The Eglu Review

I only wanted chickens if I could have an eglu. It was a bit of a non-negotiable. The reasoning for this was that I had read quite a lot about people with wooden coops and red mite and how they wish they had got an easier to clean alternative. However, I had 2 concerns with this- I didn't want to be responsible for the making of another large lump of plastic, and also that the price of a brand new eglu with a run made me feel slightly queasy (£425). So, when I saw that someone was selling a pink eglu classic with 2m run for almost half of this, (and was rehoming 3 ex-batts to go in it) I was very excited.

Why an eglu? I heard of eglus 5 years ago when hubbys work colleague had one with chickens in- it sounded idyllic (I know that at times it wasn't, but it just how I chose to remember her description of it). I filed the name eglu away until we started thinking about a family pet again a few months ago.

Anyway, going to see it and deciding to bring it home, we managed to squeeze the eglu and run in the back of our Peugeot 807. We *just* managed itwith the 2 rear seats taken out. There were then 2 car seats and an adult in the middle, and 2 adults and a box containing 3 chickens in the front. Lets just say, if I was planning to do this again, I would a) leave the small people and au pair at home, and b) take a roll of strong tape with me. The chickens were contained in the box with a small amount of masking tapecriss crossing the top, which was no where near enough for my liking. Camilla spent the whole journey with her head poking out of the box in a slightly disconcerting fashion, eye balling me as if to say 'I am not sure about you, but I am the boss'. I would say that generally, to get this into a 'normal' sized car, they you need to put the back seats down and have the front seats for a box with chickens in (if you are collecting all at the same time like we did).

We got it out at the other end, having only ever seen one briefly, and managed to build it without instructions in about 20 minutes. So, reasonably easy to transport, very easy to assemble.

The 'super glug' drinker puzzled me a bit- having never seen one I couldn't work it out. However, after finding out the the choocks drink from the bottom (or are supposed to) it seemed a bit better. The 'grub' feeder fell off 3 times in 24 hours- I am not sure why as it hasn't happened since.

The run- on first glance, it is a great design. However, I do worry that if the chickens were never allowed to free range that the run would be too small and they would be miserable. I guess that is the point of the run extensions though. The other issue I have with the run is as it is so low to the ground it is quite difficult to clean! At the moment I have got round this by raking the run out through the door and hosing the gravel down, which seems to be working.

The eglu house- This is probably the genius bit of the whole set up. It is so simple, whilst being perfectly functional in every way. I love the dropping tray, I love that it is so easy to removen and clean the roosting bars, I love how the door swings closed, I love the egg hole on the side... like I said, genius. And, it looks good. I am not a huge fan of plastic as a construction material, and pre-eglu I was even less of a fan of pink plastic, but this is a winner for me style-wise.

 In the future some time I would love to try a cube, but there is no big hurry- The run is higher up, and I like the idea of the cube being on wheels.

Anyway- the bottom line is that I love it and it was well worth the money.