I am here!

I have 4 Hybrid chickens (bred to lay, not as table birds)

We have a chicken ark with a run attached to it, which is in a separate fenced off area so that the dogs can't get to the chickens.

You'll definitely need:

Ark/Coop
Drinkers and feeders
Mixed grit
Layers pellets
Sawdust
Verm-X - good for general pest control
Red mite powder - sprinkle inside hut
Corn - not as a staple feed, more as a treat

You won't need:
Straw - hens don't need this, and it harbours parasites
An Eglu - plastic is bad!

Since my hens are specifically bred to lay (Warrens) they don't really go off lay at all. We're still getting 3 to 4 eggs a day, every day; even in the depths of winter.

We got our chickens and equipment from Here

They also have links to other suppliers....

Our Morrisons was out of free range chicken too, amazing people actually think it's horrible... imagine if they knew about all the other stuff too, maybe this will get people thinking.

OOO, another thing....

Before you get your birds, do a bit of research on what you want them for....

Are they layers? Table birds?
Layers don't make good table birds, and a lot of table birds go off lay for substantial periods of time.

If they are table birds, you'll (probably) need to buy a human dispatcher, as they make the Job a lot easier than just wringing a neck...

Something that needs a mention here is chickens attract rats! So if you don't like rats, don't have chickens outside! Iknow this because when we had rats many years ago and I had to call the rat man out, as soon as he saw the chickens in next door's garden, he said Well, there's your answer"! He told me chickens will always attract rats, and he's been a ratman for over 40 years so he should know in case anyone is going to dispute this! I'd love to have them, but then again I've already had rats, living out in the country, so I don't want them back again, well, not in a hurry anyways!

You can minimise the rat-thing by:

1) Keeping food stocks in bins, so the rats can't get them
2) Hanging feeders off the ground
3) Promptly collecting eggs
4) Keeping the chickens house and nesting box clean
5) Removing uneaten food/scraps etc

We've got all our chicken food (and sacks of dog food) in heavy duty dustbins in the garage, with lids on; and I make sure our feeders are strung up from the roof of the run, so that the chickens can get them, but even on hind legs the rats would have trouble.

Well I read for about 2 days on poultry site's/forums etc.
And have costed it all to as close as I can, the prob comes down to the outlay of housing. we have no sheds or anything convertable and cant justify a purpose built one.

Rats we dont have to worry about up here
And the cats takes away any other vermin. But id still take the precautions seriously.

The initial outlay isnt too bad really (housing exempt) and feed is cheap enough. The verm X or flubenvet is the dearest I reckon, lol. I was planning straw, not sure where we can get dust extacted shavings here :/

They are so cute we always go to our local farmer for free range eggs they are large and delicious, usually we have 2 yolks in one egg

The housing was what we had to save up for as well!

Do you have a local agricultural store, or one that sells horse-stuff? We get our chicken feed from there - and it's a good price. Anywhere that sells that kind of stuff, you can usually get bales of shavings from.

Straw isn't good really - your birds will need perches to roost on and sawdust to lay on. Straw gets damp and doesn't dry out and can harbour more parasites etc than sawdust.

Ty for the advice, we'll avoid straw if we go ahead with it.
We have no agricultural shops/stores within 100 miles of here (2hrs) but can get feed from a garage/general store.
At least in populated area's I could scavenge something to build housing out of, lol.

We'll see but atm it looks a non starter project.

Have you got a Freecycle group in the area? Could be worth a shot - asking for an old shed or henhouse?

Also, do you have any sawmills etc near you that could supply sawdust?