Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Saturday 6 September 2008

Chicks update and hens laying report.

Sweetiepie is being SUCH a good mum to the sweetie six !

I was watching her today; I gave her a little treat.....so when she found a tasty morsel, she ate a small bit then bit it into tiny tiny pieces and clucked to the chicks to come and eat the bits from her beak...

I am continually impressed at hens ..they are NOT bird brains, they are actually CLEVER ...and I delight in watching Sweetiepie and her brood...they are SO funny!


Also, for the last few days Ginger, Henny, Cathy and Attila have been laying every day..(Genghis of course has not...useless hen.....) and they have all settled down and there is no nasty pecking going on, the odd small lunge but nothing nasty...I guess this is because the new girls, Babs and Goldie, are still in isolation on the other side of the garden....

SO....I have another week to consider how to re introduce Babs and Goldie so as not to have moider and mayhem again.....

Babs and Goldie finish their course of antibiotics tomorrow BUT I will need to isolate and not eat their eggs for at least another 10 days ( and typical! they are both laying an egg each per day...which are large and tasty looking ...)
the vet said 5 days, but Organic standards say twice (OFG) or 3 times (SA) the withdrawal period must be followed...and although I am NOT organic certified, I DO stick to the SA rules and use organic feed, bedding, medicines etc ...so I will follow the egg withdrawal period recommended also...

*I* wouldn't want to eat anything with antibiotic residues in, so I certainly wouldn't want my family to, either !( seriously! I am allergic I tend to collapse and crash if given these antibiotics and would die....) I am NOT going to eat them!


So,......the easiest way to isolate Babs' and Goldie's eggs is to have them in a separate pen. THINKS I think I shall move them back into the hen padock BUT keep them in the Eglu and run, untill the others are allowed out to free range / trash the garden...and then Babs and Goldie can be let out into the hen paddock , just the two of them and Sweetiepie with the chicks..

Oh its all SO complicated!Do other folk have such a difficult time of it, or is it me?

The pouring rain and flooded ground doesn't help, either! I managed to fall flat on my face in the mud today!
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