MORE ON EGGS AND CHOOKS

Funny thing is that I also wanted to write about eggs, even before I saw Andrew's delicious idea. I have just finished eating a boiled egg, which was laid only seconds before I collected it from the nesting box. It was so hot and still had a spot of liquid on it when I picked it up. I brought it in and put it into the pot right there and then and wondered if it needed slightly less cooking because it was already hot on the outside. Interesting how the eggs are laid hot, but uncooked ! After 5 minutes (usually I cook them for 6 when they are this large) in barely on-the-verge-of-bubbling water I extracted it and got into it, cutting off the top and popping in a thin sliver of cold butter - a refined skill which allows none of the insides to dribble out down the outside of the shell ! I didn't have toast with it because the taste of a fresh, organic egg is unsurpassed and should not be adulterated with other flavours (except for Paris Creek butter). The yolks of such good eggs are orange and very rich in flavour and the white is a total contrast. I would like to invite people to my place for breakfast and maybe Andrew and I could cook up a storm ! Yes this is a photo of my egg, not a google image!



Chooks are so easy to look after and so friendly and surprisingly different in personalities one from the next. Almost anyone could have , say, 3 or 4. Deb is very generous with her feeding regime for her poultry but I just give mine a mixed grain that contains no animal by-products and no added vitamins or any other additives . Apart from that they get all the weeds from the garden and kitchen scraps( you get to know what they like). The brown hybrids lay continuously for at least 2 years and I usually plan on getting 2 more each year to account for those that escape or die or stop laying. That way I seem to keep a group of 3 - 5 all the time.
Fox baits are often laid up here in the golf course opposite us and in the Cleland Park land just around the corner and this is why I think we don't have trouble with them, even though I often see them at the bottom of the road wandering along in broad daylight ! I didn't know this when I got them so, after a lot of reading, we made a double entrance into their sleeping quarters and each time the chooks have to bob down and squeeze through a narrow space to get into the inner section where they go, by themselves, at night. The hutches are framed with metal and sitting on a double width of bricks so nothing can dig under.
I have fenced off a section down one side where I have let weeds grow. Later in summer, when there won't be much grass left in the chook run I will let them in here now and then. I hope to keep this patch watered and green for them as long as I can.

Here is a picture that son Alex emailed to me with the caption "a better way to stop the chooks getting out"!

No matter what you do the chooks WILL get out when it is most inconvenient !