Coop hygiene
Coop hygiene is of crucial importance. Stuff this up and you can get serious diseases affecting your birds, even yourself, potentially even resulting in their death. Harsh [...]
Animals
The last path
When I was a young teenager my friend introduced me to “The Last Waltz”, a recording of the last live performance of a Canadian band simply called “The Band” (which [...]
DIY chicken coop
Of late I’ve been feeling more like a cross between a chicken farmer and a carpenter. Not that I mind doing either – I quite enjoy these two roles. So the time has [...]
G is for Grapes
When we moved into Homeland we inherited a grapevine that was slam-bang in the middle of the vegetable patch. Not only did we read that certain vegetables do not like grapes [...]
Pre-autumn activity
Technically we are still having late summer (season of eels *), but we’ll optimistically call it early autumn. We haven’t had any real rain yet – literally just a [...]
Fowl maths
I was really intrigued by an image I saw recently that stated a “free-range” chicken needs at least 2sq feet, while a “pasture-raised” hen needs more than 108sq feet [...]
RIP Millie
In a previous post I mentioned we had 4½ Light Sussex chooks… Unfortunately now we only have 4. So what did half a chicken look like? And what happened to it? This is [...]
Morning chicken routine
Every now and then, when it is still early morning, I will go out and softly make my way to the chicken coop. It is not yet fully light but the chickens are all awake, [...]
H is for honey
OK this isn’t about a full-on harvest as such. But it’s a bit like picking those first five apricots off a young tree. It’s a bit of a celebration. Especially if it’s [...]
Freedom!
Saturday was coldish (for summer anyway), very windy and not the most pleasant day to be out and about. But at Dreamland it was Freedom day! For the ducks, and most of [...]