Country life Archives

Choosing a (working) dog

March 1, 2017 [email protected]

When we moved here, one of the attractive aspects of life away from the city was to have a dog. I’d had dogs most of my life, but since we had been living in an apartment with lots of restrictions on pets, we had gone a number of years without one. Choosing a dog breed Our original plan was to adopt a rescue dog, but most of the advice pointed to a high chicken death toll from an adult rescue dog (there are rarely pups available for rescue from our local pound). We…

Lablab beans for getting chickens back into lay

August 5, 2016November 9, 2016 Stephen Carlin

Using lablab beans for chicken feed is one of those happy coincidences of production and need that perfectly fits a subtropical smallholding. In this post I will outline how lablab beans neatly fit the season and can nudge chickens back into egg production. This year I tried the strategy out properly, and the hens have started laying a month earlier.

New Marans chicks; increasing the heritage flock.

January 21, 2016 Stephen Carlin

We have five new Marans chicks! Marans are a specialty breed which lay brown eggs, and I was given my first lot of fertile eggs last year by a local friend. This lot are from my own rooster and hens, which I started last year from fertile eggs. There’s a bit involved in raising chicks, but who doesn’t love to see little fluff balls every now and then?

Clearing the dam

January 16, 2016 Stephen Carlin

Clearing the dam to get access to the water and maybe make a swimming area was a good project for the onset of some hot days.

Hay, chickens and compost.

November 13, 2015December 17, 2015 Stephen Carlin

I’ve got into a routine for turning hay into compost, after trialling a few alternatives. It involves using it as bedding in the chicken house. Now that the warm wet weather has returned, it’s time to start the process again.

Pink pickled eggs

November 2, 2015December 28, 2015 Stephen Carlin

What to do when the trickle of eggs you waited and waited for finally turns into a steady flow and the full cartons begin to collect? Mum is of course always a good source of knowhow, and mine sent me a recipe for pickling eggs. They are not something I think I’d even tried before, although I’m sure I’ve seen them in jars in Yorkshire pubs. So I at least had to give them a go. And then I saw the tweak of adding beetroot to the pickling mix. Pink…

Heritage breed chickens for eggs

September 16, 2015December 18, 2015 Stephen Carlin

In your home flock you can choose from a wide variety of chicken breeds. The easiest to buy are the standard layer types, but if as you probably aren’t keeping them just for maximum egg production, you might find heritage breed chickens are more attractive and interesting option.

Wheat, linseed, and other chicken forage.

September 7, 2015December 18, 2015 Stephen Carlin

I’ve just opened the fence to let the chickens in to one of the chicken forage yards. There are three fenced yards next to the chicken run, one has the beginnings of a citrus orchard and grass for grazing, but the other two I have been using to experiment with chicken forage crops. My first Winter crops have been rewarding; particularly the linseed (flaxseed) and wheat. Fenugreek hasn’t done well with any of my sowings over a full year now, and the mustard I sowed there was also a fizzer this season,…

Lablab beans for chicken feed.

July 6, 2015November 9, 2016 Stephen Carlin

Lablab, dolichos, hyacinth bean, this bean has a multitude of names, which indicate how widely grown it is. Lablab beans grow on a sprawling vine and will be handy here for covering slopes productively. The foliage is good fodder, and apparently will come again if you slash it back to use as a green manure. It gets the name hyacinth bean from the pink flower spikes, which are edible and good in a salad.

Burrs, grrrr!

June 24, 2015December 29, 2015 Stephen Carlin

It’s peak season for burrs here. We get them all year, and many different sorts, but Midwinter seems to be the time. They are just everywhere; on the dog, on shirts and pants, but specially on socks and bootlaces. Here’s a photo of my socks after a bit of digging this morning Cobblers pegs come up everywhere here. The local name is ‘farmers friends’ and the Latin name is Bidens pills. It’s not a particularly troublesome weed, being easy to pull, but it’s easy to see how it spreads to every part of…