February - Of eggs and chickens

February's going fast! Most of January was spent getting over December. The weather is starting to warm up, the first planting has began and the chickens are looking cheery. Over the winter period Nessa, our big cute friendly chicken had stopped laying. As Clara was still in lay we assumed that Nessa was probably not having a break for winter and she had reached chick-opause (menopause for chickens, geddit?!). Hmmm, I thought. Disadvantage - the halving of egg production, and no more recognisable speckly brown Nessa eggs. Advantage - not squating once a day to lay a torpedo must seriously narrow down her chances of dying a premature death (egg peritonitis is nasty, and caused when the eggs slightly leak inside the chicken, the bacteria multiplies and makes them poorly). Well now it's February she's decided that that's her winter rest over and she's started laying again! The new style egg she's going for this year is more compact and less eye wateringly huge than last year. Clara must be green with envy as the ones she is laying at the moment are very much torpedo-tastic whoppers, I am presuming the required face for the delivery of the egg pictured above was >_< . You can see the size comparison (top pic)!

At the weekend, if the weather is dry I will let the chickens wander over the now mostly empty veg patch, and they can clear the ground of any unwanted grubs.

Here's a nice chicken cuddling picture for you. Proving the ex-batts are the most lovely pets, this is me with Nessa. Excuse the picture quality, that's iPhone's for you.