[lee-d]

hello after my bad luck with some black copper hens,ive been on the look out for some quality dark egg laying strains,ive asked and asked about for a quality breeder, and i found someone who knows someone who knows some one etc etc,

well to cut a long story short today i met a old man ( one of the nicest men you could meet) who is a champion of champions in the british egg shows,,his house is full of hundreds and hundreds of awards and he still wins shows the length and breadth of the uk weekly, hes clearly very dedicated and you can tell by his massive top of the range breeding setup ,(nice if you can afford it),and after speaking on the phone to his wife i finally got a call from him to invite me down ,i think he was just interested in this young man who was interested in him and his hobby, so he said come down and he'll show and tell me how to get the best from your birds and in turn there eggs,and what hes learnt in winning competitions since he was hatching at ten years old,

hes just a old quiet man who had retired and just plods on with what he loves ,he showed me all round his set up,and his big pristine sheds and farmland all just for his winning chickens eggs! a set up worth many times more than my home,
 all this just to produce a few eggs !!  to show in that weeks competition, his stocks was really nice and healthy,
and after showing me round he showed me his eggs,all the olives and green ,blues etc etc,,and then he showed me his welsummers and cukoo maran eggs,,fcb's not laying yet.

trays of them,beautiful dark dark eggs , some with speckles and some shiny etc,,

he said that i can have all the birds that produce these eggs because he ends up keeping to many birds that are giving eggs that are not always 101% show perfect,

and i promise i couldn't tell the difference they was absolutely stunning eggs and birds that would sell for good good money,and now i can have them,,he said he only keeps them because its hard to be there and find which bird is laying what egg,but now, he knows id love some he said i can have them and that it will be good for him knowing that someone will be happy,

so in a strange turn of events ive gone from having paid top money for 3 infested old french marans , to soon getting (in 2 weeks) some of the finest genetics in the uk,that he spent his whole life working on,and he is happy to give me for free , with no inbreeding ,so i said ill give him some chicken feed and spend some more time, with him and give him a hand clean his cabins one day and while doing it he will teach me how he does it and give me some stock to take home,hes just not sure whats laying what yet.i defo want his cukoos and french blacks ,they was stunning i didn't see his copper blacks eggs yet because they wasnt laying but his cukoo where all 7-8 on the scale and he said his copper blacks where darker so all 8-9,,

my only problem now is i cant have a cockerel due to noise or more than 9 birds in my size garden so i cant breed them or sell the eggs fertilized or hatched,
unless i can find a quiet cockerel,

anyway i thought id let you know,as after that bad experience of being sold some really duff birds this is a great start to my stock,so im happy again.
although now im worried about the foxes im surrounded by getting them lol,

[ANHBUC]

That is great news , it is great to have someone with plenty of experience to guide you when you first start out.

Look forward to seeing the photos of your new flock when you get them.  

[grinling]

Great news, double check perimeters  to make sure evrything is fox proof.

[lee-d]

i know where i live it backs onto the old allotments and a few years ago everyone had chickens on there and its a massive allotment setup ,then backing onto them are all the big Victorian houses so naturally over the years they all followed suit, with keeping chickens in there long back gardens at the bottom etc,and now we have a big fox problem and there not scared of people in fact ive had them walk past me 3 feet away in the middle of my drive and it didnt bat an eye lid where i was a bit scared.
and on the first night of getting the ill birds,i spotted one a sly glimpse of its face on the first night lurking in the small wood/ overgrown waste land backing onto the allotments at the bottom of my garden,in one night they was skulking for a kill.ever person in the houses including the next door neighbors have lost there chickens to the foxes ,but they didnt lock there coop one night and the fox came as it must do every night,hopefully i wont make that mistake,my main problem is if it strikes in the day when they free range

[grinling]

They will come during the day, can you make the run area large enough for daily use, but let out under supervision.