New fancy hens

After processing five cockerels this morning, we went out and bought three new hens. One Vorwerk and two Appenzeller Spitzhaubens. Not the best photo's but there will be better ones soon.

This was a little bit of 'leaf printing' I did at the Embroiders Guild meeting on Friday.

Egg Count for last week was -
Chickens - 19
Ducks - 5
exactly the same as the week before.

Wabbit

This year we have been near overrun by Wabbits and some have demolished the veg plot others have dug under my only surviving Magnolia. So for a while I have contemplated shooting some.

Well earlier this week whilst waiting for a Rat that has been seen in the Chicken run to appear (which did not) I noticed a large Bunny Wabbit on the far side of the field, it was near dark and as I needed to discharge my Rifle I thought lets have a go. Well down it went.

It was a lucky shot as it was near max range.

I left it to hang and Karen butchered it the next morning, we had Rabbit for dinner that evening, and it was great

I did a bit of reading and apparently 6 Rabbit eat as much as one Sheep!

http://www.countryfile.com/countryside/truth-about-rabbit

Egg count and broodies.

Two weeks worth of egg counts I'm afraid - sorry.
Chickens - 16 & 10
Ducks - 7  & 4
Overall this year since I started counting, the chickens have given me 728 eggs and the Ducks 517 eggs.

Things are slowing down but the good news is that Copper seems to be over her broody phase and Snowy, who was broody is laying again. The Barnvelder girls are moulting like there's no tomorrow. Some mornings I go to clean out the chicken shed and you would think there's been a pillow fight in there overnight, literally handfuls of feathers under the perches. Faye seems to be the worst, she has a bare chest.
I had hoped that Boris would be laying but she doesn't seem bothered yet. At 27 weeks (just over six months), I thought I would have had something by now. The other chicks are  20 weeks, so as they are different breeds maybe some of them will start laying in the next few weeks.

Dinner

This weekend was a new milestone, two of the Roosters became Dinners!
We watched plenty of You Tube type videos to understand how to humanely kill, de feather and butcher them, and proceeded to do the deed on Saturday morning.

All in all it really was not to difficult we still have all of our fingers!
It just took longer than expected but that will improve with practice.

In addition all the veg came from the Garden as well  so we have enough meat and veg to have some totally home sourced dinners for several days

The bottle of wine seemed very suitable and was part of a case of  twelve that I received as a reward from work for being a good egg!

It will be the turn of some of the Curries next probably four of them.
We will keep one of them - Yellow Curry for a bit longer as he is by far the most Grown up of the boys at the moment and he is great to watch offering anything he can to his Hens!

Strange things.

 There is a picture in this scattered chicken food on a tile in the feild. I think it's a dog. Keith thinks it's a secret message to Alden from one of the chickens.

Alden found this 'Hap-pea' at dinner time.

Godzilla found his voice!

Last week, as I went out to feed the birds and let them loose first thing in the morning, there was Godzilla crowing his little heart out. It was the first time we had heard him and we haven't had a peep out of him since.

Ponies are back for a holiday.

Keith brought the ponies back for a holiday as he needed them to munch some grass for him.

Sadly, the geese were not as pleased to see them...

Cleo didn't make it and left us on Monday.

These are the cockerels having their meal worms, its a race.

Snowy has finally broken out of her 'broody' phase. Copper caught one of her toes in the slots of the nest box she was in. We released her with the help of some washing up liquid and stood her in some cold water afterwards. Earlier I had to help Mrs Bustles head out of the egg box part of the nest box, she must have been curious what was down there. I had taken the straw out that we had put in to encourage the hens to lay in the boxes, perhaps I'd better put it back!
Last week I had 19 chicken eggs and 6 duck eggs. I had a lovely time on Saturday making cookies, biscuits, a salmon & courgette flan and a big Duck egg cake (that was gone by Sunday!). Only Bubble is still laying and she has now made herself a nest round the other side of the pond, which involves climbing fences.
This weekend I am going to make the Christmas cake. It needs to be made early so that there is plenty of time to soak it in Whisky!!