Category Archives: Chickens

The real cost of supermarket eggs

Posted on January 19, 2026 by james

For well over fifteen years now, we have kept a few rare breed chickens hatched from eggs to supply our family with fresh eggs. If you’ve never had the opportunity to eat such eggs then it may be hard to … Continue reading →

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A new chicken house design

Posted on January 18, 2026 by james

We’ve had our current chicken houses for at least fifteen years and they’re really starting to look tired now. I’d been mulling over designing my own for a while because the style I’d used previously turned out to have a … Continue reading →

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Memory Lane, 31st July 2023: Gates to control the world

Posted on May 28, 2024 by james

Well, the chickens’ world, at least. I’m rather proud of these. Not an enormous amount of work, but they look neat and work nicely. Now I need to crack on and make some more for the other runs.

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Chicken hatching update

Posted on May 23, 2024 by james

I weighed the trays of eggs in the incubators this morning and wasn’t happy with the results. They’d both lost twice as much weight as they should have. Investigation of the pump for the first incubator showed that the water … Continue reading →

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Memory Lane, 4th June 2023: I am the daddy!

Posted on May 20, 2024 by james

Well, to these little chaps, anyhow. Not a great photo, but they’re the first to hatch of this year’s batch.

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Time to be a mummy chicken

Posted on May 16, 2024 by james

I’m a little late getting around to it this year because of the way everything is happening everywhere all at once, but last night we put two and a half dozen hatching eggs in the incubators. I actually only ordered … Continue reading →

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It’s been a day of upset

Posted on April 9, 2024 by james

Not considering my travails with BT sufficient, Fate had another chainsaw to throw in the washing machine this afternoon… I was sitting at my desk when I heard a kerfuffle from the chickens. I looked out of the window to … Continue reading →

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Chick hatching 2021

Posted on April 18, 2021 by james

It’s been a couple of years since we last did this. Today I put three dozen eggs in incubators today (a dozen each of Copper Black Marans, Cream Legbar and White Leghorn), so hopefully around the weekend of 8th May … Continue reading →

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The “Ooh-Aah” bird

Posted on January 30, 2020 by james

Apparently so-named because it lays square eggs. But perhaps it just lays these. An average “large” size egg (the pale cream one, obviously) alongside for comparison.

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DIY egg incubator and hatcher

Posted on December 19, 2018 by james

For some time now I’ve been idly contemplating the possibility of making my own incubator and hatcher for (primarily) chicken eggs as I’ve never been completely happy with the performance of my commercially-produced ones. What I’m thinking of for the … Continue reading →

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