I can't believe how long it is since I last updated the Blog, so much for the small, regular updates I was planning!  Another year has flown by, I have been so busy with the chickens that I decided to sell the sheep as I just didn't have time to look after them.  They all went a few weeks ago apart from 4 who are pets and I would like to re-home as lawn mowers.  The fields are very quiet without them but with the lack of rain we have no grass anyway.

Bonfire night went smoothly with no-one 'falling off their perches' due to the loud bangs.  A couple of years ago we lost two hens on bonfire night.

We have had a whole day re-doing the hybrid pen.  The mud had appeared in there overnight and by the end of Saturday the poor hens were all splattered in mud, some not so bright ones were even attempting to dustbath in it, so sorry to anyone who came to collect hens yesterday, I hope they look a bit cleaner now!

We have laid pallets all around the walkways and washed down and re-laid new woodchips, it looks great now but probably not for long!  The hens really enjoyed all the nettles I hung up for them and managed to strip them within a couple of hours.

A trip to Ross rare breed sale saw some new arrivals - I managed to get some lovely Lavender Pekins and silver laced Wyandotte bantams which will be added to our breeding groups for next year as I needed some new bloodlines.  I tried bidding on a lovely Buff Orpington cockerel with one hen but had to drop out as the bidding rose - they finished at £100!  They are all in isolation for a few weeks until I can be sure they are all healthy, auctions can be mixing pot of disease so I have to be extra careful, but they look very healthy.

Praying for a few dry days now as the ground is soaking.

My Shepherds Hut has finally been started!  Shaun has been so busy with the joinery or making other peoples huts that mine has been on the backburner, so am really looking forward to having it. 

I have brought some Pekins in lavender and blue to breed with next season, they are so sweet and tiny and the Millefleur Pekins are coming on really well.

Shaun has now taken over the chick hatching and has got the new incubator and hatcher working brilliantly.  He is still hatching plenty of chicks although the pure breeds are now going off lay so the numbers will drop off now.  Keeping the chicks warm enough the last few nights has been hard but the gas brooders seem to work the best.

A very good hatch this week of our pure breed chicks.  This is the first large hatch we have had in our new MS incubator and we are really pleased, over 40 chicks hatched and all very healthy.  Another 40 due next week so keeping fingers crossed for another good hatch.

As promised this is my first 'short' update!  We had a trip to Wiggly Wigglers to collect our first order of Bokashi, a lovely proper working farm as proved when we went to find our order - the pigs had broken in and pinched some of it (makes me pleased we don't have pigs at the moment!).  The smell in the van on the way back was gorgeous - it smells a bit like hot chocolate.

What can I say about the rain?!  My poor chickens have been standing out in it and refuse to go inside.  I have to top up all the small runs with wood chips as they have slowly disappeared over the summer.  I completed the large hybrids pen last weekend and am so pleased, no mud in there at all.

The website and Online shop are going to be updated over the next week, and I will be adding many more products, I've just got to find time to do it.

The rain has finally stopped this morning, so I am off outside to clean out all the 'holiday hens'.

We have decided to focus more on our pure breeds next year and have spent the last few months sorting out our breeding pens and trying to improve our layout.  This is not as easy as it sounds as we constantly have to juggle different age groups of chicks/growers and hens.  I had a fantastic Birthday present of a 500 egg MS Broedmachines incubator and separate hatcher!  No excuse now for not having lots of pure breeds next year.

Finally the snow has gone (for now) and we are enjoying a few days of sun.  The ground everywhere is a mudbath, not helped by the fact that we had a digger in during the winter carrying out various alterations.

The first piglets have arrived.  Onion produced 3 lovely Kunekune piglets, but unfortunately one of them kept trying to sleep underneath her which wasn't a clever idea as she squashed him - quite common with pigs!  Luckily the other 2 have more common sense and go and sleep below the heat lamp.  The piglets are gorgeous, they are so tiny but perfect and surprisingly soft.

We have also been lambing, again not the most successful start this year.  Our first ewe had premature lambs in the snow and lost them, and we have had a couple of other premature lambs.  We currently have just one lamb living in the kitchen, hopefully no more this year.  They are sweet for the first few days, but the tie of feeding them every 4 hours soon loses its appeal!  We have a few more ewes to lamb and then hopefully a break until April when the remainder of the flock are due.

The first group of hybrid hens has now arrived, and they are really lovely birds.  We had the whole of February with no hens (apart from my breeding flocks, and 'old ladies') and we managed to strip out all of the houses and stables, disinfect and creocote them.  I have also limed the grass to kill off any worms and viruses that may be about, and the grass is now having a rest to try and recover before I let them all out.

The breeding pens are now built and are great.  I am just waiting for a large enclosure for the hybrids to be built.  All the breeding groups are now set up and are starting to lay well, I have really good fertility rates from the eggs which is great.  I am now stocking Garvo feed from The Netherlands and I have put all my breeding hens on their 'Breeder Pellets'. I'm sure it has improved the health of the hens and given me more vigorous chicks.

                                        

We have invested in some stunning Black Frizzle Cochins, brought from the National Poultry Show and I am starting to hatch from them, so will be interested to see how many Frizzles we get, as not all the chicks will have the frizzle gene.

I have also finally managed to track down a beautiful Crele Orpington cockerel in Wales.  I had 2 Crele hens last year and have not been able to locate a cockerel as they are so rare.  He is really lovely with superb bloodlines, so I am hoping we might get some good chicks from him (not actually him, but his hens!) in a few months.

The Buff Orpingtons are laying brilliantly and I am now hatching lots of chicks.  The Lavender Orpingtons are just starting to lay but I need to wait for the egg size to improve before testing the fertility.

During the slightly quieter months of January & February I have finally managed to get the online shop up and running.  I still want to add lots of products but it is well underway.  I have been amazed at how much feed I sell online - I sold out of the first delivery of Garvo feed in 10 days.

Keeping fingers crossed for some warm weather so the lambs can go out and we can sort out our muddy fields!

Sadly Carpet, our ancient ewe has died.  I went into the field to check the sheep and she was dead in the field, I imagine she had a heart attack which was probably the best way to go.  I will really miss her and she always came to investigate everyone that came to visit, she was the friendliest ewe I have ever had. 
Strange things sometimes happen, and it is quite odd as she was given to us (along with with her sister Blanket) a number of years ago by some local sheep farming friends.  She died on the same day that I heard one of them was in hospital having suffered a stroke.  She was already named Carpet when we had her, and I soon found out why 'Flying Carpet' - no fencing could keep her in, she and her sister had total run of the farm and could get over 5 bar gates - I gave up trying to keep them in and let them go wherever they liked.

Now the weather has turned colder things have quietened down a little but not as much as I expected.  I am still selling plenty of hens to people who have pure breeds that have stopped laying for the winter/gone into moult etc. as well as many people who have sadly had fox attacks.

 I now only have about 40 hens left to sell for this year.  I am having some Rhode Rocks in during November and then no more hens until February/March.  I like to have a couple of months during the winter when we have no hens on the land (apart from my own flock in a different area), this gives me a chance to strip out all the housing, disinfect and creocote it as well as lime and then rest the ground.  I think it's important to do this to stop a build up of infection and worms.

During this quiet period with the hybrids I concentrate on the Pure Breeds.  I am in the process of splitting all the pure breeds into breeding pens.  They then have extra artificial light to encourage them to lay, and the winter is spent selling the rare breed hatching eggs, as well as hatching my own chicks for next year.

We have decided to breed the Kune Kune's,  so hopefully in February/March they should be delivering.  The piglets can then grow on and will be ready for Easter.  If anyone is interested in having piglets, please let me know as they don't tend to have many piglets and they sell quite quickly.

I have taken my two black Kune Kune's to the other side of Hereford to Wendy Scudamore at Barton Hill who has some fantastic Kune Kune boars.  They are staying with her for 7 weeks and will hopefully return 'in pig'.  She has told me that the young boar I liked the best has managed to stand on tiptoe and do his job with Rita, but she is twice his size so I don't know yet if its worked!  We are going on her breeding course when we collect them.

Onion has stayed here as I wasn't going to put all 3 gilts to the boar.  She was so miserable alone  I decided to try and find another boar for her.  I found a lovely registered boar locally called Dave who has come to stay with us.  He is huge and Onion was not impressed, but now she has come into season has decided she does quite like him.  He is a one pig ploughing machine, and unlike my 3 little gilts has set about ploughing my paddock, so hopefully he has done his job and will shortly be going home - lovely as he is I don't want to have to re-seed their paddock.

We have had a very busy few months with sheep and hens.  The demand for hens has gone through the roof, and we have sold out of hens on a number of occasions, there is a shortage of birds this year in the UK and Europe - possibly down to the 'credit crunch'/people being more self sufficient?

I have managed to source some new hybrids which have been really popular - there seems to be a demand for hens who lay unusual colour eggs.  I have White Stars which are really pretty white hens who lay a china white egg (and loads of them!) and Columbines who lay a blue/green egg.

I have just creocoted all the chicken stables yet again, and have managed to have my fourth year red mite free so it really does seem to be working.  I know we haven't had enough warm weather to make them a big problem but I am determined to avoid them.  The rain has been awful, everywhere is a mud bath.  I have put wood chippings down all across the front of the stables to try and stop the chickens taking all the mud inside, it helps but doesn't cure the problem, but I am fed up of skidding around in the mud and constantly being wet. 

We have brought a lovely Collie puppy called Flo, who will hopefully help with the sheep when she's older.  After many years of asking, we brought her for my son Tom who has been brilliant with her, she follows him everywhere and has totally bonded with him.  She learns so quickly, I thought Baon our Jack Russell was a fast learner, but she is on another level.  She has been trying to herd the chickens up which is not appreciated, egg production drops for a day or two when she has been in with them!  I have to carry her around when checking the sheep as they all rush over to check her out, they don't seem to have got the idea that they should be scared of her yet, and I don't want her confidence been damaged.  She is fascinated by the pigs, they don't seem to even notice her as she rushes around them barking.

Lambing is nearly finished - one more ewe to go!   We now have 47 healthy lambs of various breeds.   My new Suffolk ram used for the first time this year has produced some lovely lambs, I did find they were a bit slower at birth to get up and going than the Ryeland or Charlolais crosses I have used before, but once they are established they grow very fast.   The couple of ewes who lambed early in the year have huge lambs now, my son wants them for Sunday lunch but I can't do it!   Shown below before and after.


We have only lost one lamb this year, it was one of twins and I think she was premature, despite spending all night with her under a hairdryer and tubing her with colostrum,   she sadly died.   One of my Jacobs has had mastitis, she had a nasty cut on her udder which must be where the infection started.   She is responding really well to the anitbiotics and although she looks like a walking purple skeleton (all the septi-cleanse spray I am covering her in to avoid further infection), she is now out grazing.   She won't be able to breed again so will have to join 'Thirty' (the pet castrated ram) in the duds field!

I have brought a dozen hens from a local farm to join my own laying flock.   They are 15 months old and from a very nice free-range egg producing farm.   When the hens are no longer laying a perfect shaped egg every day (which starts at about 15 months old) they are cleared out and sent on their final journey (I don't ask exactly where, but pet food is often mentioned).

It seems such a shame as they have plenty of laying years left in them, so every year I try to buy a number of them to keep.   They look a bit ratty when I first pick them up, but soon feather up and they are so friendly.   I have only had them 3 days and they have already produced 25 eggs between them.   I love seeing the transformation in them, although the farm they come from looks after them very well, they really flourish in a small environment.   I am hoping to buy a   larger batch in June just before the farm is totally cleared, if anyone else would like to buy any, please contact me before 15th June and I can pick up some extra's.

We are now stocking Allen & Page's feed and I am really pleased with it.   I am feeding it to my own laying hens for the eggs sold at the farmgate and it is really excellent quality - noticeably different.   It has added Omega 3 which not only improves the birds health but is transferred to the eggs improving our health, a lot of the supermarkets now sell Omega 3 eggs. It also has lots of other benefits which I won't go on about but do have a look at their website http://www.smallholderfeed.co.uk/.

A lot of my pure breed hens have now stopped laying as they have gone broody, I am trying to discourage them and keep taking them off the nests, but it means egg production has dropped.   I am therefore not hatching as many chicks, but am still hatching Speckled Sussex and some Orpingtons.   Hybrid hens are still in huge demand and I am struggling to keep all the breeds in stock as they are selling so quickly.  

We have had a weekend creocoting all the chicken sheds to stop any redmite before they start.   I do this every Spring without fail, and so far have not had a redmite problem, it really seems to work. Mites and lice are my pet hates and every time a hen is in catching distance I have to pick her up to check for lice.   Luckily, no problems so far - but as the weather warms up I will be extra vigilant.

We are constructing a shed to store the Allen & Page feed, bedding,   drinkers and feeders.   I currently have to run up to the barns to kit everyone out and collect things from 3 different places which is very time consuming, so I will be really pleased when this shed is finished and all the stock can be easily accessible.

Easter proved to be very busy with lambing in full swing as well as record poultry sales.  Lambing proved far easier this year as we lambed later than usual.  By leaving it later the ewes have been able to remain outside and go out far quicker with their lambs.  Apart from a few first time lambers (who decided to drop their lambs on the floor and then run away in terror!),  we have had very few complications, all the experienced ewes lambed unaided except for my two very elderly ewes who produced triplets.  The first of each of their triplets decided to come breech with their legs also tucked back - after a bit of assistance they both produced a set of lovely triplets who are all thriving.  As their Mums are so old I am topping them all up with a bottle - trying to give them a bit of a rest!

All the Pure breed chicks I hatch are selling very quickly, most are gone within a week of hatching - as a consequence I still have no growers or older birds to sell.

Hybrid hens are in huge demand - I think there is a shortage of them nationally and there will be very few about until July.  I have increased again the number of Hybrid breeds I sell due to demand - I have now added Ambers who are lovely birds, and lay an unbelievable 330+ eggs per year, as well as looking lovely and being very friendly - they are a good alternative to the Meadowsweet Ranger for anyone who wants high egg output but with a slightly unusual looking hen.

I have to stop removing hens from the 'birds for sale' area as I will soon be sold out - we keep finding birds that we just really take to, there are so many characters,  and I slip them into my own flock!  My son is just as bad and has a Black Rock he has called Julie who follows him everywhere - she has also moved to the other side of the fence!

I think I will shortly be losing a few of my original hens, I have a Vorwerk and a Black Rock who are 9 years old, but both are looking weaker now and I think sadly it might be their last summer - they have survived many fox attacks and I will be sad to see them go.

We are hoping to shortly have a new range of housing in stock, but again as with the Hybrids everything is taking longer to arrive this year due to such high demand everywhere.  I have found it hard to source really good houses to sell alongside our made to order ones, but I want to offer a more budget range that still incorporates all the features I know are needed - easier said than  done!

15th March 2009 - The lovely weather brought everyone out last weekend and we sold out of all the rare breed young birds which is great.  I am still hatching and have day old- 2 week old chicks available in most of the rare breeds - there are more appearing daily!

I have got more Hybrid breeds as these are also very popular.   I now have 4 varieties of Hybrid hens and am amazed at how friendly they are.  They seem completely unfazed by handling and if I go into the run with them, within seconds they are perching on me!  They have a favourite sunbathing spot and it's really comical to see them all lying in a heap looking like they have been run over.  Fingers crossed this lovely weather keeps up - no more mud!

February 2009 - Another Texel cross ewe lambed!  I was half expecting this luckily.  She produced 2 jet black lambs so these were sired by our young Jacob ram during a brief escape into the ewes field, this was not planned as he shouldn't be ready to work until next year, but he obviously hasn't read the books!

January 2009 - First lambs have unexpectedly arrived!  We knew our Ryeland and young Jacob ram had jumped over the fence on a couple of occasions but hoped we had got them out quick enough!  When checking the ewes early in the morning one of the Texel cross ewes had 2 lovely lambs by the Ryeland, we were lucky as she was a first time lamber and she lambed unaided.  We were planning to lamb in April this year to avoid the cold weather!