stock of hatchery chicks are disease free so there is no vertical transmission of disease through the egg (from parent to chick). Raising them ourselves, therefore, means we guarantee their health status and we know them individually.
Our Hen Guarantee
We will not cheat you by palming you off with a cockerel either. There are plenty of people who have day old chicks for sale that have not a rats chance in hell of sexing them correctly. We would recommend you avoid these people as they give no comeback. If we sell a hen to you we are happy to exchange it in the very rare event it turns out to be a cockerel. Any chicks that we sell as “unsexed” are not covered by our hen guarantee. We are very specific about informing you of “unsexed” chicks because the risk is they could be either male or female. Under these circumstances we simply cannot tell due to their age.
We hear so many tales of woe recounted by new keepers who get duped into buying cockerels. It happens far too often.
Cockerels for Sale
If you are looking for cockerels then check our cockerels page out.
Many cockerels are looking for homes (here and elsewhere) so if you are able to provide a suitable and safe home for one then please ask.
If you have obtained a cockerel from a dodgy dealer, then we are unable to re-home them for you. We also cannot take in any that you have hatched yourself. They are a huge infection risk and because we also have plenty of our own.
Our older ladies looking for retirement
In Autumn time we release some of our older hens for re-homing. We call these our retirement ladies. They may have passed their peak egg production or they might not be in our breeding plans for the coming year. Most are still in lay, albeit in lower numbers but this is not guaranteed. We offer these older hens for sale at lower cost. These are not “rescue hens” but we do want them to have a nice, caring home to end their days. If they are not re-homed, then they will simply get to stay here regardless. Check out our retirement ladies page. The average lifespan of most hens is about 4-5 years, but some can live for much longer.
We do occasionally get asked to re-home hens which for whatever reason can no longer be kept by their owners. If this is the case, we keep them in strict quarantine so they do not mix with any of our own birds. These re-homed chickens are on the basis of our not knowing their actual age or their history so we cannot offer any guarantee for those.
Do you Need to Vaccinate your chickens?
Well, the answer is, it depends on how they are grown. Chickens need vaccination only if they get raised in huge numbers such as in a warehouse or intensive barn. In these conditions, if one bird gets sick, then thousands will get sick. Not vaccinating is economic suicide for any mass-rearer. Vaccination is not for your benefit entirely – but is essential for the mass poultry-rearer. Small poultry breeders like ourselves don’t need to vaccinate our hens for sale. This is because birds that have space and no stresses, don’t face disease challenges. Immunity to disease grows over time and in stress free surroundings. Stress in overcrowded conditions suppresses almost all immune responses in a chicken.
Beware The Vaccination Claim Scam
You may find that some chickens for sale are described elsewhere as fully vaccinated. A full programme of vaccination begins at day old. Chickens then follow a specific schedule of many different vaccinations at very specific ages. This is not complete until 16 weeks old. If a seller describes a day old chick with full vaccination then there is a clear discrepancy. The seller should be able to tell you which vaccines were used and at what ages. Lots of “fly-by-nights” claim full chicken vaccination status when they have had nothing of the sort.
PLEASE NOTE: Do not mix vaccinated and non-vaccinated birds together. Shedding of any live viruses in the droppings will put non-vaccinated hens at risk for at least a year. Not all vaccines “take” either. It depends on good administration methods.
ALSO NOTE: There is also NO GUARANTEE that a vaccinated hen will never get sick.
Chickens for Sale Current Availability
We list our range of cockerels or hens for sale under the Chickens for Sale menu. Our choice of hens for sale is more limited in the winter but we have hens available all through the year. Garden chickens are all sold on a first come, first served basis. If you want a particular bird or breed, you should consider taking a younger bird when choice is much better. We don’t hold birds for any longer than a week as the ever present risk of damage due to fighting or even a visit from Mr Fox.
Please note that the price rises with age – usually on a Monday.
How do you get tame chickens
Chickens are a prey animal so they will take a good while to get used to their new environment. In the wild, any change in their vicinity is a potential threat situation. For happy, unstressed and tame chickens, it is therefore beneficial to allow them plenty of settling in time. Fussing or grabbing them too soon will make them skittish because they are unable to trust you. They will be happy to come to you when they are ready.
Don’t discount the younger birds. They offer an ideal opportunity to become really tame and friendly with you before the rigours of laying commences. Younger chickens are easier to handle for nervous youngsters and inexperienced adults alike. They are also cheaper, however, it does mean that you will have to wait longer for those delicious eggs to arrive. POL (or point of lay) is subjective and differs in each breed. Some chicken breeds start to lay at between 20 and 22 weeks, whereas others can be up to 35-40 weeks before the arrival of the first egg.
We are Unusual
If you decide to do a drive-by, you will be surprised at our residential exterior. Don’t be disheartened, because behind our unlikely frontage beats the heart of a thriving chicken breeding Henporium. Most of our customers say “wow” when they first see how well setup we are.
Book A Visit Today. To ensure we are around then please book ahead. we are not open for Unbooked visits except for Eating egg Sales
We are open but we cannot do viewings in the “normal” sense of the word, as it would need a visit through our home. Avian Influenza restrictions are now in force which means that we are still unable to have viewings in the old way. The need to maintain a high biosecurity means that possibly contaminated footwear and clothing is too high a risk to our birds.
In response to this, we now have to bring chickens through the house to a temp viewing cage we have set up in the garage. This requires some advanced notice so we can get them ready for when you are expected to arrive. Rounding chickens up does not always go smoothly, hence the notice period. Thirty minutes is usually sufficient for us assuming the hens play ball.
Our birds are only kept in the garage cage for the viewing time slot as it is not suitable for long term.
If you think you are not going to make your appointment then please let us know so we can avoid subjecting our birds to the stress of unnecessary capture and confinement.
We never sell stock that we would be unhappy to purchase ourselves.
Our chicken chores do take us outside quite a bit. More realistically, we are actually just cuddling chickens. If this is the case, we cannot hear the door knocker so please make sure to ring the bell. Once we know when you are arriving, we can be strategically placed to hear the bell. You will need to give us time to leap through the garden, and perhaps remove wellies before answering the door.
Payment
We accept card payments using our card machine which can also accept Applepay and Googlepay. However, if you would prefer to pay with cash then of course that is acceptable also.
Transporting your birds home
We don’t often have boxes available for transport. Please bring a suitable enclosed cardboard box or pet carrier with you to transport your new girls home. NB: a laundry basket with a towel draped over it is not suitable. We won’t release birds unless you can contain them safely in your vehicle. Loose birds cause accidents.
Aftercare
We send all our adoptees to their new homes with a complete care sheet, so you don’t flounder. All our hens for sale always come with lifetime support. We also happily offer telephone and email support at any time.
Our brief care sheet shows you how to care for chickens for the next few weeks, however, this can cover only a small fraction of what it means to be a confident and knowledgeable chicken parent. If you feel that you need more expert help to research about chicken care, then why not consider one of our invaluable chicken keeping courses. We now also have an online version. Details are on our courses page Click here for details
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Selection of our Available Chickens for sale
Hovering over the pictures below will tell you what breeds they show. Click the picture and it takes you to the page for that breed so you can find out more.
