Yet more flippin poultry related drivel ...
Sorry to keep blathering on about the newest arrivals at the barn but I promised ChaCha I'd post this.
One of our three hens (now named, see the photo for the nom(h)enclature) h
as been laying increasingly larger eggs for a week now, yesterday it became evident that one of her sisters had joined the productive workforce with her own teeny weeny offering, I'm thinking a little salad with a lightly boiled egg is called for, Oh the gourmet joys of the gentleman poulterer.
My initial intent was, you may recall, to be able to produce perfectly poached eggs and I have to say that the freshness does indeed make all the difference. In other news I observed a fox sitting outside the run with a cunning expression on his face yesterday. (To be fair, in his defence, that expression does really come with the face, ... if you're a fox)
Labels: oakwood chickens eggs Stuffy
Chicken update ....
They all laughed when I said we could be self sufficient in eggs but, great news, here we are, after only three weeks, a small fortune spent on accommodation, chickens, food, medicines, accessories and with a compost bin full of poo and it's already starting to pay off.
We have an egg!,
tiny, perfectly formed and delicious.
PS:- and the stupid black one is now officially named "Cassie", thanks Rhett.
Now I be officially a farmer... so get off moi laaaaand
Amongst the many wonderful things with which I was blessed on my recent Birthday was a huge cardboard box containing an Eglu and chicken run. I've long harboured a desire to join the poultry keeping
classes (mostly driven by a realisation that the road to perfect poaching is a very fresh egg).
My lovely in-laws therefore decided to make it happen and Good Friday saw Mrs Stuffy and myself selecting three pullets from hundreds of identical birds and transporting them to their new home. We selected three different breeds, there's a real need for muticulturalism in Surrey and it does make them easier to tell apart having them colour coded.
Naming is officially on hold since Mrs S promised Rhett (Currently away on business in the Caribbean) that he will get to choose and name the first one but they seem to be bearing up under the strain of anonymity and are affectionally known as the stupid white one, the stupid black one and the stupid brown one. By the way, they're 
not bright.
So far they've appeared to settle in well. Despite sharing the wood with the incumbent family of foxes, (3 new cubs) my strict regime (defined by repeated viewings of Shawshank) of supervised exercise and an enforced dusk lock-down along with the cunning design of their polycarbonate coop has resulted in happy chucks and vulpine disappointment.
The design of the coop is really very clever and makes it easy to collect and compost the prodigious amounts of poo they produce pretty much constantly.
Guano is the only output so far, I'm assured that eggs will arrive soon, to encourage this I've pinned a recipe for coq au vin up in the run, "p0ur encourager les ouefs"
as been laying increasingly larger eggs for a week now, yesterday it became evident that one of her sisters had joined the productive workforce with her own teeny weeny offering, I'm thinking a little salad with a lightly boiled egg is called for, Oh the gourmet joys of the gentleman poulterer.
