Sunday, April 24, 2016

Re-homing hens

We had three flocks of laying hens on the farm, the oldest of them having arrived on the farm in September 2013 (the other flocks arrived in October 2014 and April 2015 - we have kept these two younger flocks). There were about 80 surviving members of the oldest flock, being two and a half years old, most of whom were still laying the occasional egg. At the end of March we began to re-home these so-called "spent hens" to local families and smallholders, and after a full-page article in The Cornishman for Easter we managed to re-home all of them in the space of three days.

We'd like to thank all the local people who gave homes to our hens, and for the generous donations made to the farm for them - we hope they have settled in well and are still laying.

Since the oldest hens left we have replaced the dilapidated floor in one of our three sheds, and brought in a new flock of 120 point-of-lay (22 week-old) hens, who have settled in well and are already laying about 100 pullet (small) eggs per day - these are now available in the farm shop and at farmers markets for only £1 per half dozen - I'm told they are the best eggs for poaching!

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