The Kitchen Garden

January/February 2006

With the Christmas festivities over, this is a bleak time of the year, especially out here on the Suffolk prairies. In town, the seasons come and go, but here the weather affects every inch of you. The sight of my much enlarged flock of 12 Orpingtons, all fluff and golden lights up the garden, and after the sad demise of the Cockerel (in his fifth year and par for the course) I must choose his successor from a field of two.

There really is very little in it, brothers hatched this spring, two peas in a pod, job sharing duties and still very fond of one another until the days lengthen and competitive sex rears its ugly head. I'll need the wisdom of Solomon for this choice. The also-ran will go with three hens to a friend. We'll be back to a flock of eight, much easier to handle and keep, especially if the flock needs to be isolated in the future.

Small flocks of under 50 birds do not need to be registered with Defra, and anyway as I write, this requirement does not apply to premises where all the poultry and their eggs are kept for consumption by their owners, or as pets. Keep in touch with this website over the next few weeks to hear some news of interest to all such henkeepers.