Five of the hens are 'mature', one is ancient, and six are youngsters just come into lay. The ancient one does produce an egg occasionally, the young ones will lay all winter and the middle aged girls should come into lay after the new year again. We don't eat chicken, especially not our laying hens, so they live on til they drop off their perches. Anyway, it's as easy to keep 11 as 6. It worked so well keeping them in the tunnel last time and they emerged in spring in better condition than usual, having had none of the weather stresses of winter. In a competitipn between hens and purple sprouting broccoli and kale, the hens win
I was intending to try to keep a root ball with each brassica plant so the roots are not too disturbed, and to stake them firmly. I used to grow all brassicas and leeks outside until one year the lot was killed by heavy snow which lay for three weeks, a foot deep and rotted the plants to sludge. So putting them outside is risky anyway, but seems to be the only way to get a crop. We'll go for it and report back.
The leeks can go in the freezer as macgro suggests.
It's time to plant autumn garlic, so for that we shall use a small hen pen we have to protect the plants. It's not big enough for all the brassicas.
We're just waiting for a dryish day to do the move.
Were the housing rule to become permanent then we would have to build a run and not have our hens free range, but I can't see that happening.