Archived News

2nd December 2007

The rain was coming sideways this morning and even the chickens decided it was too wet to venture out from their barn. We have 19 hens now (since the fox reduced the numbers) and almost all are laying.  If we leave the hens to roam the garden for the first hour or two, they will return to the barn to lay their eggs in a snug, straw-filled corner.  However if they go straight into the farm yard, eggs are laid all over the place and we rarely find them.

We recently found about 15 eggs in a secret location and of course there's no way of knowing how old they were so the boys devised a new game 'throw the egg over two high hedges and a lane, to be caught by a brother on the other side- or not!'  Lots more washing!

One of the hens is raising a guinea fowl as her own and they can often be seen scratching about with Rocky, our young cockeral who is growing fast and gaining his adult plumage. It has been great to watch the hatching of the guinea fowl and follow it's progress so far, I'm not sure what mother hen will think when her baby does what comes naturally and starts to fly high into the trees.

It seems amazing that Christmas is just over three weeks away, the boys are getting excited and we have not had a moment to prepare.

The week ahead of me will pivot around the Belted Galloway beef box scheme which will be launched on 10th December.  Box delivery, labelling and recipe ideas all need to come together and then the real work begins next Sunday when the butcher will cut, pack and clearly label each bag of meat and I will box everything up ready for collection the following day.