New Chicks on the Block!
Did you know that commercial egg farmers ‘change’ their chickens every year, as a hen will lay the most eggs between the age of 6-18 months? After 18 months, a farmer can only expect 300 eggs a year, rather than 350, so naturally would prefer to feed new younger birds. Since 300 eggs a year is more than enough for Sara Ward at Hen Corner, she has rehomed some very lucky birds who, like her, are now living the Good Life in Brentford.
Back last June, we hosted a special event for American homesteaders who were visiting the UK checking out how we keep chickens this side of the pond. A couple of the visitors, Rory & Rebecca Feek, invited us to visit their 100 acre farm in Columbia, Tennessee to join in The Homestead Festival that they’ve been hosting over recent years.
It was a delight to welcome Paula Reed of Good Housekeeping Magazine to meet our chickens!
We chatted about the joys and responsibilities of keeping hens and she enjoyed a cuddle or two.
Check out our course Urban Hens – Keeping Chickens in London
Hen Corner to the rescue
There is a flock of ten hens in Brentford who have no idea how lucky they are. The former commercial egg-layers are becoming less productive with age, but still have many egg-laying years ahead of them, says Sara Ward, so she is resettling them at Hen Corner as their ‘forever home’.
Today is World Bee Day, a time to celebrate our fabulous pollinators that have kept nature ticking over for millions of years. Without bees, we would lose a huge percentage of the foods we enjoy; fruit and vegetables, coffee and chocolate, not forgetting all that delicious honey. We rely on them to pollinate cotton crops so that we can wear t-shirts, jeans and linen blouses. Even our canvas trainers need bees to bring them about!
Sara Ward has been at the Ideal Homes exhibition, proselytising about The Good Life.
‘I gave talks every day highlighting the joys of growing our own and keeping bees and chickens for honey and eggs – together these harvests can add up to thousands of pounds worth of food that we can gather in from our urban patches of green’.
We’ve had the best time this month hosting The Edible Garden at the Ideal Home Show. Our friends from Omlet brought a shiny new Eglu, the team at Cultivate London brought a whole host of edible plants and we brought our chickens!
A brief burst of warmth have kick started the bees’ activity at Hen Corner and when she hasn’t been running Easter courses, Sara Ward has been decamping bees into new homes. Plus a last minute competition for free tickets to the Ideal Home Show!
If there’s anything to remind us that Easter is on its way, surely the sound of a clucking hen announcing her freshly laid egg ranks a little higher than endless aisles of chocolate in the supermarket.
Sara’s appearance (on TV) reflects a wider shift we’re seeing across homes and gardens.
More people are looking for ways to make their living spaces work harder for them – from creating beautiful outdoor areas to growing herbs, vegetables and even keeping hens. It’s all part of a growing desire to live more sustainably while getting more enjoyment from our homes.