New chicken flock

Every spring we buy a new flock of 120 point-of-lay Colombian Blacktail laying hens from Blakes' Poultry Farm near Launceston (a four-hour round-trip on the A30), to refresh our laying flock. This year we managed to re-home all our three-year-old birds again, to give us an empty shed for the fluffy newbies. This brings our flock number up to around 310. The new girls are just starting to lay their first few small eggs, which are for sale in the farm shop at only £1 per half dozen - once the eggs are big enough they will go in with our standard eggs at £1.60 per half dozen. We will now soon hopefully be able to meet demand in the busy months.

New chickens just released into their new home.

For the first 2 days we don't let the chickens out of their new shed, so that they become hefted and know where home is. They are now out and about and enjoying their views of the Penwith coastline. We also have to teach them how to perch (as they have been raised in a big open barn, with no mums to teach them how), which means every night for about two weeks lifting every hen onto its perch. This gets less onerous as the days go by, and now they are all perching.