The chicks, rapidly outgrowing their accomadation at my home, moved up to the farm, by bike trailer, yesterday! Here they are, enjoying their new home.
First farm steps….
I _am_ the king of the castle!
Pablo with a purpose!
Exploring the new home
Pablo one and Pablo two with friend
Our new chicks! So far we have a dozen baby chicks, with more on the way. A mix of our own Oak Tree chicks and also some from eggs bought in. We are working on developing new improved dual purpose chickens so we select the best from our own birds to breed from, and also buy in some eggs from outside. The little black chick is a Plymouth Rock – beautiful, isn’t it?
Plymouth Rock Chick
You can read more about how keeping chickens at the farm is an essential part of improving the soil here www.the-oak-tree.co.uk/virtual-farm-tour/ and if you are a veg CSA member why not support this by joining the hens eggs CSA?
Our chickens’ pens, inspired by Polyface Farm, are moved every single day to give them fresh grass, fresh ground to scratch and somewhere new to poo. They have automatic drinkers (fed from a diesel fuel can – but it does contain water! The black plastic just excludes the light to stop it going green) and a hanging pellet feeder, both of which come with them when it is move time.
Our ladies and gents also enjoy spent brewers mash from the lovely people at The Dove Street Inn, along with comfrey and vegetable trimmings from the farm – they just love aged sweetcorn that is too tired to go in the veg boxes!
Many thanks to the many CSA members who have helped to build the pens, including Steve, Tom, Sue and Mark, not to mention friends of the farm Dave & Peter.
Oh dear. I’m worried that our cockerel, Buster, isn’t too keen on the ladies. Sigh. Now I am all for equal opportunities, but a gay cockerel presents a real moral dilemma! His job isn’t a complicated one, and for most cockerels I guess it would be a pretty happy one, but Buster just doesn’t seem too interested.
Can I really bring myself to turn him into Sunday lunch because of his sexual orientation? He cowers when one of the girls approaches him, and if anyone else asks whether he is a broody hen (he does more sitting & fluffing his feathers than strutting!) then I’m afraid it may be gravy & roast potatoes for you, young Buster!
Many thanks to Tom for this great video of Buster welcoming a couple of ladies to his bachelor pad:
Here’s Buster, our new Buff Sussex cockerel, who arrived from The Suffolk Chicken Company today.
Isn’t he great? He’s in a pen next to his ladies, apparantly they need bit of “speed dating” (as Tom put it!) in parallel pens for a while so there isn’t too much pecking and drawing of blood when they move in together.
Tom unboxing Buster
See the hen in the background taking a coy look at her new gentleman neighbour?!
After a bit of preening Buster is ready to meet his lady neighbours
Buster and the goslings meet each other
A simple, everyday miracle in The Oak Tree incubator, a Light Sussex chick hatching. Rest assured the little one was cuddled and played with just as soon as his or her fluff had dried out enough to come out of the incubator!
There’s no sound on this clip and the timeline has been speeded up about twice.
Sammy and Charlie, the Buff Sussex chicks get their first feathers!
Look at my new feathers! I’m only three days old!
Learning how to perch – look at me!
High speed chick!