The word poultry has always conjured up images of farm yards, small holdings and country living for me. Chickens scratching the dirt looking for their next tasty treat wandering around the yard. ‘Poultry’ however actually covers many types of fowl, not just chickens but turkeys, guinea fowl and quail. It even includes waterfowl: ducks and geese.

'A Poultry Keeper’ has been used to describe a keeper of these birds for hundreds of years and was used in the title of one of the most famous poultry texts of all time: ‘The Practical Poultry Keeper’ by the great poultry author Lewis Wright which has informed and inspired many people over the years to keep chickens or other poultry at home as a hobby or to show.

Poultrykeeper.com is our hobby website. It has been created over a number of years with contributions from all over the World. From published authors, poultry photographers, poultry vets, to breeders specialising in certain breeds, the one thing we all have in common is our interest in poultry.

With over 550 articles online and many useful resources, (mainly for chickens, ducks and geese but also some other poultry), I hope the information presented on this site will inspire and inform you.

Going Green

We decided to go 'green' with poultrykeeper. We use 2 servers to host the site and these need to be running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Of course the environmental cost soon adds up.

We moved to 'green website hosting' however we were spending many hours with computers, and lights running at home as well so we decided to make an investment in solar panels to counter-act this. We have an electricity meter connected on the output so that we can monitor how much electricity we have generated and I'm pleased to say that we are generating more electricity than we are using. I think it's safe to say poultrykeeper is 'green' :-)

New to Keeping Chickens?

If you are new to the wonderful (and productive) hobby of keeping chickens or just thinking about starting to keep chickens then you have certainly come to the right place! Here are some suggestions for the newcomer:

The Keeping Chickens Section

Our main area for information about keeping chickens, divided into sub-sections. For absolute beginners, I would recommend you start with our Beginners Guide To Keeping Chickens and visit our FAQ section which should answer most of your questions and if it doesn't you can always join our Poultry Forum and ask further questions there. If you are considering the requirements of the chicken house and run, then maybe our Housing Chickens category will help you.

The Chicken Breeds Section

Provides an easy to navigate page of UK standardised chickens. There is also a sub-section for Hybrid Chickens that are popular with beginners. There is detailed information about most of the breeds of chicken and galleries of photos for you to see what they look like.

Our Poultry For Sale Database

The poultry for sale database lists breeders in the UK and Ireland and the breeds they keep. There is a map of these which enables you to find local breeders.

The Poultry Diseases Section

Perhaps not the the first thing that springs to mind when you're researching how to keep chickens, but I would encourage you to at least look in our sub section on Red Mite. These are a very common problem in poultry houses that are often missed by new chicken keepers. Here you can learn how to spot them and take preventative measures right from day one!

Keeping Ducks and Geese

If you are interested in keeping waterfowl, then you may find our sections on keeping ducks and keeping geese of interest. Contrary to popular belief, domestic ducks and geese do not need a pond (they only spend around 10% of their time on water) and a plastic tub is sufficient for them to be content. Geese are useful for keeping grass short and ducks are the ultimate environmental slug control on any allotment or vegetable garden causing far less damage to plants than chickens!

If you are considering which breeds to keep then our duck breeds or goose breeds page has photos and information about every UK standardised breed.