How to have a productive garden

Now I have a garden full of chickens, it is a little difficult for me to still grow some of my own food. I have found a solution, grow vertically!!! This way I can still grow strawberries and lettuce and other stuff but high up like a plant wall out of my little darlings way. Mmm I wonder if I can grow currant bushes high up too.

Fantastic idea to grow my strawberries

Why my chickens wont put themselves to bed

For over a year my chickens have got themselves to bed at night. They obediently go through the automatic pop-hole before it goes dark and settle themselves in the coop. Now for some reason 3 of my chickens are always outside in the run squeeking when I go in to check they are all in. They all use the pop-hole when they need to go an lay an egg, but when it is bed time, these 3 rascals only see the main door of the coop as the only way to get into roost at night. These 3 are still out. I have tried to remove all the perches from the run, so they should have no option but to go into the coop, but no, they wait by the coop door until I go in and open it up. Only then will they go into the coop. It is positively doing my head in. I might just leave them out all night to see if the next night they are more keen to go through the pop hole to get to bed. Once a chicken gets into a habit of what they do, it is very difficult to change that habit.

Egg Trauma

Have you ever thought that everything seems to be going too smoothly and then wallop something turns it into a crisis. Well I borrowed an incubator from Heswall Hills Henporium, because my sister is nice like that, and we were merrily listening to it clicking away and happy in the knowledge that it was taking good care of my eggies. Then the obvious happens, the incubator suddenly loses power. Despite Keiths best efforts of changing the plug and the fuse and fiddling about in the lid, he pronounced it dead, just as I suspected. Now I have to find a home for 48 eggs mid way through their incubation period. I tried the airing cupboard and even with the heating on full the eggs were still too cool. I then decided to try to squeeze them - bearing in mind they are eggs - into my other two incubators which are King Suro's and they rock. I had to take them off the rockers and turn the whole incubator through 45 degrees several times a day. The King Suros did a sterling job of keeping the temperature and humidity right while I waited for my new incubators to arrive via the trusty Royal Mail. A spot of panic buying resulted in an increased egg incubating capacity so now I can do nearly 200 eggs at once. It still remains to be seen whether I managed to save all the unborn chicks, but I am hopeful. Luckily I didnt put all my eggs in one basket!!!