Firstly hello to everyone

Being my first blog (hopefully first of many) I would like to say that before I joined P&T I was not the most experienced of people at all when it came to chicken keeping!  I recall many a day in my childhood on my grandparents farm, collecting eggs in the morning, knowing that I would enjoy them for breakfast that day, but that was probably as far as my knowledge went.

Since joining I have learnt so much and I hope that as this knowledge will expand and I will be able to pass it on and assist others with little “tricks of the trade” so to speak.

As Trevor mentioned we have lots and lots of little chicks who have been successfully hatched from one of our new incubators, and reared in the last few weeks.   I have been eagerly watching them and can say, without doubt that they have blossomed under the brooder hen, and enjoyed every mouthful of the chick crumb!  I never knew they could eat so much.

The next stage has started and we have erected a Seabright chicken house and run today, which looks really good.  There is plenty of space in the run (something I would imagine people would worry about) and as the house is raised the chicks will even have more room to run around in.

As new products, special offers and helpful tips come to my attention, I will be the first to pass this information on, however please feel free to email any questions, and if I don’t know the answer, I’ll just ask Trevor!!!!!

As many of you can see I have not posted on the blog for many months due to workload. The good news is we have Claire whom has started to take some website duties and email answering from me so we can both add any information we believe is useful to you all

Over the last months my email has been burning but it has been taking nearley 3 hours a day 7 days a week answering your important questions but over the last 6 weeks with Claire’s valuable help this has been dramatically reduced and allowing me to get more time with my chickens even finally allowing me to get my first beehive last month which has been a dream of mine for sometime.

I look forward to writing to you all again soon, I have just trialed a new cabinet incubator design and hatched 100 chicks I am sure I will be adding my comments on these soon.

Hello all, yes I am asorry there have been no posts for a while, it has been a busy run upto Christmas especially after 2 weeks away. I am taking a back seat now so hopefully I can get time to write here with any information that may help. Brian and Elena will be taking over day to day running whilst I get back to designing and developing furture products.

I am hoping to work on a few top secret projects over the next 6 weeks but if all goes well we pland to launch 4-5 new products from the end of January to the end of March.

Hope you are all ready for Christmas as usual I think I will wait until about 2pm on the 24th to think about it, well come on I am a man.

My christmas goose had been picked and ready to moved to a my own special last 2 week feed on friday but after rescuing some of my special chicks from a red kite, it has now been added to my small flock of geese to keep the grass short and a new lunch shall be planned.

I really am too soft but the geese are so majestic and great guard dogs it will a good addition.

The cold weather is finally due to land this week, the clocks have changed and we all know chicken keeping is not as much fun with cold fingers!!!

But please think of your birds the jobs must still be done, house cleaning, fresh water daily, an extra 1/2″ of bedding in the house for extra insulation each time etc.

But also time to throw out a handfull of mixed corn or cut maize in the morning and afternoon so they can go to bed with full crops to help them get good release of food through the night and of course to give them a little winter fat.

It is also a good time to extra chicken vitamins and I also like to give a nice drop of green / white tea once a week to really stimulate their metabolism - NEVER black tea as this causes runs and once it even caused sour crop.

Please dont ask but my chickens and I have had long discussions over time and we have agreed that they prefer white tea but even though I buy direct from China it is still too expensive so we mix a small ammount of white tea with green. Although my brahmas do not touch it and they want darjeeling - but i have tricked them by mixing green with a few rose petals (this is because darjeeling is a black tea and too fermented for them).

Yes it is official Trevor is mad, the man whom runs P&T Poultry is mad but the good thing about my madness is it works after a dire weather season and 2 huge floods, storms etc my birds look better than ever

Oh yes almost forgot, with the huge rains over the last 2 years i would suggest this winter you up the calcium in the feed or vitamins or give more oyster shell grit and less mixed grit over the winter to really give the hens back what seems to be bleaching away.

‘Will my dog be ok with keeping chickens?’ this is a very common question and one to be honest I can not answer because I do not know your pet.

However it is uncommon for dogs trained by their owner to respect chickens to ever attack them.

My giant dog is a gentle giant, loves humans loves geese, chickens and ducks because I trained him to respect them but he also knows where to stop the geese wandering to and also where and where not to let people go to because he is well trained.

I just assumed this would progress on to all other animals but I soon learnt that when some of the sheep fell I had not trained him as to what they were and to respect them, now he is trained he is good with them as well.

So it is really a case of teaching the dog how to respect the animals you have I am afriad only you and the dog will answer the question but in training them the answer should be they are fine.

The good news I very rarely hear of dog attacks from people whom have both.

Thank you all for your emails about the blog they are appreciated, although I do believe you can add comments here if it is easier for you. I am glad we are helping.

It has come to my attention we are experts thank you but we are not, we have experience in our field but please bear in mind with live animals things that work here may not for you. What i write here is for guidence and not set in stone. There are a few issues i feel strongly about and that will come out in the way I write however mostly it is just one poultry keeper offeriing his best advice.

I have also been told off for talking about products but not adding a link where to buy in my shop, so I will add links in the future but again I am not frocing a purchase just advice on that product.

Again thanks for the emails and support, it is appreciated.