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!
Thursday, 4 December 2008
More hen stuff
Sweetiepie and Ginger in action!
Sweetiepie should soon come back into lay I think, as she is now squatting for us again...
This is an outraged Attilla, who was in the middle of laying an egg when I opened up the nest box lid! I put my hand under her to feel for any other eggs and she dropped her egg right into my hand, all hot and a bit sticky.....( sorry, that may be TMI for some folk!)
So far I am STILL getting 3-5 eggs per day from 5 laying hens, and we were building up a LOT of eggs!
We were the proud possessors of The Compost Mansions Egg Mountain, which had reached the mammoth proportions of 40 eggs... that is A WEEK days of 5 plus eggs a day....a couple of weeks ago!
We were forcing ourselves to have eggs, even if we didn't really want them..( shall we have boiled eggs for breakfast? do we have to? YES! we will get another 4 or 5 today so we need to eat some !)
So....its a good job we had a couple of cakes to make last week, plus a quiche AND I have found some friends who want to buy my lovely girlys eggs.... :-)
(Heh heh I give the friends some, or feed them eggy dishes when they visit...and then they want more...I tell you..more...they are hooked...cackle cackle cackle.......)
Anyway. Sorry. Where was I ? Oh yes. So..ANYWAY we no longer now have an Egg Mountain at Compost Mansions and I now have a steady contribution towards the (ever increasing!) feed bill. Which is good. As money doesn't grow on trees you know (well the paper for it does, but YKWIM.)
And on the subject of feed for the chicks.....I have had SUCH fun ( NOT!) trying to get Organic Growers pellets for the chicks recently!..When they get to about 8 weeks old the chicks are meant to switch from being fed Chick Crumbs (very small ground up high protein feed...) to an intermediate pelletted feed called Growers/Finishers pellets...which they are meant to have until they get to POL...( or until they are killed for meat)
Thinks..when do cockerels get to POL ;-) ?
So....could I get my local "countryside" ;-) store to get the order right? could I hell...but...after 4 weeks of lots of messing around I finally have a sack of the appropriate pellets...which the chicks now don't want to eat....( sigh)
They would rather go and steal the "big girls" layers pellets.....or the cat food...or ANYTHING really! Bloody teenagers....
BTW.....anyone know what adult Cockerels are supposed to eat? cos they are NEVER going to lay eggs.......so layers pellets seem a bit..I dunno....wrong, somehow... ( that's a rhetorical question, btw...I don't really need an answer.....although if you feel like it, go ahead!)
although knowing my lot, I bet the two cocks will have a go at layer's pellets!!
Just loved the video CW... I love to hear the girls doing their stuff!!
ReplyDeleteI so wished I lived nearer.. I would most certainly be one of your egg customers... I can just taste them now!!!!
One things for sure though.. your girls are very happy and contented, well apart from Attilla, but I suppose you did disturb her at a delicate moment..!!lol!!
Love Jane xxx
(ps... haven't forgotten the email I promised you... been rather a difficult week as my Mum has been out of sorts and just not had a great deal of spare time)
All our chickens are in together (apart from one silkie and her three chicks) and they all have access to both layers pellets and corn. My boys (of which there are at least three, not sure about one of this summer's chicks) tuck into the pellets whenever they feel like it, which is daily. I guess it doesn't do them any harm as it contains some of the grit they need to break down their other food. They seem well enough on it!
ReplyDeleteOoooh, I've just seen the suspect chick stomping her/his feet at her/his sister, just the way her/his dad does. Hmmm, the case for a 4th cockerel is getting stronger!