The chicken and duck sale was held in a tin shed lined with cages, from the floor to the roof. Between was a narrow aisle which we had to squeeze past the others also looking at the chickens. We came with an idea of the breed we wanted and in the end bought four Australorp batams, beautiful black birds, which when the sun catches their feathers give of a green sheen. Once home the main worry was how our older two ginger coloured chickens would accept them. They were kept in the main coop for a week but after we'd found one was flying out we let them all to free range. In the end nothing happened and all six chickens just wander around, scratching for things to eat. The young ones live in the coop, while the older two have taken over our wood shed!

Next the new chooks had to learn how to use the pop up feeder. We use this feeder rather than the others to keep the sparrows away! They quickly learned, being hungry speeds up this process.

All this of course leads to having your own eggs and for these we had to wait a few more weeks and then there they were!