The first livestock I kept at Blore Heath was some laying hens. I must admit I was pretty excited when I saw my first egg!

My father-in-law, Harold Matthews, put me up to it. “You should get some hens”, he said. He must have been pretty amused at my excitement. He, a farmer of  55+ years, with a married lifetime of keeping hens (they were the province of the farmer’s wife), had seen probably tens of thousands of eggs in his time. (In fact, one room of our farmhouse at Blore Heath was actually called, “The Egg Room”, because that was where Rosie’s mum kept the eggs until they were collected.)

Anyhow, I have kept hens ever since.

 There are lots of issues around keeping hens. One of them is, what is the best kind of hen house for them to live in. You would be surprised how many different designs there are (there are even books on this, such as Judy Pangman’s “Chicken coops: 45 building plans for housing your flock”, from Storey Publishing in the US). I have yet to find the ideal system, having tried several. Perhaps I should write my own book!

 Surprisingly, to those who have not kept hens, they need a lot of food if they are to lay eggs. You have to buy it in the form of “layers pellets” [punctuation point: there is no apostrophe here because it is not a possessive but a reduction of the phrase ‘pellets for layers’. I share this thought because there is bound to be someone who takes issue. Your views are welcomed….]. But they can be choosy and lust for something different – especially grass! So it is quite good if they can roam around – i.e. free-range.  Except for Mr Foxy, some dogs, occasional stoats, and even birds of prey….

 The point of this, however, is that I always wanted to hatch some eggs. So I bought a small incubator from a well-known supplier. It’s good because it is almost completely automatic, as it turns the eggs regularly (essential) and maintains the correct heat. You wait 21 days and, miraculously, (this is the right word!), little chicks start pecking their way out of the eggs.  Well, not always [cue chorus: ‘Don’t count your chickens until they are hatched.’] ,  because there are myriad reasons for failure. One of which is the  XXX bit. Unless you have an “active” cockerel and a hen he fancies  ( it’s not really consensual), of course, the eggs are infertile.  See picture – what do you think of him! Pretty good, eh! Cannot say, as a mere human male, what he sees in her…

 To date, we have had 8 lovely offspring of Mr and Mrs Fowl (pictured). It has been a real pleasure to see the chicks through their development – they even have their own personalities! And lovely plumage! Don’t know yet how many boys and girls we have  – have to wait and see. More news of the family soon.

 Oh, and we can eat the eggs again now – don’t need to save them for the incubator!