Happenings this week

Ok so i put out a call to my forum buddies for eggs to be donated to our schools gardening program.
The kids are going to hatch and sell any left over chicks and use the money to buy plants for their gardens.
Im pleased to say that i was FLOODED with offers of eggs :) and im stoked.
The first lot should arrive today 2dz crossbred eggs and a doz mixed.
The kids will be very happy im sure.
The idea is for me to hatch them at home (ditching any bad egsgs) then take the chickies to the school when they are a few days old to hopefully help get past that delicate "dropped dead for no reason" stage and save tears all round.
A huge thankyou to those who donated eggs :)

Some new chickies arrived over the week.
We now have australorps,australorpx,australorpxwelsummer,australorpxsussex,light sussex(1),chinese silkie(1),pekin(1) and 2 of the cutest little jap bantams bubs in the world calling my brooder box home, plus "Ranger" the lone chickie.

I fitted a pc fan to my still air incubator and after a sleepless night getting up to make sure i wasnt burning the house down, im please to say its running like a champ! Temp is steady and im getting excited that i might actually get a decent hatch rate this time round.Its a wonder what folks can do with an old mobile phone charger and a pc fan :)

The 3 boys went camping to "Cascades" on the Tuross River and had a blast, a natural water slide forming the highlight of their weekend.
They are heading back next weekend and taking the 2 older girls, so its will be just me and Miss Lolli for the long weekend.

Not much in the way of gardening going on, my leeks are up and look wonderful and i can see cabbages poking their leaves up.
And my silverbeet in the foam box is looking good too.
More tomatoe seeds to plant.
Second raised bed will be finsihed this week in time for the tomato seedlings to go in.

School holidays are a mixed blessing with no early morning starts but as the week wears on the kids start to get bored and fight.Keeping them busy is the key and the boys love to do gardening so its a win win situation.

The awful truth of "Barn laid eggs"

Yes we know that caged eggs are a no no.
We all know what goes on behind the scenes with hens being crammed up to 5 deep into small cages in stinking hot sheds with lights running 24/7.

So most people opt for "barn laid eggs" which are endorsed by the RSPCA and brings to mind a peaceful setting of a nice barn with a loft filled with straw in which the hens can scratch and get exercise and have space to move.

That is what I thought too, sadly this is not the case.
When I went to purchase some hens that were being offered by my local barn-laid egg place i was shocked and horrified to learn that the eggs I had been buying and feeding to my family we causing such distress and cruelty to hens.

They were practically bald and were a miserable bunch of birds,crawling with lice and packed into small plastic freight crates to be eitehr sold off to people like me or off to the dogfood companies in the following days.

Many had large open wounds from other hens picking at their bare flesh.
Some had lost the tips of their toes due to a build up of ammonia in their feces in the bottom of the shed.
Nearly all had sores on their feet.
One had even had her eye pecked out and a nasty infection had set in.
I had originally gone out to buy 5 hens for my backyard coop and ended up bringing 10 home and in the following weeks managed to help re home over 200 birds with friends and through advertising.
This is where my love of Hy lines comes from.
The girls were in poor condition but soon started to come good with fresh air and room to move.
They even managed to become tame enough to tolerate being picked up and toted around by the children.
We love our chooks and their eggs are a bonus.




We here is the awful truth behind "barn laid" eggs.
The hens are in a tin shed in tiers or banks instead of cages.
The national recommendation is 12 hens per sq metre which works out to be about the size of an A3 piece of paper per bird. This is apparently enough space to move around and nest properly.

The hens are 'de-beaked" a process which involves cutting the beak with a heated blade or laser in order to stop the birds cannibalising each other.
Feather picking and cannibalism is a sign that the hens simply do not have enough space.

There is no happy end for the hens, once past their laying peak they start to cost more to feed than what they make so they are culled at 80 weeks of age and when you consider that naturally a hen would live for up to 10 years that is a very short lifespan.

Some are sold off to the public but most just end up as dogfood or compost.

Barn-laid is the egg companies and the RSPCA's dirty little secret.



Choose free range or even get a few of your own hens to supply your eggs.
Don't let hens pay for your eggs.