and then along came the chicken...

OK the urban farm truly was in action both at the school, but more so at the Welling base of streetgrowers.  So the natural next step was chickens and eggs, and yes I can resist the temptation for the obvious...
Having kept chooks as a youngster I was no stranger to this job but we felt the garden shed approach was not best use of space so initially went for a modern all plastic eglu from those lovely people at omlet...in fact we got ours off ebay at a knock down price.  A quick trip to Faversham to the wonderful Churchmans farm and we were armed with our first 3 point of lay chooks and their story can be found on our streetchicks page, just click this link. Over the following years we have added to the flock, changed our minds about the benefits of the eglu, all plastic might keep the mites away but they dont offer flexibility and being so low to the floor everything gets wet and muddy. So we sold the lovely eglu, back on ebay for a profit, love it when that happens, and now we have 2 wooden coops with a large run offering a choice of setups and the opportunity to expand into bantams and we hope a future of breeding.
So the question I am asked all the time, do you need a cockerel to get eggs? And trust me its not just kids that ask that one. No you dont but we have ventured now into bantam breeding and have acquired a beautiful cockerel and his lovely ladies, so introducing Dr Horacio Abbchamp and his girls, Lady Akoya and Midnight...watch out for updates of their progress..already laying well and midnight is just a little bit broody already. Their smaller eggs are just perfect for our scotched eggs, in salmon and sausage meat varieties.