Sunday 6 May 2012

Keeping Poultry

One of my favourite hobbies is learning older traditions... I can make butter, bake a cake, pull the neck of a chicken, pluck and gut it, keep quails, grow vegetables, make jam, grow fruit and vegetables etc one of the best by far is keeping poultry.
Photo: My Own. This is Felix the Rooster he is a big softy
 and is often found sneaking in the house
I started with 6 Sussex birds 3 years ago; 2 roosters and 4 hens. I now have 3 Legbars, 2 Marans, 3 Sussex hens and 2 Sussex roosters. They are hilarious to watch doing their thing during the day, scratching the soil for worms and dust bathing. I highly recommend them, if you have the space and time (please check out BHWT to see if you can adopt first) plus the eggs are YUMMY!! I love to be able to show the chickens to the children that stop to cock-a-doodle over the wall, some of their questions about them make me giggle.
Last year I bought an incubator and decided to hatch some quail. Quail can fly so they have to be kept in a coop and run all the time and reward you with beautiful tiny creamy eggs (they can actually be quick expensive). This week I hatched some more quail to join the older ones. They are tiny, adorable and grow so fast. In a week or two they will be in the garden where as chickens need 5-6 weeks before going out unless with a mother hen.
I am hoping I can write a few posts that might help people starting out keeping poultry. (I promise this blog won't be all about poultry!)
Photo: My own. This is a 2 day old quail. 

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