They lay eggs and a lot more!
James decided to start keeping hens last year,neither of us had any experience so a lot of googling went on to find out the basics on their homes and feed.
James built a lovely hen house from scratch with its own run and nesting area but that has now been replaced with a very fancy shop bought one,which we got from The Range for £200!
We keep light sussex hens which lay lovely eggs,and also got some brown hens which are ex-battery.The brown hens look a bit bedraggled but are still laying nice sized eggs.
We also have a cockerel called usher,he crows in the mornings but we are not sure if he is servicing his ladies properly!

We have an incubator which holds up to 20 eggs.We have bought fertilised eggs from numerous places including e-bay and succesfully hatched and raised many chicks!Its a lovely experience for the children to see a chick hatching and growing.
We then sell our chicks on to friends and advertise the rest for people to buy them from us.

When the sun is shining and we are all out in the garden its funny to see an inquisitive chicken looking at you wondering what you are doing.
Chickens sun-bathe and tend to nod off sat in the sun,their heads drop down and roll around while they yawn and enjoy the heat.
Chickens are a full time job as well as the children!
They need a constant supply of clean water and as they knock it over a lot we are forever filling it all back up.
They eat corn and layers pellets.