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Due to the ever present threat of hunting dogs and the limited space in the temporary compound the mobile secure runs are now fixed, in that we can't move them with the coops around to fresh grass as we did in the UK. All the vegetation has gone and they were getting bored. Our solution was to...

Photo attached (third attempt -still a technophobe). Has anyone ever seen this? Rosie reminded me that we have had this in much smaller quantities with the Wyandottes and administered Flubenvet wormer. Whether it stopped as a result of the wormer or whether that's complete co-incidence we...

I know Tim was going to put a poo chart together sometime but I can't see it on the main site. We have had two cases in two days of the same thing. The birds are far apart in different areas but the poos are approximately the same. The first was a two year old Buff Orpington hen. An early...

We tried isolating her but she just went crazy. All the hens in her run were going bald. So despite the blue eggs it was the Bumpa or cull. The bits have a part that fits in the beak, two balls that fit the nasal holes and a bumper at the front to stop pecking. To fit them easily you need a...

Feather pecking and cannibalism in caged birds in too small a space is routine. Beak bits consisting of a metal or plastic ring are usually used on pheasants. De-beaked pheasants are not what the paying shooter expects. Chickens are usually de-beaked but birds for the public, who wouldn't buy...

Previously we have bought 60g tubs of Flubenvet. The scoop provided measured 6g and was mixed with 2Kg of feed as per the instructions. We now have a 240g tub of Flubenvet. Reading the dosing instructions it says 120g medicates 100Kg of feed. That equates to a 6g scoop mixing with 5Kg of feed...

After hatching 4 english Leghorn Bantam eggs in the hope that one of them would be the female offspring of the hen (Snowdrop) that was killed by the landlords's dogs an hour after arrival here we have been somewhat disappointed. Three were light coloured and feathered up quickly, flying around...

I know this subject has been covered before for Microsoft and when we had the old PC we used Jasc Paintshop Pro8 to do it -a very simple process. Can anyone advise on free download software we can use on our Mac, which only has the basic software package installed on it?

We are hatching at the moment and will be rearing afterwards, hopefully. Power cuts are frequent here. The last one was 12 hours and the longest the neighbours have experienced was 3 weeks. We have a large 12 volt battery and an inverter. The 2 x 2KW generators arrive in two weeks so we have the...

we have just started incubating and the machine is running on the default settings. Temp. 37.5 and humidity 50%. The air is very dry here so running dry is not an option. I will need to adjust the temperature to 37.0 degrees and the humidity to 75% at pipping, day 18. The instructions are packed...

Just had another disappointed customer. We only had 4 eggs to sell. We stopped putting out the signs months ago because people just call in on the off-chance that we will be in and have some. "Why do your eggs taste so much better than everyone else's?" Asked the customer. "I stopped buying...

I took two wooden framed shelters from the runs today and jet washed them down ready for shipping. Like all the coops they have sacrificial pieces of roofing lath screwed to the bottom of the legs with decking screws, so that damp doesn't creep up the grain of the leg wood and rot them. ALL the...

Yesterday we went out for some time in the garden and noticed Merlin, our new cockerel, finally being accepted by his three hens following the death of Arnold. He was behaving much more like a cockerel and far less like a hen. For the first time the previous night they had been all on the perch...

Daffodil, our last remaining hybrid (Merrydale RIR), came in tonight at 7.00pm as usual for a feed and then bed at 8.30pm. But she didn't want to eat and dashed, as fast as her poor swollen little feet would carry her, into the dining room and started wandering about in the corners. We couldn't...

Daffodil is our last remaining hybrid and is somthing of a house hen as she just doesn't fit in with the others, preferring to stay in the house. She's been ill for a long time with swollen feet but, despite them never improving, has brightened up and was laying well. She wanted to mix with the...

9.00pm yesterday a fox got into the main section of the Orchard and killed one of our Blue Orpington hens. Harriett was just over 5 years old and one of the four Orpingtons we started with. Laid as well as ever about 100 very large eggs a year. Very quiet, very docile and very pretty. Always the...

We seem to be completely overrun with Magpies this year. Our only coop without a curtain on the nest box (can't be fitted) has again been targeted. Tried pot egg and a rubber egg but without success. Definitely not the hens. The egg has been sliced open with a very sharp beak, the contents eaten...

But disappointingly not the largest. To date our smallest 'wind' egg has been 23 grammes. Recovered today from a run containing 4 large fowl, a Buff Orpington and three Gold Laced Wyandottes, was the smallest by far. It weighed 7 (yes, seven) grammes and measured 30.5mm on the major axis and...

Guess the next door neighbours didn't like Arnold, the large Blue Laced Wyandotte, competing with Bottom, our pet Buff Orpington. Can't say we liked it much either to be honest, but we didn't have the benefit of a solid 9" brick wall between us and them. Can't say I'm at all bothered this time...

Have noticed the cocks are losing the first of their primary wing feathers. Bottom, Arnold, Frankie and Basil have all lost the first pair this week. Haven't noticed any of the hens yet, but as many of them are broody and we haven't enough runs it's a bit chaotic in the Orchard at the moment...