Layers & Growers Pellets

 

Still on a quest to source poultry feed locally, I was surfing the net yesterday at work (during lunch 🙂  ) and happened to find this place  R H Miller, Agricultural Merchants and Traders, Dalkeith, Edinburgh & Lothians.

I gave them a call to see if they supplied poultry feed… and they do! wooohoo 🙂

Its approximately 24 miles away from where I live, so in theory can be classed as “local” as its within a 30 mile radius.

My daughter and I set off at 10am to drive over to their warehouse and pick them up… and that particular branch stocked everything equestrian too!, it was fantastic wandering around their shop looking at all the horsey stuff, I was in horsey heaven and I only went there for chicken feed lol.   I will def. be taking a trip back over there, they had a sale on and had some great fleece’s boots and jackets.

They didnt have any organic growers pellets for the young pekins, all they had was Dodson & Horrell, so I just took what they had… it was £9.35 for a 20kg sack.

    

They had plenty of the Organic Feed Co Organic Layers Pellets and  20kg sack was £14.50

They’re Crowing and Fighting !

Oh dear…. I went out to the cheeps this morning, only to find big partridge pekin’s comb and wattles bleeding, and hanging onto white silkie cross’s neck,  the two of them running around the coop fighting one another, with Big PP having a distinct advantage….

BPP’s wattles and comb covered in blood….

So I dug out the old rabbit hutch and seperated him, putting small PP in alongside him for company, these two seem to get on and have not fought (yet)! … then Big PP started to crow! abeit a squeeky baby version of a crow… it really sounded a bit like the character Anne from Little Britain! 🙂

My son seems to think that small PP might just be a girl (he is hoping) but apart from their size, they both have similar colouring… my friend over on Neepsthat I bought them from advised that a good way of telling the sex with partridge pekins is… males have a copper/chestnut plain breast feathers and females have lighter lacey coloured breasts.   I’m sure they’re both boys…

Unless I can find new homes for them… time is running out for the PP’s.

Rabbit Hutch Conversion to a Chicken Coop.

 

Front View

We spent the good part of yesterday afternoon out in the back garden converting A rather large rabbit hutch into a chicken coop.

It was currently up off the ground on four legs, we put in a couple of extra struts of wood (recycled from an old pallet) to give it extra stability and fixed in wire mesh all around the bottom, we also renewed the wire mesh on the front door as it was in a bit of a sorry state.

The right hand door opens up to reveal their sleeping quarters whereby we have put in a couple of roosting perches..  (remember the branches I cut down off the conifers and kept 😉 .. they turned out to be just the thing we needed)

The main living compartment seen us cutting out a square hatch in the floor and we made a ramp (not shown in the pictures) for them to get in and out of their coop.

Its fairly sturdy and just perfect for our Pekin Chicks, who arrive tomorrow.    Although it will be a few weeks before they move into their new abode as they will need to grow up a wee bit first 🙂

 

Chicken Little’s Gone Broody!

Our wee Bantam “Chicken Little” has gone broody, she is quite happy sitting inside the Eglu on the nesting well…, in the last 2 days I moved her off to lift the eggs..   Today I posted a thread on the forum  www.neeps.co.uk asking what normally happens when one of your chookies goes broody on you, just to find out what I should do etc etc..

Now, as a result of this post, (and Julie’s reply 🙂 )   We have decided to buy some hatching eggs and put them under Chicken Little.   My daughter and I had a browse through ebay today and I have let her pick the breed and I’ve put a bid in for some …… now bearing in mind she is 15 and likes all things girlie… she chose these………. because they were white and fluffy!!

 Miniature White Bearded Silkie’s 

I’ve ordered chick crumb, and growers pellets and i’m looking to either buy a 2nd hand coop, aquire one through freecycle (a long shot) or make a small poultry arc myself.

The kids are going to love it 🙂  not told my OH yet tho LOL – he’ll be fine about it i’m sure 🙂