Buy Organic Chicken Feed

We’ve been looking for an easy place to buy organic chicken feed, the problem being is that there doesn’t seem to be many organic chicken feed suppliers in our area.

Organic Chicken Feed

We can get hold of normal layers pellets and mash fairly easily locally, but organic chicken feed would be much more in keeping with our ethos in trying to do things as organically as possible.

We’ve used Wells Poultry Housing & Equipment in the past to buy a few chicken keeping bits and bobs. Their service has been second to none and their delivery time has been excellent in the past. They now seem to have (and are constantly adding to) a fantastic range of chicken keeping related goods to buy online.

They now stock Organic Layers Pellets in their ever increasing range of chicken keeping supplies. The organic chicken feed is Farmgate Organic Layers Pellets priced at £13.14 for a 20kg bag.

Farmgate Organic Layers Pellets are described as being a highly palatable feed specially formulated to meet the need for a general, all-purpose diet which can be fed to flocks of mixed ages under any management system.

Feeding Guide
Offer on an ad-lib basis from point of lay. Farmgate Layers feeds do not require any additional limestone or oyster shell grit. The diet is fully balanced for optimum egg production, consistent shell quality, good yolk colour and excellent egg size.

Additional Information
Fresh, clean water should be available to the birds at all times.

So if you’re looking to buy organic chicken feed for your chickens, it may well be worth giving them a go.

Baby Chicks

Well the baby chicks have arrived!

Baby Chicks

After much searching we eventually found some baby ceamy legbar chicks back at our local breeder at Southmead Poultry, which is incidentally where our other girls have come from.

Tracy at Southmead Poultry has put up with me phoning on a almost weekly basis, asking whether she had any baby Creamy Legbar chicks available, and as always has been sympathetic to our plight and free with excellent advice.

We felt like expectant parents again as we phoned on the morning after hatching to check how many baby chicks had made it. Luckily four of the hatch were girls, so later that day we hot footed it down to Southmead Poultry to pick them up.

One of the reasons we picked this breed of chicken was that they are auto-sexing as day old chicks. The boys have a very easily distinguishable yellow spot on their heads, so we knew we were definitely getting girls; who tend to be slightly darker and more stripy.

We knew our neighbours would probably not be too impressed with cockerels, plus we do not have the space for them, so this way they were taken out of the equation.

Creamy Legbar Chickens

Creamy legbar chickens are a very pretty silvery speckled bird that apparently tames down well and best of all lays pale blue eggs!

Once we got our new baby chicks back to the house we settled them into their new home. This was constructed of a large cardboard box with newspaper on the floor and a wire mesh lid, a small saucer of food and a red drinker.

Baby chicks can drown easily in open water troughs, so it is worth investing in a chick drinker. They are fairly inexpensive plus chicks are supposed to like the colour red!

Of course one of the most essential additions to the brooder box for the baby chicks is a heat lamp. This is positioned towards one corner of the box. That way if the chicks are too warm they can move away. I also added a reptile thermometer on the floor to keep a check on the temperature - which should be around 37 C (or 95 F) for the first week.

The temerature can then be reduced by around 5 degrees a week until the environment in which the baby chicks are kept in reaches ambient temperature. This is achieved by raising the lamp, until hopefully at around 3-4 weeks or when the birds are fully feathered it can be removed altogether.

Brooding Baby Chicks

The brooding box needs to be sited in a quiet, secure, draft free area. We have a small outhouse/utility room which is ideal. We set the box up the evening before so we could check that the lamp was working properly and maintaing a good temperature for the baby chicks to be introduced into.

For the first couple of days we just had newspaper on the floor; chicks peck at anything at their feet and we wanted to make sure they knew where the feeder was before they filled up on sawdust! Although we changed the paper frequently as they are quite messy, and it is very important (as with any poultry) to keep them clean to prevent disease. Straw is too ‘big’ for the chicks feet and not really absorbant enough.

As we introduced the baby chicks to the brooder we dipped their beaks in the ’drinker’ so they knew where it was; then we left them completely alone, (much to the childrens annoyance!) as they were still quite sleepy after their ’struggle out of the egg’ and we wanted them to recover from the car journey and settle into their new home.

A good method of checking whether the temperature of the brooding box is right, is to check on the behaviour of the chicks. If they are huddled together under the heat lamp the temperature may be too low; alternatively if they are far away from the lamp it may be too hot.

Of course it is important that the feeder and drinker is close to the heat source so the baby chicks don’t get too chilled when eating and drinking. Happy baby chicks we’ve been told should be fairly active and move in and out of the heat source freely.

The feeder was filled with fresh chick crumbs. This is fed for the first 6 weeks or so, it is small so can fit in their small beaks, also it is full of all the nutrients that the baby chicks will need; but do remember to check the expiry date on the feed sack as we have been caught out by that before!

Once the chicks were settled and happy after a few days we moved them onto a deep sawdust bed. It is important not too keep them on newspaper too long as not only are chicks very messy, but they can suffer from ’splayed legs’, as they slip about a bit on the paper.

Stroking Baby Chicks

We all stroke and cuddle the chicks on a daily basis, including our 3 and 1 year old who are amazingly gentle and calm. The chicks are growing incredibly fast and already getting wing feathers. They are also getting strong, chasing each other around and scratching at the floor like their grown up counterparts, I was quite pleased that we added a wire mesh lid to the brooder box!

The utility room where they are is next to the kitchen and it is lovely to hear the occassionally ‘cheep cheep’ whilst washing up - i shall miss them when they are ready to go outside. Once they are fully feathered up they can go out on warm sunny days from 5-6 weeks although they may not be ready to live full time outside until older.

When they are ready to go out permanently we hope to put them in the seperate run inside the main run. So our old girls can get used to the idea, although we will not mix them until the baby chicks are nearer their size, probably around point of lay.

So there’s the story so far about our new arrivals, we’ll attempt to add a few pictures and updates as time allows over the coming weeks as our new baby chicks grow.

To view a video of our new baby chicks see below.

Baby Chicks.

New Chicken Coop

It definitely feels like ’spring’!

Julia and the boys want more chickens to add to the flock, so in preparation, we’ve bought a new chicken coop.

We went for another self assembly chicken coop from this ebay seller - Garden & Pets. The name of the coop we bought was Large Chicken Poultry Hen Coop House Removable Tray c3t, and at the time of writing Garden & Pets has made over 8600 sales and has 99.2% positive feedback rating.

new chicken coop

We ‘won’ the chicken coop with a winning bid of £86.50, which we thought was a bargain price, for the quality of this chicken coop is plain to see in the image.

The seem to be a ready supply of different styles at different budgets listed on Garden & Pets‘ ebay shop.

Within 24 hours of our ‘winning bid’, the chicken coop arrived via courier and I must say that Garden & Pets‘ delivery time was fantastic.

Now all we need to do is build it, (I’ll attempt to do a photo journal of this like the last time) and treat it to try and prevent the red mites being able to take hold.

We’ve been thinking about getting some Cotswold Legbars as they lay a ‘blue’ egg. It would appear that Cotswold Legbars are as rare as ‘hen’s teeth’ in our area, and we may end up paying Philip of Legbars of Broadway a visit to get hold of some.

We’ll update with more on the new additions to the flock and how we get on with the new chicken coop shortly.

Battery Hen Song - Walking In Circles

An interview with Phillip Lee-Woolf who wrote the sad song about the life of a battery hen - Walking In Circles.

Phillip Lee Woolf breeds rare breed chickens, and he has kept hens since childhood. In 2004 Philip started the Legbars of Broadway business breeding Cotswold Legbars (blue eggs) & Burford Brown hens (chocolate brown eggs) for garden pets and domestic egg production.

"a flash of light, a deadly beam"

Philip wrote a poem to illustrate the plight of the prisoned bird, and this was set to music.

The “Walking In Circles” CD is available at the Legbars of Broadway Web site or you can choose to download the song as an mp3.

What do you want to achieve from this song? Is it more awareness by the shopper or a change of farming practices? (or both?)

It is primarily to raise awareness by the shopper because it is ultimately the shopper who has the power to initiate change in production methods. The farmers and suppliers will only respond to market forces. Supermarkets prefer to sell high value products because they earn more money per square centimetre of shelve space, so in theory they would be happier to sell free range if the demand is there.

What is your ideal scenario for “Compassionate farming” (A kinder world) of egg production?

For farmers to embrace the idea that quality at a slightly higher price is better than quantity, and that the majority of their customers actually want a more ethically produced eggs, and from my experience they are prepared to pay. The issue of animal welfare will never be settled as long as we, the public retain the opinion that we have some kind of divine right to cheap eggs. An egg priced at 25-30p is a very cheap meal for one person – a bar of chocolate at double the price is a very expensive luxury with a small fraction of the food value.

If battery hen egg production is the only way we can get enough eggs, how can a compassionate way of farming produce the volume of eggs needed to satisfy demand?

There is more than enough land available for all UK hens to be free range. Suppose we stocked at 10sq.m per chicken (the Organic standard) - which is the highest standard for chickens. Assuming there are 30 million laying hens in the UK Which would need 30m x 10 sq metres = 300,000,000 sq.mtrs. = 300 sq. Km.
The area of the UK is 245,000 sq. Km. So the laying hens would require – 0.122% of the UK land. Since, according to DEFRA:- Grasses & rough grazing = 51.52% Crops & bare fallow = 18.9% Set aside = 3.5% Forestry = 11.65% Then I hardly think 0.122% is an impossible or unattainable figure. So lack of available land area is hardly a sustainable excuse.

The only thing not mentioned which I would like to get in somewhere is the very important point that a healthy Free-Range hen produces a better, tastier egg. Do you have any good quotes on this subject?

I don’t really want to get too scientific about all this. I think we are talking about free-range hens rather than just healthy hens. What I do know is that, without exception, people who keep their own garden hens insist that the flavour, albumin and yolk quality of their eggs is far superior to those of intensively produced eggs. In my experience, a muscular, fit and athletic hen will produce a quality of egg which cannot be matched by an egg produced in the cramped, unhealthy, environment of the battery egg farm, and it is a sad fact that a large percentage of the population has never eaten, and does not know what a real egg is.

Free Range Hens Produce Nutritionally Superior Eggs
Mother Earth News conducted an egg testing project in 2007, finding that eggs produced by free-range hens compare favourably with those produced by battery cage hens. Eggs from free range hens had up to:

• 1/3 less cholesterol
• 1/4 less saturated fat
• 2/3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene

The study involved 14 flocks across the United States whose eggs were tested by an accredited Portland, Oregon, laboratory, and the results were similar to those obtained via a 2005 study of four flocks. In addition to the Mother Earth News research findings, there have been a number of other studies showing that free-range eggs are healthier than those produced by battery-cage hens.

In other words, if you could change the situation, how would you improve the industry?

To have a total ban on any kind of cage produced egg. This has to be the ultimate solution, and if the industry doesn’t embrace it with open arms, then we are saddled an industry unfit to be producing the nations eggs.

If you’d like to raise money this Easter for a worthy cause, all proceeds from the sale of this song will be donated to the charity Compassion In World Farming.

By sheer good fortune I stumbled across Phillip’s site www.legbarsofbroadway.co.uk as the website was updated with the song, and can therefore claim to be the first person to purchase a copy - a fact backed up by Philip’s email to me when sending me the download links!

Do something ‘worthwhile’ this Easter, purchase Walking In Circles, give it to someone as an alternative to an Easter egg.

Walking In Circles

Walking In Circles - Battery Hen Song

I’ve just stumbled across Walking In Circles whilst researching a chicken keeping idea…

Folks, you’ve got to go and check out Walking In Circles - A Song About The Sad Life Of A Battery Hen.

This beautiful, but sad song tells the true story about the hellish life of a battery hen.

All Chickens Of The World Unite And Crow About Your Dreadful Plight...

Every year more than 20 million normal healthy chickens in the UK are sentenced to lifelong imprisonment, crammed into a tiny cage with no room to move and express their natural behaviour.

# The price I pay’s too much to bear hidden from the public glare… #

You can hear a clip of the song Walking In Circles and if you wish you can download a mp3 of it for 79 pence or get a copy sent to you home in the mail for £3.49.

All proceeds will be donated to the charity Compassion In World Farming.

In my opinion with Easter coming up, this would make the perfect Easter gift substitute to giving a chocolate egg… So go on, check the song out and if it doesn’t make you think, then you shouldn’t be keeping chickens!

Walking In Circles

Battery Hen Song Press Release As Below.

BATTERY HEN SONG EASTER EGGS FROM HELL March 2010

“Walking in Circles” is a song written to provoke a perfectly timed Easter Egg debate.
Philip Lee-Woolf, a chicken breeder, has written a song about the plight of the caged hen. Most people believe battery egg production is a thing of the past. Sadly, millions of hens are still legally caged, and as some die, the corpses are not always removed from the cages, so egg producing hens, can be forced to live alongside the carcasses. The dark side of egg production is kept behind closed hen house doors. The industry does not want you to see the sadness of the birds who mass-produce eggs for the UK market.

Phillip Lee Woolf breeds rare breed chickens, and he has kept hens since childhood. “There is no doubt in my mind that cage egg production should be totally banned, because it is a barbaric, inhumane way to produce food and there is no good reason for cramming nearly 20 million hens into a tiny cages, with less space per hen than an A4 sheet of paper, in artificial light, and forced to lay eggs until they are slaughtered. Enriched cages are just another form of imprisonment as they only offer each hen additional space the size of a beer mat. “ (Ref. RSPCA)

In 2004 Philip started the Legbars of Broadway business breeding Cotswold Legbars (blue eggs) & Burford Brown hens (chocolate brown eggs) for garden pets and domestic egg production. These hens, are free to roam, and produce tasty quality eggs; in total contrast to bland, pale, thin-shelled factory farmed eggs. Phillip says, “If you observe a hen, she doesn’t walk, she runs everywhere. Free Range hens, allowed to live a normal active life in the open air, produce superb healthy eggs.”

January 2012 should be a month of muted celebration for the 244 million battery hens of the EU when the ban on conventional cages comes into force. Several European countries (31% of EU caged hens) are applying to delay the ban which would result in no significant ban at all! The new, so called enriched cages are being enlarged by a mere 50cm2 per hen so 47% of eggs will continue to come from battery hens.

Philip wrote a poem to illustrate the plight of the prisoned bird, and this was set to music.
The “Walking in Circles” CD is available on Amazon or the Legbars of Broadway Web site
All profits will be donated to Compassion in World Farming. www.ciwf.org.uk
www.legbarsofbroadway.co.uk - please click here to listen. Thank you.

Some facts about the “Eggs from Hell”
2009 We consumed over ten billion eggs in the UK. 65% were from battery hens
2009 there are 39 million laying hens in the UK 30 million eggs are consumed daily in the UK
Caged eggs 58% Free Range 38% Barn Eggs 4%

The British Egg Information Council (BEIC) claims that the Lion Quality Mark on egg boxes and egg shells symbolizes that the eggs have been produced to higher standards of hygiene and animal welfare than required by EU or UK law. This is despite the fact that it permits the use of conventional battery cages that only meet the bare minimum standards of the EU legislation. The public are clearly being misled about hen welfare kept under the Lion Quality code scheme.

A Mori poll in 2005 found that 87% of consumers think battery cages are cruel and yet only 38% of the eggs available for us to buy are from free range hens, showing that retailers and the egg industry are not listening to the consumers’ needs.

45% of laying hens in cages break a bone at some point during their lives. (Webster 2004/Viva )

In summary:
Consumer power can make a difference. Simply refuse to buy battery hen eggs.
The shopper has the power to initiate change in production methods. The farmer and suppliers will only respond to market forces and will respond to our demand.
An egg produced by a free range hen only costs 25-30p - a very cheap & nutritious meal!
Chocolate Easter eggs cost pounds, with comparatively negligible food value.

Contact: Phillip Lee-Woolf Tel/SMS 078 318 490 36
Lee-Woolf Limited, (Registered in England 1984), Lammy Down Farm, Russley Park, Baydon, Marlborough, Wiltshire. SN8 2JY
www.legbarsofbroadway.co.uk

Song lyrics are on the website.
When choosing your eggs, think of The Song, and spare a thought for the hen- she has a life too.

Phillip Lee Wolf: “Anyone who has kept a few hens in the garden will be aware of their need for a busy life, and offer graphic and amusing descriptions of the different characters, the love of space, running, flying, foraging, dust bathing, and an incredible fondness for human company.
Short of giving every person in the Country a conducted tour, or an uninvited visit to a battery hen farm, we may never alter the egg eating habits of the average UK consumer. To appreciate a hen as an individual, rather than a faceless component of a massive flock, prompted me to write a poem that has now been turned into a song which we hope will strike a chord with the unconverted, and help persuade consumers to put an end to the intensive factory farming of egg laying hens. Why?…Because cage eggs still account for more than half of all eggs consumed in the UK. This cruel and shameful trade will only stop, if we the consumers start to buy a free range egg, rather than these cruelly produced and inferior eggs.”

With music and vocals by Dominic, ‘Walking in Circles’ is a small contribution this coming Easter, towards smashing our addiction to the ‘eggs from hell’, and hopefully, lots more people will think of the hen, its feelings, sensitivity, and the most basic need of all - its liberty and choose to eat heavenly produced eggs. ‘Walking in Circles’ - In short, the message is simple, when choosing your eggs - spare a thought for the hen, she has a life too. Think of The Song, and buy only organic or free range eggs.

Walking In Circles

Chickens Kill Fox…

A few weeks back most of the national newspapers in the UK ran a story about three hens and a cockerel named Duke, who’d managed to kill a fox who’d ’broken’ into their hen house during the night.

The fox it appears had been pecked to death after being dealt a ’stunning’ blow by a feeding table, (that got knocked over during the ensuing frenzy) and landed on him after he’d ’broke’ into the hen house!

Chickens Kill Fox

It’s a good job these potential victims weren’t human, as they’d all be up on a murder charge - if what’s happened in recent high profile court cases is anything to go by!

Anyway, if you missed the reports, or want to read through them again or even see the Sky TV footage of Duke, Izzy, Pongo, Pecky and the murder scene check out the below;

Murder Most Fowl
Not So Fantastic Mr Fox
Fowl Play

And if you want to see a video of the crime scene and judge for yourself…

Poultry Revenge

So watch out Mr Fox, there are feathered vigilantes on the prowl!

Due to pressures of work, family and all the usual stuff we haven’t updated Keeping Chickens for a while. Apologies for this…

We’ve got a few posts and items to go on over the next few days and we also hope to add a few extra bits and pieces to the Keeping Chickens site.

There’s loads of news, we’ve basically replaced our flock over the last year due to natural causes, Mr Fox (again!) took another, and illness…

We’ve had to learn how to dispatch a sick chicken who’d spent a month in our make shift chicken hospital and didn’t recover - it was the kindest thing to do in the end, although I hope not to have to repeat it that often in the future!

Anyway, look out for the Chicken Keeping updates and additions to come over the next few days.

Ta-Ta

Tim

There is once again a huge interest in keeping chickens and the Build A Chicken Coop book provides detailed step by step guides and plans for those interested in building their own chicken coops.

Also, building your own chicken coop in today’s financial climate of uncertainty makes perfect sense.  Building a chicken coop yourself potentially can save you a small fortune; you could even do it with scrap pieces of wood lying around your garden, or what you can ‘beg, borrow or steal’ from friends and family - obviously before anyone posts a comment on the subject of ’stealing’, I’m not actually suggesting that you commit a criminal offence in your ‘chicken coop building quest’ for materials!

Most pre-built chicken coops need to be assembled anyway, so what you really end up paying for is inflated prices for the material.

As with anything; when you’re considering building chicken coops, there’s some practical considerations worth thinking about before actually getting on with the job.

Building Chicken Coop Provisions

Providing your chickens with proper housing is absolutely necessary to keep your birds in good physical shape, contented and happy.

As a rule of thumb, for a chicken coop to be satisfactory for your birds, it must meet the following requirements:

• It must be predator-proof from all sides. Make sure that all openings are protected with the correct size of wire mesh – 15mm square so that so that predators can not reach inside the coop!
• Make sure that the area surrounding the coop is protected with wire-mesh fencing with the base buried at least 30cm below ground level to prevent foxes and rats from burrowing into the area. Rats would especially be drawn into the area because of chicken droppings.
• Make sure the coop is well ventilated (but not directly in the flow of air) to prevent respiratory diseases. Although chickens can stand cold weather they can not withstand being in the direct path of the wind.
• Make sure the coop is easy to clean.
• You should provide roosting poles for your birds because that is where they sleep! Make sure that there is adequate spacing so they don’t crowd out one another.
• Put 1 nest box for every 4 or 5 birds in a dark corner of the coop to encourage your chickens to lay eggs. Nest boxes should be a little bit off the floor but lower than the roosting pole inside.
• Make sure the coop is roomy enough for the birds to roam around when they are inside, at least 4 square feet per bird.
• There should be a waterer and feeder inside the chicken coop.
• For easy disposal of droppings, place a removable plastic tray under the roosting poles.

For more fantastic ideas on building your own chicken coop, check out the Build A Chicken Coop book.

Chicken Mash

Chicken mash, layers mash, poultry mash… are ‘tasty’ chicken ‘mash’ type feeds that you can make up at home, using left over kitchen vegetable scraps, corn, pellets and bread - not to be confused with chicken & mash ‘home cooking’ recipes for humans!

The only problem with making chicken mash at home; is that if you have a compost heap, you’ll have to decide which vegetable and kitchen scraps are ’saved’ for the chicken mash recipe mixture, and which are going to be put on the compost heap!

Chicken Mash 'Raw' Ingredients

But then again, I suppose you’ll be putting the chicken manure on the compost heap, so there’s no need to be stindgy with your chicken mash ingredients - it all ends up in the same place in the end after all!

Several of the chicken keeping books mention how to make chicken mash, although one book in particular that I keep mentioning since getting hold of a copy - Keeping Poultry And Rabbits On Scraps, takes chicken mash making and recipes to all new levels!

Obtaining ‘free’ chicken feed is almost a ‘mantra’ in Keeping Poultry And Rabbits On Scraps - a chicken mash made from household kitchen scraps is one of the basic chicken feed staples it suggests.

Also the amount of chicken mash that you can create is obviously restricted to the amount of kitchen vegetable and bread waste that you generate. The book suggests that you get friends and neigbours to save suitable vegetable and bread waste for your chicken mash for you…

I don’t know how this would ’sit’ with most people, but we’ve taken the plunge and asked our parents to save their vegetable and bread scraps for our chicken mash. Our parents get a steady supply of eggs from our chickens, so they are more than happy to assist us in collecting suitable ingredients!

Chicken Mash Simmering

A chicken mash is basically made from ‘minced’ or finely chopped kitchen vegetable waste - peelings and stalks or whatever looks a bit out of date or ropey for human consumption, old stale bread, protein - you can also add meat scraps, corn, stale biscuits, old breakfast cereals etc. I also like to put into the chicken mash some of the chicken’s poultry layer pellets.

A good day we’ve found to make chicken mash is on a Sunday, after a Sunday roast; you can then use the vegetable water that has been used to boil the family vegetables as the base chicken mash ’stock’ and add everything you’ve saved over the week to the pot, bring to the boil and then gently simmer for a while.

How To Make Chicken Mash

With experience, I like to simmer the chicken mash mixture so it turns into a stodgy mash. This way it’s not too ‘runny’ and therefore less messy when feeding the mash to the chickens during the week following.

So what’s suitable ‘vegetable wise’ for putting into your chicken mash?

Well, according to the Keeping Poultry and Rabbits on Scraps book, everything in moderation can be used…

But for a rough guide, see below;

Artichoke
Beans - broad, dwarf, harricot, runner etc
Beet
Broccoli
Cabbage
Carrots
Corn
Kale
Leeks
Lettuce
Maize
Mangolds
Onions
Peas
Potatoes
Spinach
Sunflower seeds
Swedes
Turnips

As for the other chicken mash ingredients;

Bread
Stale Cake
Stale Biscuits
Left-over Cooked Rice
Left-over Cooked Pasta
Old Breakfast Cereals
Left-over Meat

You then feed the chickens the chicken mash along with their usual chicken food / pellet diet.

I like to keep the chickens in their run first thing in the morning whilst they ear their chicken feed pellets, corn and chicken mash - to makesure that they’ve had enough of what I want them to eat before they can then start looking for ‘extras’.

I then let them have the run of the garden so they can forage for whatever else they can find and feed on the grass shoots.

There you have it, chicken mash may be a easy way of supplimenting your chicken’s feed using ‘free’ methods - free because chicken mash is made from ingredients that you would otherwise had thrown away or put straight on the compost heap.

If you’re actually looking to buy chicken mash or chicken layer’s mash, check out this site which we use to purchase chicken keeping supplies.

Chicken Mash

Chickens In The Snow

It snowed just enough to cover the floor a little and leave footprints, so I just couldn’t resist taking a photograph of our chicken’s foot prints in the snow.

I imagine this is the first snow that the chickens have seen, and they seemed happy enough scratching around in the snow - although they did seem to spend a lot of the time alternating between standing on one leg or the other!

Chicken Snow Footprints

As you can see in the photo, there’s still the usual ‘chicken poo’ on the patio problem, but this is something we’ve now accepted…

We basically scoop up the chicken poo and put it straight on the compost heap.

Speaking of compost heaps, our three bin compost system now has a load of compost that included the the first batches of chicken manure / bedding and general poo gathered from around the garden.

The importance of which will soon be disclosed; as we’ve now managed to ‘get’ an allotment - that’s the good news.

The bad news is that the allotment site is a ‘virgin’ allotment site. Although the site is council property, it has never been used as an allotment and so the ‘ground’ is basically a couple of inches of what I would in my uneducated manner call ’soil’… The rest is clay - of the kind I reckon you could make models with!

According to the allotment and gardening books, clay is a very fertile soil, but requires A LOT of compostible material to be dug into it.

Just how much compostible material is required I kind of under estimated until I attempted to dig my first vegetable bed…

For now I’m just going to console myself that it’s too ‘frosty’ to do any digging on the allotment and leave things until they’ve thawed out a bit!