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Basic plumbing & DIY. I have quite severe dyscalculia (basically, inability to grasp how numbers work, difficulty with distance, inability to, for example, understand measurements etc without actually seeing it. ) so after my Junior Certificate, for which maths was a required subject, the...

Almost 2am. Can't sleep. ☹️ However I'm happily listening to the sound of heavy rain falling! ?

Excellent! Hi, all! ?

Hello and welcome! I'm afraid I know nothing about ducks, and even less about hatching and incubators! However, I know that there are those on this forum who do, and I'm sure someone will be along to help soon.

Hope everyone had a good festive season. Here, little went according to plans! Nevertheless, a good, happy and peaceful time was (safely) enjoyed by all the family. Plans were for mum and I to go to my daughter for lunch on Christmas day. I will admit, I had my doubts about this...

My last remaining 3 elderly hens are being despatched this weekend. One by one, over the last year, the others have succumbed to illness - well, not actually succumbed to the illness, I sent them on their way rather than prolong their suffering. Now, 3 remain, and one is starting to...

Lost another hen yesterday. She was showing signs of being unwell last week, but I was very unwell myself last week, so I didn't have what it takes to deal with it. I did pick her up one evening, and some murky liquid came from her beak, so I thought it might be a crop problem, although...

Reports on the farming news here today of a pedigree Suffolk ram being sold for a record price. An eye-watering €44,000! Lovely looking animal, by his photos. But, y'know - it's a sheep! Mind you, it's not that long since a sheepdog fetched around 26,000. Valuable animals, in the world of...

I'm so happy! There used to be a lot of bats around my place, but they disappeared 4 or 5 years ago. But I'm ridiculously thrilled to see that they're back! Saw several flitting around outside tonight. I'm assuming that their return is linked to my "rewilding " efforts here - the...

I've had my current batch of hens for over two years now, and they were already laying when I got them - commercial type laying hybrids, the "little brown girls", which is all I ever keep. This batch have been super healthy and 4 of them are still laying, which at now 2 1/2 years old...

I'm sure you've all noticed the huge upsurge in new chicken keepers since covid? In one way it's great. In other ways, not so much. Seems so many just jump in, with no research and not much thought. One chicken group I'm in, a woman got some hens and then asked us what she needed for them...

Hi from me too! Welcome.

Hi, and welcome!

I think you can basically make wine out of anything. Whether you should, or would want to, is another issue! On my walks around home, I keep eyeing the gorse bushes speculatively. That wonderful coconut smell of gorse! I've been told that gorse wine is wonderful. But so far, I've not had the...

I have to say, that for a first time keeper, while I would recommend the commercial hybrids, I wouldn't really recommend rescues for your first hens. They are already around two years old, and in hybrid terms, that's already getting on a bit. It's heartbreaking to start losing hens through...

Several times now, I've had a very cheeky fox out on the lawn by my back door, any time from mid morning to afternoon. Grubbing holes in the lawn. My hens are in a large pen (approx 70×45 ft), with a galvanised chain link fence. However, the fence is only around 5ft. I know zero about electric...

Yesterday, I went with dau and her two little boys (just turned 3 and 4 months) for an outing. Mostly, it was to give the 3 yr old a trip on a train, because he's currently obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine, and all the other engines, carriages, etc. in that series. He can identify every...

For the first time in all my years keeping chickens, I've lost one. No, I don't mean it's the first time a chicken had died! I mean I have, actually, lost one! Yesterday, I was working in the veg garden, which is toward the front of the property. I looked up, and there was a chicken on the...

So, how's everyone coping with weather? From what I see on t'interwebs, the UK seems to be getting quite extreme weather? Floods, and now a blast of cold? Here, November was the wettest for decades, but around here anyway, we had no floods. This morning is frosty, but not too bad. We've had...