We recommend a product called easibed for chicken house bedding as it is super asorbant, smells nice and chickens love to turn it over. It is clean and free from dust and light making house cleaning so easy.

I will add a link as requested Chicken Bedding but before you fly to my shop, please think do you have a local horse or farm feed supplier, see if they sell it first, it will save post - only this item, buy everything else from us please :), if you do use this link however it will tell you more about the product you may find useful.

Straw really is horrid to use, it can be infested with lice and mites, it is not asorbant and it is a real ‘bugger’ to clean plus it stinks fast.

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.

Worming chickens is easy, you can use flubenvet which is a powder, I mix the daily dose with cod liver oil and mixed corn so it sticks and I know it will be consumed quickly and with cod liver oil i am also giving the birds a good conditioner. As it has oil on it I do not feed with the normal feed, I have a seperate area for the treated feed.

If this is too much for you dont worry there is a chicken wormer called Verm-X which you add to the water, it is not as good as flubenvet but if you stick to the treatment as advised on the label, regular use will keep internal parasites at bay.

Bout products are available in our shop or others do sell them, please where evey you get them from use them as guided and keep your chickens healthy, they deserve it.

They are pretty birds and very calm, they are an old English breed, they lay lots of eggs and of course they are very very hardy chickens.

They are very pretty birds with a white body with black tail, black necks trully stunning birds running around the garden but for novices they are a forgiving whilst you get the hang of keeping chickens.

They will make great pets and as they should live 7-9 years they should make a good family member.

Both Brinsea and RCOM have upgraded their incubators this year, both are supposed to be improvements :-

Brinsea Octagon 20 Advance, the new octagon 20 incubator. This has been rebuilt with a new heating system and therefore easier to see inside the incubator, also with a new digital readout with push button control. So is it an advance on the old model? Well maybe, it is easier to use but I still find the fan so close to the eggs a real pain at hatching time and filling up the humidity groves are still fiddley. I gave the old Brinsea 5-10 and would rate this 5.5/10 maybe more if the fan was further away from the eggs at hatching time. Price from £199.99 to £224.95

There is another model in this range Octagon 20 Advance EX this is as above with humidity control, this does indeed help with filling those annoying humidity groves but still does not take away from fan location. Price from £275.00 to £299.95.

RCOM 20 Standard this has also been upgraded it now has a complete rebuild on the humidity system, it now works on a a small heater unit in the water resivoir which raises the water temp to aid evaporation which is moved round by a gentle fan. It has full digital temp control as before and full autoturning. Price from £209.99 to £249.99 (As it has full humidity control it rally jumps past the Octagon 20 Advance to the EX model but at £70-£90 cheaper is is a must choice.)

RCOM 20 Pro, this also has had an overhaul and also has the new heated humidity system but the whole menu function on this model has been fully upgraded to a new easy to use lcd screen. Within the menu you can choose various egg types and press a button and the incubator will do the rest for you. It knows what temps, how long to turn the eggs and then when to stop. It also knows when to raise humidity. A stunning incubator. The USB model comes with computer software which allows you to keep accurate egg records on screen. Prices from £299.99 to £369.99.

I highly recommend the RCOM above the Octagon models as in my view you get so much more for your money! Humidity controlled RCOM incubators from £209.99 or full AUTOMATIC ‘SMART BRAIN’ RCOM incubators from £299.99 leaves the others standing.

There is one more plus, the heating in the R-COM incubators is not directly in the egg section but gently wafter in through gentle vents ensuring hatching is much easier for the birds, yet powerful enough to keep very even temps.

If you have the budget go for the RCOM 20 Pro, if not the RCOM 20 standard will be a super incubator for you.