Weather - what a winter!

The chooks have coped very well with the cold weather this winter and are looking very healthy as I write this. Very funny to observe the chooks' behaviour in the snow; lots of them didn't come out of their houses for days but as I had put their feed and water indoors for them they were perfectly ok and eventually ventured out to investigate.

The biggest problem was the water freezing; each of my breeding enclosures has separate feed and water and there are ten of them so each one had to be de-frosted every day which became very tedious. The system usually works very well with hosepipes to each house and a side bucket for each group of birds, but of course all the hose pipes were frozen solid so hot water had to be carried to each house every morning.

It got so cold on some nights that even though I put the water buckets inside with the birds they were frozen completely solid by the morning and each had to be taken inside and de-frosted.

The birds all seemed happy enough in their draft-proof cosy houses; their feathers must offer really fantastic insulation against the cold, wish I had some!

On the downside all the raw materials we use seem to have rocketed in price; feed costs are now over £300/ton up by about 30% on last year and the timber used for the construction of houses has shot up by about the same amount. Timber suppliers are blaming the huge demand from China for construction timber, very little is grown there apparantly, as well as the increase in fuel/haulage costs. 

 We suffered a little bit of overcrowding over the winter and so one of the projects was to design and build a larger towable house for a bunch of growers that were threatening to take over my workshop.

  New Towable Poultry Ark

This Ark was designed by me in consultation with our specialist Poultry Vets, St Davids Poultry Practice in Exeter, to provide the ideal, hygienic, warm, safe, well-ventilated and moveable house for up to about 75 growers.

The house is built with a strong wooden frame fixed to a steel sledge made from RSJ's and braced at each corner for additional strength and rigidity. The wooden frame is lined on the inside with plastic sheeting to provide an easily cleanable surface, 50mm slab insulation is then closely fitted between the frames and covered with a very heavy duty PVC-coated tarpaulin fixed in place with wooden battens. The interior is fitted with plenty of perches down each side which fold up for improved access when cleaning.

A large fold up pop hole is provided on each side to enable access to separate grass paddocks or, if in an exposed position as I am, to allow access only on the leeward side of the house in winter. The back end has a large triangular ventilation window and the front a smaller one as well as the door which can be fixed open to provide more ventilation on sunny days.

The house is heavy enough to be stable in the worst of weather with the weight concentrated around the base, yet it is designed to be easy to tow into position with a 4x4, a compact tractor or even a powerful quad.

Before each new crop of birds, it is a simple matter to wash out the house and tow it to a new position on fresh pasture, giving the young birds the best chance of a good start in hygienic conditions.

The straw bedding in the old position can then be harrowed over to give the grass a good start in recovering. 

Nellie

Nellie has gathered quite a following and has become a very popular little character, so much so that I have been asked by lots of people "if ever you breed from her put me down for a pup" so I have decided to do just that.

She is eighteen months old now and has been an excellent terrier, very intelligent and easily trainable with a super temperament. Her job is to patrol the paddocks of chooks and keep Mr Fox away as well as catching the odd rat; both jobs she does very well.

She also gets involved in all aspects of poultry rearing and takes a keen interest in her charges from the day they are hatched until she says goodbye to them either at market or as a customer collects them from the farm.

As can be seen from this pic, she is very gentle with them, in fact as I vaccinate them, which is what I was doing here, she keeps them warm for me until I have finished; they creep all over and under her finding the warmest spot until I am ready to put them back into their brooder.

Nellie is a Patterdale Terrier albeit a very unusual one; the vast majority are black and smooth-coated so we have chosen to mate her with this type of dog to ensure that the pups remain true to type. The dog we have used "Tim of Yatton" is from an excellent working strain and has proved himself as a really excellent and fearless earth dog.

Nellie has just been to visit her chosen partner and will hopefully be "in pup" with her litter due in early April.

Watch this space for more news.

Apologies for letting this diary get so out of date, I will try to do better in future! As you will see from the pics of Nellie below it is quite a time since it was updated!

November so far has all  been about Nellie!

Well she arrived at the end of October actually, she is a Patterdale Terrier from a good working strain in the Midlands and is destined to become the cornerstone of my Foxy defences. She has settled in very well and is, as I write this on 20th just out of quarrantine after her vaccinations and able to go out and fully socialise. The first visit to the Pub went very well so thats OK.

She has had a very busy week exploring the farm and being introduced to all of her charges, the chickens, ducks and geese as well as getting used to spending the days in the workshop with me.

She shows great promise and is learning very quickly, already she has learned not to chase the chooks, to the great releif of the banties that wander freely around the yard.

New Low Cost Chalet House

One of the other jobs being tackled this month is the design and development of a commercial quality but low cost house. Over the winter I intend to create a new facility for my breeding groups of Chooks, so each group of three to twelve chooks will need its own house and paddock to keep the breeds seperate from each other. This will require the building of about 15 new houses and the erection of hundreds of yards of fencing all within  a securely Foxproofed perimeter fence and with a good water supply and access for feedin and heedin.

I have decided to base the design of the new house on my Gable Cottage as this has prooved to be superb from a maintenance point of view with great access and no bending down, but to reduce the materials cost and labour time to halve the cost of each unit. Having the houses up on a stand has also been a great success and made vermin control very much easier so this will be duplicated as well.

The new house is made from Pressure treated 13mm structural spruce plywood from a guaranteed source. You have to be very careful buying plywood as a lot of it is still made from far eastern hardwoods which is totally unacceptable. By using structural ply I have been able to greatly reduce the amount of framing reqired as well as the complexity of the frame and still end up with a pretty bomb-proof structure. The cost has been further reduced by using stirling board for the roof, covered with felt, which I bond in place to prevent the mite problems usually associated with felt covered roofs. As the floor is solidly fixed I have increased the size of the door to make cleaning/scraping out very easy. Finally I am using my own design of re-cycled nestbox which I will post details shorty in the project section of the site. Basically the nestboxes are made from old plastic 20 or 25 litre drums with the front cut out, they work a treat and can easily and hygienically be srubbed out.

The new eco chalet comes treated but unfinished for clients to paint or stain.

More details

October has been - all about plugging the gaps

By plugging the gaps I mean in my breeding sets. The aim this year has been to assemble breeding sets of stock for about ten Traditional Breeds of Chicken as well as three breeds of Waterfowl. A breeding set is at least one Cock Bird and a number of Hens, usually between two and ten. The number of hens running with one Cock depends very much on the type of breed, whereas our Golden Duckwing Welsummer could easily cover eight or ten due to his athleticism. On the other hand,  a heavy "Old Fashioned" breed such as the Barnevelder is nothing like as athletic and can usually only cover two or three Hens. 

Having completed the pond we started back in June the watrefowl are very well catered for and very happy as well as being in wonderful condition. These are the young Trio of unrelated Chinese Geese we have bought from a specialist breeder in Tiverton, they will hopefully provide us with plenty of eggs in the late winter and early spring. Still not quite fully mature, we will let them get fully grown and lay plenty of eggs before we attempt to hatch any eggs from them. Fortunately Chinese Geese are prolific layers as Geese go, so hopefully we will have plenty to play with.

We have  also completed our Khaki Campbell group of six females and a beautiful Drake, acquired from another specialist breeder this time through Salisbury Market. As Khaki Campbells are one of the most prolific layers in Duckdom, pumping out about 340 eggs per year, we should have plenty to incubate and the Drake should be kept busy, lucky fellow - hope he's up to it!

The last gap to plug, waterfowl wise, is a pair or trio of Indian Runners, I have decided to keep Pencilled or Trout Runners as I feel that the white variety make too much of an easy target for Mr Renard. I hope to find these next month.

This fellow on the right represents another gap plugged, we have some lovely Cream Legbar Pullets that are just coming into lay and laying the most beautiful blue eggs, so we have bought this fellow to look after them. Although almost fully feathered and very handsome he is only a "teenager" at the moment but he should be match fit by  the new year just when his pullets become hen women and ready to breed from, so we are feeding him up for the struggle ahead. 

 We have been steadily selling pullets of varying ages between 13 weeks to Point Of Lay at about 23 weeks, during the Autumn and now have just a few POL left. Our next hatch is due on 29th and we have some lovely Welsummer growers coming along nicely.

We have had a growing number of visits from Mr Fox as Autumn turns to winter he usually becomes more of a problem and more persistent. As his supply of summer bunnies dwindles and the nights become longer he more time to work on his cunning plan, I havent lost any too him yet but constant vigilence is needed and I am strengthening my defences - much more on this subject in November.

 Salisbury Market -  Losing my Market Virginity

The big excitement this weekend was attending Salisbury Livestock Market where they have one of the largest specialized Traditional Poultry Markets in the Country. I was selling my first lots, three cages of juvenile Welsummer Pullets which went well. I also acquired a lovely pair of Appleyard X Indian Runner Ducks which I have loved since seeing Ferdinand in Babe.

The market is held monthly for most of the year and is very popular and busy. The atmosphere is great fun and you get a mix of all sorts of people there, everything from Gentry in their tweeds to Gypsy's complete with earrings, looking for a Game bird.

This Saturday was one of the biggest markets I have seen with over two thousand lots for sale. There are various sections for Hatching Eggs, Poultry, Bantams and Waterfowl. One of the busiest is the Hatching Egg section with so many lots for sale that this market goes on all morning non stop with lots of dealers bidding on lots for the various breeds that they require.

Eggs will sell for anything from a few pence each to several pounds each with a dozen eggs from a popular breed  that may be in short supply making thirty to forty pounds. Almost every breed imaginable is represented and from all sorts of vendors, some championship winning poultry keepers and others perhaps not so genuine.

I do sometimes buy eggs for hatching from this market but always try to research where they have come from by speaking to the vendors and collecting details for research. I never buy Poultry at Market now as my vet has advised against it as it is the commonest way of introducing disease into your flock.

Selling is another matter altogether and this was great fun although took much more planning and organizing than I had thought possible for a few chooks. Firstly you have to submit an application to the market listing what you want to sell, how many cages you require and a deposit for each cage. You then have to get organized selecting which birds to take and in what combinations to sell them, singles, doubles, pairs, trios, quartets etc. You then have to think about all the other little details like drinkers for in the cages as they can be there for several hours, feed, transport etc.  

Then the day arrives and you are up very early, packing your birds into boxes in their various combinations, having selected them from the flock the night before in the dark to avoid stressing them and keeping them overnight in separate quarters. Then you make your way to the market to arrive in plenty of time to get unloaded and set up before the market opens. So I arrived at Salisbury, well it's Netherhampton actually just my side of Salisbury, in good time and got started. First thing is to locate your cages and fix the water containers in place with plastic straps so they don't get knocked over and fill with water. The next step is to get the birds in and get them into the cages, this is where the fun starts, if you can imagine there are about one thousand cages all being filled at around the same time and the noise level has to be heard to be beleived!  I was lucky and managed to get my birds safely into their respective cages which can be difficult, especially by yourself, but others were not so lucky and there were escaped chickens pelting around in all directions with their worried owners in hot pursuit. Very funny if they are not yours!

Then the waiting begins, I positioned my nicely printed descriptive cards, detailing vaccinations, age and whether or not the birds were related and stood back and waited - and waited. It was very interesting earwigging what people were saying as they inspected my Chooks but most were complimentary and I was hoping for a good result. The auctioneer made his way slowly along the cages and as mine were near the end, lot numbers 1013 - 1016 I had a long agonizing wait. I must say that with so many entries, the prices were generally kept fairly low and some of the cages of nice looking birds just before mine only made a few pounds each. The level of stressitement I was experiencing was out of all proportion, ridiculously so, but there is something about Auctions that sets the adrenalin flowing. My first cage of two twelve week old Welsummer Pullets made only £16, I was hoping for nearly twice that, the second and third cages , both of Juvenile Trios made even less and I was very downhearted, but then the fourth cage which was 3 Juvenile Duckwing Welsummer Pullets set the bidding going, obviously two or three people wanted these very special little fellows and the hammer fell at £36 a very decent price for three 8 week old pullets.

Overall I was disappointed with the prices made, so I had to console myself by buying a most beautiful pair of Appleyard Runner Cross Ducks to compliment my new Pond. Pics to follow...