Monday, October 1, 2007

Chooks


Our chickens have arrived! On Saturday we took ownership of 10 rescue hens from the Battery Hen Welfare Trust and they seem to be settling in well. The charity essentially comes to an arrangement with a battery egg producer to rehome hens which have reached the end of their maximum production cycle. They still have plenty of eggs to lay (the breed is Isa Brown which is a hybrid known for good egg production) and in our first 2 days we've had 10 eggs from them. Before too long we'll be selling them locally.

The hens have had 2 sunny days to get used to the big wide world, what a contrast to their previous living conditions. Some are distinctly more adventurous than others and are exploring their new environment, so far they have not ventured very far from one corner of the enclosed area. The children are throughly enjoying their new responsibilities and helping with looking after our new pets.
On the building site - the men have finished laying the surface and rainwater run-offs into the lower field and the main house related activity is placing the 200mm of Jablite 70 polystyrene insulation board which is one of the key elements in keeping the house warm from the ground up. The sun is bouncing off the brilliant white polystyrene, its quite dazzling. Hopefully tomorrow the underfloor heating team arrive to attach the pipe circuits to the grid.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Enjoying your blog - no pressure to be entertaining! The children look like they've made friends with the hens already; looking forward to reading all about it. I'll look out all my egg recipes for you. Have fun. Lisa

Jane said...

Hi Debs - Sally said you were getting chickens - we have one Isa Brown amongst our menagerie - she is called Treela and is the tamest by far. She often appears in the house and if there is no-one about to chuck her out she makes a nest in the laundry basket.
You'll have great fun. They look a lot less traumatised than many of the ex battery chickens I've seen.
J
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