[stephen]

Hi my names stephen, i currently live with my partner Niels in a seaside town called ramsgate in kent! We both work full-time, myself in the finance sector and niels in health care, we also breed pedigree cats as well (two jobs each really!!!) Ive always been intrested in living in the country side and owning animals to produce fresh organic meat / eggs etc to eat and working from home would be a bonus! after watching programmes like 'river cottage' and 'its not easy being green' i became even more determined to one day quit the daily two hour commute and live the life of a smallholder, more so than ever now as i would prefer to know what im eating rather than vegetables full of chemicals etc from the supermarket! also i believe that we should all be aware of exactly what we are eating and where it comes from, the processes involved etc i met niels and we shared the same ethos about farming i suppose. he has in the past been lucky enough to have some land on a country estate where he kept and bred poultry, water foul, pigs and a goat or two until the land was sold off and the animals had to go! were currently saving for some land (about 6 acres hopefully) to expand our love of animals into poultry breeding, possibly dogs and who knows! were also currently becoming involved in some animal breeding conservation projects so need more room to be able to live 'the dream'!! and do our part to save some endangered british species. unfortunatley at the moment we dont have alot of garden but we do have a very large avery with two beautiful paraqueets, 5 very squeeky guinnea pigs and 5 lovley old english game banthams in it! all of whom love to snuggle up in the guinnea pig igloo together at night! its quite amusing to see but worrying at the same time as the chickens havent laid since weve had them (about 10 weeks now!) and one of the paraqueets refuses to believe its a bird and insted will run along the floor with the guinnea pigs rather than fly up to the nest box! the hopes of the birds breeding are dwindling fast haha! ive been a keen follower of the TAS diary for a couple of months now, getting ideas, advice and learning from the experiences of R and D. Ill be a keen reader of the forum as well and think its an excellent idea for all of us to share experiences, advice and knowledge, im sure as i will discover in the future being a smallholder can at times be quite a lonley thing espically when something goes wrong but having the forums to fall back on will be an excellent back up!   

[Dan]

Hi Stephen, really nice to see you here.

How old are your hens? Unless you keep then under artificial light they will go off their lay naturally at this time of year, since laying is related to day-length. Ours are dropping off now, only one egg yesterday from 12 hens!

[stephen]

hey dan,

One of the birds was about 1 month when we got her and the rest i believe have all laid before, we swaped them with a friend for two norfolk black turkey poults, so im guessing like you said it must be the lack of daylight and also the moving of them etc. i was thinking about getting a solar shed light for the avery (where they live) as i dont get home until late and a torch isnt wonderful when guinnea pigs are running around! i doubt it will help them to lay tho, ill just have to be patient and wait for the longer days to come!

 

[jan]

Yep have to say I have six girls and they are laying about one egg a week at the moment.  They are still going through the moult aswell, which puts them off laying, they cant handle feathering up and laying, poor things.  Good luck with your future plans Stephen and Niels. Jan.