Showing posts with label ghost hens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ghost hens. Show all posts

Visitors and culling

Tomorrow Chris' Brother Jonathan, wife Charlotte and nephew Leo arrive. in Trelawnyd
They live way down in Broadstairs in Kent and in the ten years ( to the day!) that me and Chris have been together, this is their first visit to our home all together ( remember Leo visited earlier in the year!) As you can imagine it is an important visit for us.
Yesterday I have shampooed the dog smell out of the carpets,wiped the dog snot from the windows and bought fresh flowers and a Halloween pumpkin for the house.
Today I will give the cottage a general scrub, and will try and tidy up the garden in preparation and early this morning I have put together a hamper for Jon and Charlotte to take home with them.  
In the hamper I have put my own fresh produce (leeks, artichoke hearts,pumpkin,onions shallots and sprouts) I then added my own jars of picked onions and pickled spicy beetroot and topped it all off with six newly laid eggs, some donated green chutney from old Mrs Jones and some bought honey from Eirlys' farm.
Visitors need to be fed well!

Yesterday, the sick ghost hen fell over when out for a drink and was unable to get up again. Luckily I found her quickly and knew there was nothing more I could do , so in the field and with a  heavy heart I sat and stroked her for a short while before putting her out of her misery. She was the only the second hen I have culled myself since Bob the retired poultry keeper showed me how to dispatch my young cockerels last year, and no matter how necessary the job, I really do hate doing it.
Three juvenile cockerels need culling next week and I think I will ask Bob to come and help me again with the job.......As I sat on the grass in the field with a dead fat hen on my lap I realised that I will never make a proper farmer!
I am just too soft

Update for Linda

Linda from Farm daze emailed me yesterday asking me for a video update on the ghosts....and what a difference a few months have made to these fat old girls. Apologies for the commentary....it was a little blustery last night but I think you will get a flavour of their benign characters

...One girl (against everything I have read about battery eating hens) laid her first egg this morning, so I do not feel that guilty at not eating these sweet birds.

Mind you I have kept the fact that I have not eaten the ghosts carefully from the Red Faced Welsh Farmer, you may remember that he obtained them for me many months ago now......he would see my sentimentality as rather cloying