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My apples, plums and grapes are all where I would expect them to be towards the end of August, just goes to show what difference a bit of sun can make. Don't know if that's just me or whether others were seeing the same. Not that I will get to eat many of the apples, the amount that are wormed...

Oh no!, more pics of hens with their chicks.Sorry!. If you had ever seen this Light Sussex hurtling down towards you wings furiously flapping you would know why she got the nickname "Big Bomber". I've never kept large breeds like Brahmas or Jerseys for comparison, but she is a big hen, bigger...

Or as near as damn it. Still as cheeky and as lovely as ever. Everything we do is like some sort of game to them that they want to join in with. They go out of their way to annoy the bigger birds in the main flock, just for the hell of it I think, and now form tag teams of two to see them off...

https://twitter.com/Awesome_planet_/status/863380873609175040

Bok.......bok.......bok.......bok That was a party political broadcast by the Araucanservative Party. BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOKK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BAAAKK BAAAAKK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BAAAKK BAAAKKK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK BOK...

I hadn't seen this one before, made me smile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXGATK9KvTk

Came across this little bit about one mans chicken keeping during the war to supplement his egg rations. Sawdust in with the mash, a hen house made from oil drums, what would our flocks think. The bit about chickens starts five paragraphs down if your interested in that sort of thing...

Apologies if you've seen it already. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l51gjch-1k

Ay up me duck. :)

Well, as predicted Orp has made a better job of hatching than the others. She was bit naughty as she actually stole these eggs off our bottom ranking bird who had been sitting on them for a fortnight. I wonder if this is how it works in the wild without human interference, (this is the first...

Well we have had a bit of hatching disaster over the last week or so. To cut a long story short, after our Ko Shamo hatched three little chicks and everything was going fine she abandoned them to be very badly attacked by one of the game birds nesting next door to her. The little sod who did it...

For Rick (and anyone else interested) some of my way too numerous photos of Japan, must have taken hundreds!. I will delete this after a week so it doesn't clutter up the board.

We have been having problems with partially eaten eggs in the nest boxes recently, including one which the game had been sitting on, which sadly contained a chick. Obvious culprit was the magpies which have recently arrived and it has meant that we have had to shut the birds up for the first...

Got so many broodies at the moment that we haven't got enough cages to break them. Am letting this lot get on with it and will see what happens, no doubt it will all end in tears.

Was in the Wallace Collection today and saw this painting hanging. Despite the subject matter I quite like it as most depictions of chickens are very static and sterile. It actually shows the selflessness and bravery of the cocks and the fierce protective instinct of mother hens pretty well I...

Just saw an episode of the program where they dealt with an impacted crop. It was absolutely huge and when they opened it up was full of sweetcorn and some kind of fibrous grass/vegetable. The weight of the food removed?, 790g!!!.

Sometimes you have moments when you realise you have been really dense. Our cat Greta is a great hunter and along with mice, shrews and rats is a reasonable hunter of grey squirrel too, normally bagging 3 or 4 per year. Over the last few months though we have been surprised at the large amount...

We had a sudden death of one of our growers during the night last night and found the body in the coop this morning. She had seemed perfectly fine yesterday morning so it was a bit of surprise. On doing an autopsy I found that her lower intestine and ceca were absolutely full of foamy caecaly...

Imagine having this lot in your flock. They'd certainly be last to the feeder if they insisted on going through this palaver every morning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAAodYX3xI8

Just finished picking and crushing this years grapes, more of them and more importantly they are much sweeter than last year, borderline edible. Mind you last years wine is drinking now and isn't too bad, tastes much like standard cheap plonk from the supermarket. This years harvest would give...