Wow got up late today and by the time emails were answered and other things were done I was over an hour late out to the birds. The chickens did not care they were busy doing their things but wow the geese a whole different story. From well over 6 acres away they saw me and what a ruckus!!! Have you ever had to listened to a load of geese running towards you to remind you that you are late and excuses are not accepted? Wow it is noisey but a scoop of cut maize got me slightly forgiven but every time I entered the field to collect the eggs during the day I was reminded noisely that lateness is not to be accepted. Well I have learnt my lesson. Hopefully tomorrow we will be back to the normal bathing in the stream and a friendly honk good morning. (now I know how the guys feel if they are late to work lol)

As I understand last shipping day for Scottish Highlands and Northern Ireland is the 19-12-08 and for mainland UK it is the 22-12-08. We have been told however orders placed by 12pm on the 23-12-08 have a high chance of being delivered on the 24-12-08 but best not to leave it to lastminute like me.

We will do our utmost to ensure all orders are with you before christmas, if there are any special instructions then please let us know. Please do not forget if you are not at home during the day we can deliver to your work address or another address where you maybe but we can not offer timed deliveries I am afraid - only before 3pm.

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.

Yes I do get this question often and the honest answer is - I dont have a clue but seriously without watching I could not say but normally you can see when you open the chicken house in the morning and if he comes flying out and waiting for his ‘prey’ (lol) or girlfriends to come out then I think you are pretty safe that he is. You will also note that when he is ready to have a good time with his laides that his legs go very red.

But the real give away is when he jumps on their backs, now most cockerels I know do not understand the principle of piggy back so I think they are thinking of other things when this happens.

I Have noticed in my sussex that if the hen gives a good shake and ruffle of the feathers he has been a good shot but if they run quickly when he gets off them he missed - this is only a personal note with my nearest light sussex pen and records over the last 2 years.

To be honest though the easiest way to know if he is mating is to watch he will not be shy because you are watching!

Now is he fertile is a whole different question, this can only be answered after incubation of the eggs whether by broodie or incubator.

If you wish to eat eggs where a cockerel is in the pen then ENSURE you collect fresh eggs daily and put them in the fridge if you are not eating straight away. Do not put them in a warm place.

Blood spots in your egg does not mean they are fertilised, it means there was a bit of a tear when your hen created and shelled her egg.

As I am asked this question on a daily basis I thought it best to put it here on the blog.

“What is the doesage for my chickens?” - Well there are really three measures, 6 drops for large fowl - 4 drops for bantams and 2-3 drops for seabrights.

As chicken wormers go I am wavering from flubenvet my all time fav to this, as I have started getting lazy and using this as a louse prevention as well makes my life easier.

Please dont forget to worm your chickens every 3-6 months and with all good wormers there will be an egg withdrawl period from human consumption. 14 days is the period for Ivermectin chicken wormer.

We are very excited as we have confirmation our new design Brahma chicken coops will be shipped out to us on the 1st November 2008. Hopefully with delivery between the 4-5th. We are very excited as these are our new economy design but with very good features including our easy clean trademark following through on the design.

I was also amazed to see other chicken houses with similar dimensions on another site being advertised for upto 20 chickens!!! Wow some people selling these houses really need a talking to. In fact ours has a larger internal area and we will advertise only for 8 large fowl or 10 silkie size live birds. Maybe their 20 birds are frozen and stacked in their house. Please keep to our bird number recommendations and you will have healthy happy birds.

This will be our only new launch in November as this is our holiday time as well.

‘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.

Yes we all have seen a huge surge in all forms of mite this year, it is not our fault but that of amazing weather conditions but treatment is costly so accurate treatment is vital.

We have had so many orders for red mite powder this year which is great for me but overall not good news for you, but correct usage will help you and your birds and save you a few £ and lose me a bit of revenue. Our aim though is also to sell you a product that works.

If you have a chicken house that has thousands of mites or even 100’s then red mite powder will NOT work, this is classified as an infestation. At this stage you must let the birds out do NOT clean the house and use our mite kill spray very liberally then close the house for 60 minutes and let it do its job. The mites are dead. Now clean the house (if you cleaned the house before you were rescuing them by removing them outside before spraying them. Repeat this spraying in 5 days no later than 7 days as all the eggs will hatch and you will be infested again, kill them in 5 days and you have d=broken their cycle, do not spray in 5 days and the first spraying becomes a costly respite only as they are back.

Now you have sprayed the second time the red mite powder comes into effect as a PREVENTION rather than cure, sprinkle small ammounts of red mite powder where the perches meet the walls of the houses and in the knooks and crannies of the house. I work on the principle of mites come down to feed and back up to hide and rest so think like a hungry mite and you will know where to sprinkle and kill them.

Large ammounts of red mite powder are usless, think light dusting on a regular basis and it will work, a large clump makes it ineffective.

Hopefully this will save you a few £, keep mites away and make keeping chickens more enjoyable for them and you.

(Sorry if you have a felt roof on your house the above does not really work as the mite will breed under the felt and you can not treat them, please remove the felt and worse case replace with corragated roofing so mites will not live there then use the method above)

Another week is almost over and again I have had 100’s of emails with regards sick chickens. It is great that you all care so much but please remember chickens given the correct living enviroment are very hardy creatures.

I would like say again, as I am sure I you will remember me saying before, please remember to worm your chickens every 3-6 months. This in my opinion is so over looked but such a vital part of chicken keeping.

I would say with this being done on a regular basis would reduce your worries by 50% on the emails and calls I get.

Next please remember to clean houses regularly and check for mites and lice often, keeping these down will help keep birds healthy.

Finally number 3 keep bedding and house dry with ideally 2-4″ clear air movement under the house and you should significantly reduce mycroplasma (the cold) but can be fatal if not treated fast.

If you do the 3 things above then I have found that sick chickens are 80% down on current numbers.

I know how much you all care about your birds as wonderful pets but if you also think of them as grazing livestock then this should also help remind you of the big 3 above and you should have many happy and rewarding years with your flocks