A Tale of Two Classics…

No, I haven’t been reading well known literacy masterpieces; we have been thrilled this week to receive, not one but two, Eglu Classics here at Hen Corner. Each has a tale, a love story, and we’ll tell it here!

A Birthday Breakfast…

I first fell in love with the Omlet Eglu Classic chicken coop when I saw it in a design magazine back in 2006 and, after much persuading, was delighted to have been given a green Eglu complete with two hens, Pepsi and Shirley for my birthday that June. Who would have known where that first step of the journey would have led us and indeed Omlet who are celebrating their 10th birthday this year. We love the guys at Omlet and have much admiration for the enthusiasm, creativity and energy that each of the founders still bring to this exciting business. It all began when four students of the Royal College of Art, here in London, decided to unite their passions for fantastic design. The Eglu Classic began it’s life as a final design piece in a college workshop and now, as well as helping thousands of chicken keepers protect their precious hens from foxes, holds a place of honour at the Victoria and Albert  museum in London’s South Kensington. To celebrate this special birthday Omlet have commissioned this groovy breakfast set that is a 1/8th scale replica of the original product that launched their business. Mmm, let me just re-read that 2011 feature in the Wall Street Journal all about the Classic Eglu and our courses at Hen Corner while I crack into this tasty egg…

Returning to the flock…

Chicken keeping is addictive. Within a year of keeping those first two hens, we moved house, just 13 doors down the same street – but to a bigger house with the corner plot garden. My husband, Andy, was now convinced that the chooks were cool and was happy for us to upgrade to the Eglu Cube, which arrived at the new house before we did on the day we completed! Our friends, Ben and Jo, who had previously looked after our girls whilst we were on holiday in Australia became smitten with the feathered friends and decided to buy our old Eglu Classic and a couple of hens from Charlotte’s Chickens allowing them to begin their own adventure. A few year’s later, we were planning to hatch some chicks under Broody Butternut, so bought the newer Eglu Go to use as a maternity ward…

We tell our story at each of our courses and it always begins with that first Classic Coop.

So when Ben and Jo told us that they were moving to Australia for a while, we were more than happy to adopt their hen, Madge, and bring our original Eglu back to the flock. So we now have all three designs here, and a Beehaus up the other end of the garden, I told you it was a love story!

Coming up at the Corner…

This year we have planned courses right throughout 2014 giving everyone the opportunity for ‘A little bit of country life in London’. Throughout the summer we will have three types of courses available: Introduction to Bee Keeping, a practical hands on opportunity for small groups to inspect our honey making pollinators, Urban Hens, keeping chickens in London and Pick and Pickle, an introduction to preserving.

Book of the Blog Post:

Keeping Chickens: The Essential Guide to Enjoying and Getting the Best from Chickens

By Jeremy Hobson, Celia Lewis

I was given this book for my birthday back in June 2006 along with my first Eglu, it is beautifully illustrated and will inspire chicken keepers and animal lovers alike.

This book is available with many of our other favourites books from the Hen Corner Shop!

Other News:

• Since adopting Madge this week, we now have 16 chickens here at Hen Corner
• We had a fab time talking to Karen and Chloe at Marlow FM on the Watt Next? All Things Being Eco Show
• As the weather has got colder and wetter, our smallest colony of bees had run out of food stores, sadly some had died, but we’ve been feeding them some sugar syrup to keep them going

Jobs for next week:

• Try and merge my four colonies of bees into two, I need to find the strongest queens and ‘retire’ the weaker ones…
• Finish replacing the raised beds in the Kitchen Garden, we are more than halfway there
• Watch for Butternut’s next broody cycle, maybe we’ll hatch some more chicks this summer

Have a good week yourself…

Join us on the Journey!