The chicken or the egg
We are so delighted that you are enjoying the fresh hen eggs from our Poultry Concern! And thank you for returning the egg boxes.
The Goblands Hens have been needing a bit of extra care with these hot days, so I’ve been freezing fruit and veg to take up to them as well as many trips with cold fresh water each day- they love the attention. And we are all loving their eggs. And are absolutely delighted with the idea of the Vegetable Exchange (see photo)! Keep it coming! Do pop along to take a look at what may be put there, just in the porch of the Farm Office – whoever it was, thank you! (There is an Honesty Box there but just for the eggs – we ask £1.50 / half dozen).
All the hens are producing well for us this summer, the height of their laying season – we average 9 or 10 eggs a day. From what I hear though, we could do with more hens!
You may recall a previous note about our chickens? We have a dozen girls laying beautifully. They roam in a very large shady pen, behind the farmhouse. If you’re interested in the respective breeds read on!
We have our Mendlesham Trio:
Our Mendlesham Amber who is actually white!
The Mendlesham Ranger (the brown hen standing behind one of our Leghorns)
And a very pretty Mendlesham Blue. She lays pale brown eggs.
This brown feathered girl is our Suffolk Blacktail, who kindly showed me her named feature while I was trying to photograph her! She is extremely friendly and lays beautiful creamy brown eggs. She is also trying to get broody and sitting on the eggs a bit too much!
In this photo she is following our Fenning Sussex, the white lady with the well-known black feather markings of a Sussex.
We also have a Fenning CouCou, who is your classic ‘speckledy hen’, on the left, here. She is a great layer of dark speckled eggs. She’s with our Suffolk Blacktail sneaking in on the action, again, showing her friendly nature. Chickens love being around people.
The unusual and very beautiful Splash Maran has a hint of lavender feathers. I don’t think my photos of her do her justice at all! She lays pale brown eggs, sometimes speckled.
We also have a noisy Devon Bronze. She lays lovely dark brown eggs – you can perhaps just see that she has soft black feathering on her legs.
The two Millefleur Leghorn lay white eggs. They rather look like pheasants, as you can see with one of our two on the right of this photo, standing beside our Fenning Black on the left, both seemed to enjoy modelling for me. The other Leghorn is in the foreground of the photo below left, with our Mendlesham Ranger behind her.
And lastly, there is Buttercup White Tail who lays lovely brown eggs.
Maybe in another Bloglands I will share about the Bloom on an egg, and why it’s such a Miracle…