Any cheerful news today? (Nothing negative please! 🙂)

Today is the first day all 6 of my hens laid! Beryl is very inconsistent, one day a little one like today’s, the next a monster double-yolker.


nb Federica not Frederica because she’s Italian :slightly_smiling_face:

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Oh lovely :heart: I got to the point with my breeding a few years back where I had a full dozen eggs in all different colours from purple to blue, olive, white, chocolate ect. Then the next day lost 5 to a dog and over 2 weeks sadly most of the flock to fixes. The remaining gene pool sadly boring colours! Luckily I took a photo for my 2.5 years efforts.

What are your breeds? Love the white one!

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9b11b0180bb6703767c07136e6c12c2a

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From left to right, Leghorn, Light Sussex, Coucou de Rennes, ISA brown, ISA Brown, Marans. The eggs that is.

I love your multicoloured eggs!


Top pic from left Colette, Beryl, Albertine, Edwige

Bottom pic Beryl’s back end, Federica, Daphne - and Colette peeping from the left.

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Thank you, it was a labour of love, I so wanted an Easter egg egg basket! I started with 3 chooks, a brown, a Sussex and a black something so we had eggs and learned about caring for them. I then got 2 silkies (although stuffed up as they had scaley leg mites which I’ve still not eradicated from my flock years later :sob: years later, total newby error!). Then after much research once the silkies went broody I drove for hours around 24 collecting eggs. From memory arucana (blue genes, but never again, still have tree sleepers), marans, Orpington, faverolles, oh I’m sure there were a couple of others but can’t remember now. Above box was at least 2 years of breeding to get the colours :heart: . I’d got down to 1 hen with small pale olive eggs but she his in a bush and we have 14 chicks (born November), they are all greyish so don’t have great hopes of lots of egg colours but who knows!!!

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What are they eating?

It’s cold so I’m making them porridge every day, veg scraps chopped up plus about 1.5 US cupfuls altogether (uncooked) of brown or white rice, some lentils or split peas, any grains I happen to have, maybe some oats, flax seeds, a bit of brewers yeast and at the end of it’s too gloopy I stick in a bit of old couscous to dry it out. I’ve got a stock of grains lentils etc.

That’s on top of the scoop of grain and the lettuce they get in the morning, plus anything they can forage for.

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Oh, for a moment there I thought you were advocating an easy new veggie dish, something I am into at the moment (emphasis on ‘easy’), and then I read the context of your discussion with @toryroo . :rofl:

Actually, doesn’t sound all that bad come to think of it. :joy:

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It must be something to do with the breed of Light Sussex, our two do exactly the same as yours, never had so many double yolkers

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My beloved Sussex, Mabel, also gave lits of double yolks for a few months then settled down.

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David, lots of easy and quick dishes. Couscous (semole) is your friend. If you want to make a few meals put 1 cup of couscous grains in a heatproof pot (I use pyrex bowls that I have lids for, makes it SO easy!). Put 1 cup with 1 cup of boiling water, with a dissolved stock cube (or 1/2). Cover and leave. Fry chopped up veg of choice, butternut, onions, garlic, peppers, courgettes are my fave.To make it even easier I’ve noticed Lidl have started doing a really good range of bags of frozen prechopped veg if you have the space. If not adding meat (I like cubed chicken) then add some cashew nuts for protein (unsalted, not expensive at Lidl). Once your veg cooked fluff your couscous with a fork and check ready then add it to the pan and mix through. You can any sauce you like, we like piripiri(chilli). This will keep in the fridge for at least 4 days and will do you 4-5 meals. Freezes really well too, get some small ziplock bags and freeze flat (i put yhe bags on a small cutting board to keep them flat for optimum storage, take out the board once frozen) You can also add sultanas, chopped dried apricots ect. Basically anything you have in / like.

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Thanks Tory, I’ll make a note and give it a try, next shopping day is Monday. :grinning:

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David, if you don’t want to buy Couscous, just sweep the floor and put it in a dish, it’s much the same thing :nauseated_face::laughing::grin:

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:rofl: It’s a bit like semolina isn’t it though? I love semolina. :joy:

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I too love semolina. And tapioca. And couscous. I was nearly an adult before I discovered all those little beads of tastiness didn’t just grow like that, on some sort of bushes.
:wind_chime:

and we ALL know that spaghetti grows on trees

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We have eight Sussex, Soosex!

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At boarding school we were fobidden under pain of punishment to use the term ‘frog spawn’ in reference to tapioca/sago and in our innocence could not understand why the teachers were so worked up about it. Turns out it was because of the link to procreation and SEX :astonished: :astonished:

This is how, unwittingly, they taught us the facts of life in the '50s. :rofl:

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Another hilarious one was in the geometry class. I can’t think what the example could mean but whatever it was the master had put 3 letters on the board, PAP.

We tittered of course, thinking of an old motor car horn. It must have been me who started it because it was me called out in his fury. Standing me with my back to the door he hit me firmly on the forehead with the heel of his hand. My head banged loudly and painfully on the door.

Our collective outrage at this casual violence was more than matched by our absolute ignorance of what had caused it.

After reading, talking, asking around, mainly of older boys, we at last came to realise that it was slang for the female breast. We all knew about that word, as well as boobs and tits, but now this moron had advanced our knowledge even more to the wicked world outside. :rofl:

For the first time in 10 days, the sun has been able to penetrate through the clouds to shine forth :sun_behind_small_cloud:. It’s also melted the 10cm of snow that was covering my solar panels, and we have power :zap:. Also, the snow all around us is melting too, so I can also see my garden :smiley:.
I have to say that round here, they have been great at clearing to roads and keeping them open. When we had a MS further north in Deux Sevres, just a few cm of snow and everything seemed to halt.

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