What's it like living with 'happy chicks'!!!!?

Every day is different here, no two days the same!! But below is an idea of what we do everyday to look after our hens, chicks, ducks, rhea, pigs, geese, pheasant, peacocks and guinnea fowl.

With nothing automated here (which we are proud of) we personally have to feed and water all the animals and poultry here. This means they are all tame as we go in to all the pens ourselves and have a chat and cuddle with them!!

6.00 am

Get up, grab coffee turn on computer and go outside in pyjamas!!!

Let baby goslings out and duckies. Then I check all pens and most important of all I check the baby unit. The baby unit at this time of year (June) can conatin upto 3000 chicks, ducks and goslings!!!

7.00 am

Back to the house to wake up children for school. Emma is normally up at this point cuddling something!! At the moment we have the baby Rhea in the house and any chicks that hatched the day before around the Aga!!!

All chicks are moved off the Aga for a few minutes for me to make breakfast which normally includes eggs!

8.30 am

Say bye to the children! the school is only a few hundred yards away so no need for me to escort them (they would be mortified if I did this anyway!)

9.00 am

Discuss plans with hubby for the day. There is always one of here so we need to make sure plans do not conflict. Richard starts paperwork - I start feeding.

All the out door pens need to fed, as well as the pigs, Llama and Goats!

Rescued hens pen. Our Ex batts always get a bit of special TLC everyday!!

Start of the field where most of the outdoor pens are. We house the hybrids and pure breds in different pens by age.

Start of the young hens pen.

10.30 am

This is when we catch up with emails, healthcare questions and pack orders. We also deal with customers from 10am to 4pm so we are always around either in the house or in the grounds.  New deliveries of feed and stock always seem to arrive before lunch. So that takes quite a bit of time!

11.30 am

I always make time for a walk around of all the pens before lunch. This is a great time as evrey one is full of food and normally snoozing in the sun or following me around!

Life is so hard being a hen!

12.00 noon

Lunch, then check the incubator. We have the facility to incubate 1500 eggs, so this needs checking several times a day. We hatch every few days, so we always have day olds here.

1.00 pm

Most of our customers come after lunch so I tend to be in the shop all afternoon!

Everybody loves to see Maisie, Trecle and Beau while they are here!

4.00 pm

The few hours before bedtime are the best times of the day. Everybody is out and about enjoying the sunshine, all eggs ahve been layed and there is a real relaxed feeling amongst the place.  This the time we go round all the pens again and make sure everybody is ok. We shut the shop have an hour off with the children!

Have you spotted one of the chicks??

Cream Legbars having an afternoon drink!

Little 6 week old Blackrocks and Speckeldys having an adventure!

6.00 pm

After having dinner all the work starts again. All hens need to checked again. Its at this time of night we see the broodies come out. The hens that have hidden from me for the past three weeks and hatched their own!!

Baby goslings go to bed at 7.00pm and duckies go at 8.00pm. Both these type are like sheep and can be easily 'walked' anywhere.

9.00 pm

This is our quiet hour before checking the babies. On a sunny day we walk to the bottom of the land. As we are on the coast the beach is next to the kune kunes at the end of the field. Its magical - it's really a dream come true!

8.30

Baby Rhea is only aloud to watch Tv until 9pm!