Sallygardens Smallholding

How to Make Pickled Eggs

Trust me, pickled eggs are delicious, no really they are. I think this is mainly an English tradition as I've never experienced them in Ireland. My first rendezvous with a pickled egg was after a long hike in the English countryside which ended at a rural pub, where my companion ordered me a pint of scrumpy cider and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps with a pickled egg thrown into it. I'll never forget that wonderful culinary discovery!

As the days begin to shorten and the weather cools chicken will slow down their laying and some will stop completely until spring. So while there is still a good stock of eggs in the fridge perhaps now is a good time to experiment with pickling.

Buy a good quality pale vinegar from your health shop, organic apple cider vinegar is great stuff and you can use up any remainder for your vegetable pickles and chutneys. As always, sterilise all equipment and utensils to be used and wash hands and surfaces in advance. Bring a pot of vinegar to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes to pasteurise it. Keep covered and allow to cool.  Hard boil some clean undamaged chicken eggs and allow to cool completely. Remove the shells with clean hands and place the eggs into a sterilised storage jar. Pour in enough vinegar to cover all the eggs completely and keep refrigerated. Leave the eggs to pickle for two weeks before eating.

Cleaning and sterisiling is very important to avoid botulism.

Broody Hen At Work

It's very handy having a broody hen, she will sit on and try to hatch anything spherical. She'd even sit on golf balls, apples, anything vaguely round in shape! This little hen sat on nine fat Aylesbury duck eggs for us, laid by our own duck, and she hatched eight of them. She proudly escorted her flock of ducklings around the field, not once questioning why they had flat bills and webbed feet! After a few days we put a paddling pool out for them and the ducklings were thrilled however the broody hen was most alarmed by her babies insistence on swimming and diving!

The drake, however, was not at all impressed by the arrival of ducklings, even though they were his own offspring. He managed to kill one and new fencing had to be erected pronto to provide a safe area for the ducklings to forage.

Sallygardens eBooklet Store

At long last I've managed to create a Paypal store which will make it easier for you to purchase our Sallygardens eBooklets. Instead of having to email me first to request a Paypal invoice you can place a direct order via this store front. Of course you can still use the old way, this alternative just provides another easier option . Look to the right hand side bar to find the store. Come on in and have a look around.

Launch of 'Keeping Chickens, A Beginners Guide' eBooklet

I'm proud to announce the addition of another ebooklet, 'Keeping Chickens, A Beginners Guide', to our collection. It covers everything from where to source poultry, which breed to buy to suit your needs, DIY or bought housing options, feeding and breeding. The ebooklet includes a section on plant fodder suitable to grow in and around your chicken run which is an approach that will save you money in terms of buying in food and also help do your bit for the environment by cutting down on the volume of feed you import to your home.

Keeping chickens can be incredibly rewarding and fun, but it's also a good way to take another step towards increasing your resilience to the changes in our economic communities. Producing food locally means you are less tied into the necessity to fork out yet more cash at the multinational supermarket. Anything, however small, that brings food production to your doorstep is a step in the right direction on many levels ; food higher in nutritional value, less food miles, local food for local people, a product with which you can barter in return for other food or services and perhaps surplus that you can sell to friends and neighbours. Children also benefit from learning about where food comes from and of course the responsibilities for animal welfare that go with taking care of any animal. Collecting your own fresh eggs in the morning is such a huge thrill, it never ceases to bring delight to our family!

Chickens aren't just for the rural setting, many people in urban homes are keeping a couple chickens in their garden for eggs. It's perfectly feasible and a wonderful addition.

Our ebooklet contains all the information you'll need to get up and running, it costs €8 via email or €12 via snail mail. We are also launching a new course of the same title here at Sallygardens so if you prefer to come along and learn all you need to know around the kitchen table please call to book a place (071 9632212). Courses run every weekend and cost €45 per person, places are limited to four per course, so book well in advance. You'll be cracking your very own home laid eggs into the frying pan before you know it!

E-booklet 'Small Scale Chicken Keeping'

Here at Sallygardens I've been working on a range of booklets available via email, hence they are 'E-booklets'. This keeps costs down as there's no postage, you simply print out the email attachment at your end. Also E-booklets can easily be amended and updated, thus kept right up to the minute with any new enlightenments (usually disasters!) and experiences we have with our own livestock!

We don't claim to be experts at any of this. What we do have on our side is the ability to remember what it's like to start completely from scratch, with no previous livestock experience whatsoever! Not knowing what to feed a pig, goat or chicken was hard enough to find out, but then we even had to find out where to buy it and how to enter the legal agricultural system. Then housing, fencing and breeding were all things that took quite an investment of time to research, not to mention finding the various channels available to buy livestock in Ireland. These booklets help to get you fast tracked and save all the footwork that we've already done.

The latest e-booklet I've written is about keeping chickens on a small scale, either in an urban back garden or on a smallholding. This level of poultry keeping is aimed at those who want to have a supply of eggs for the family, or some birds for the table. The e-booklet costs €8 and is 15 A4 pages long. If interested, please email me for a Paypal invoice to buy the booklet.

Ducks on the Smallholding

At long last we have finally got ourselves a lovely pair of Aylesbury ducks. Meet Rosie and Jim, although those names are still being argued about by the children and may be subject to change (one approves, the other doesn't)! They are only three months old so it will be next spring before breeding commences, fertile eggs are laid and ducklings waddle around.

Eggs and duck for the table aren't the only asset involved, indeed these are two positive extras, but the real reason we wanted to get ducks was to tackle the slug problem. Ducks LOVE to eat the slugs we HATE. So this is a match made in heaven. Keeping ducks around the smallholding can eradicate a slug problem but they must be fenced out from your garden and crops, because they also love to nibble plants, especially newly emerged tender seedlings. Our ducks have the freedom to roam around the outside of the polytunnel so any newly arrived slugs will not gain entry. They will also patrol the periphery of the raised vegetable beds and once beds are harvested they'll be allowed in to mine sweep all manner of beasties before we mulch or re-plant.

We considered several breeds and decided that dual purpose was the way to go ie a bird that gives a decent annual supply of eggs but also provides us with the option to eat roast duck. There are a few breeds of duck that in theory offer this, such as Muscovy (beauty is in the eye of the beholder!), Pekin, Cayuga or Rouen, and in the end it comes down to what you like the look of and what's available in your area. Most ducks these days are bred for their exhibition traits rather than their traditional ability to produce decent quantities of good quality meat so it can be difficult to find suitable utility birds for the table, however we shouldn't give up hope.  The smallholder can help to preserve specimens of  varieties in their originally intended utility form by selectively breeding heavier birds for the table, rather than for their looks. In the UK there are a number of breeders who are dedicated to resurrecting poultry for the smallholders use as opposed to the show ring.

Fluffy Chicks Galore

The chicks that hatched in the incubator have all survived and are now three months old. We gave half to a friend and out of the eight we kept six are roosters and only two are hens. We'll probably keep the hens as layers but the roosters of course will be for the pot in roughly another months time. That's four months from hatching to table in comparison to about six weeks for most commercially grown chicken. Our chicken will be far superior in flavour, low in fat and high in nutrients thanks to their slow growth, organic feed and happy free ranging lifestyle. For those that keep hens just for laying it's worth noting that most roosters would be dispatched as day old chicks, or kept for the table, so if you are a vegetarian then supporting the breeding of laying hens by buying eggs, or keeping your own hens probably, isn't your scene when all is considered.

Our two broody hens (silkie cross breeds) also did a good job later in the summer and each sat on a batch of eggs we bought from our local poultry breeder. From those sittings we now have two Jersey Giants and three Marans, both good heavy breeds. Next year we will definitely give the broodies a much large amount of eggs to hatch, perhaps ten each.

Not only did our two broody hens sit, our Light Sussex actually went broody before them and hatched out two of her own eggs! We weren't expecting this and so we hadn't saved many eggs for her to sit on, which is why she only had two.

I have to say they are very good mothers. Until now I didn't quite know how a chicken could be a good or bad mother! In watching them they stay close to their chicks and protect them from other chickens in the flock. They don't leg it off and leave the chicks standing in the open field if I call them over for food, they wait for their chicks to catch up. When food is scattered and the flock all jump into a scrum, the mother hens pick up a beak full of feed, take it beyond the mayhem and scatters it on the ground for their chicks to eat in safety. They also sit on the ground now and then for the chicks to take cover and warm up. At night they snuggle with the chicks, abandoning their usual high perch for a box full of hay on the ground instead.

Broody Hatches Her Eggs

Our Light Sussex hen hatched four of her five eggs a couple of days ago. Today they ventured outside for the first time and mother has been minding them proudly. Father has also been staying close by and keeping other interested parties in their place*! It hasn't all been good news though. Yesterday two of the chicks died. They must have wandered from the nest and couldn't find their way back in and mother hen was torn between keeping the two chicks still in her nest warm or following the other two around the shed. Perhaps we should have kept them all securely shut in the broody box for a couple of days. Sometimes these learning curves can be heartbreaking, especially for the children.

In the meantime one of our other two broody hens has been a bit silly. She got off her nest for a stroll and a feed which is perfectly normal and to be encouraged, but then sat back into the wrong box (empty with no eggs at all). By the time we noticed all her own eggs were stone cold. I don't know how long the eggs can be left unattended and remain viable, so we put her back in the right box and will hope for the best.

Life here has been on hold for a week or two recently. I found a lump in my breast and it's taken this long to have the relevant tests done, thank heavens I got the all clear on Thursday last. It's been an exhausting time and it will take a while to get back on my feet. I can't begin to explain the fear and heartbreak I felt at the thought of what might be about to happen to our family. The outcome could have been very different so I'm counting my blessings on a daily basis.

* 'interested parties'

Fox Attack & Ruffled Feathers

When you first get chickens everybody tells you that the fox will get them. We've had ours for a couple of years now  without any bother from predators (except a visiting dog that killed five). For quite a while we were very lax, leaving the chicken house open the odd night. Then  friends of ours lost all their chickens to something and since then ours have been religiously shut in every night.

A couple of weeks ago we lost one of our red hens. She disappeared without a trace and we came to the conclusion that she must either have gone broody in the hedge with a secret clutch of eggs or a fox got her. It's well known that once a fox finds a stash of tasty hens he'll come back, usually every day, until they're all gone. Yesterday I was just beginning to believe that the red hen couldn't possibly have been taken by a fox because we'd had no problems since. Three other hens have gone broody in the chicken house and because it's the season for it I expected to see the red hen emerge triumphant from the undergrowth any day now with chicks at her side.

Dan and I had been visiting our goats this morning and enjoying a good hearty laugh at the frolics of their kids on the tin roof. We walked up the garden path and both heard a curious noise. It was very obviously from a chicken, but was nothing like any of the calls we'd heard before. We both stopped to listen, looked at each other, then Dan sprinted up the path to the chicken field gate. I ran behind him and we could both see a flash of red fur and the erect ears of a startled fox .... Dan started bellowing like a man possessed and he disappeared into the hedge after the fox thrashing and shouting, doing his best to give it a real scare. Our dog bolted after him barking on the scent and because I was feeling a bit left out of the action I began to shout and screech to hopefully add to the terror of the prowling fox!

Pumped with adrenaline we began counting the chickens. Two of the broodies were still sitting tight on their eggs, but the third broody had disappeared. Out of eight of our chicks we only found four.  The rooster was in a terrible state. He was in the chicken house desperately trying to fly up onto the perch bar, but he kept falling hard on his side and was unable to even flutter six inches off the ground. He kept repeatedly trying and falling, his mouth was gaping and he was gasping for breath. I closed the door so he could calm down but he was in severe shock and I knew we could lose him any moment.

In the meantime Dan had found a huge mound of feathers scattered right across the field. There were so many feathers over such a large area we came to the conclusion that they must have been the remains of the four missing chicks and the broody hen. As we made our way back up the field we saw something white next to a clump of grass. It turned out to be two trembling chicks, hunched down in a bid to hide themselves. We carried them up to the chicken house and they seemed unscathed but the rooster was stilling gasping for breath and now just lying on the ground.

We made immediate plans to fence off a large section of the field for the chickens to free range in safely. I went to start making lunch and thinking about how to break the news to the children and Dan began to clear brambles for a new fence. A few minutes later he came bounding in all smiles ... he had found the final two missing chicks and broody hen in the undergrowth, so all hens were accounted for.

The rooster got to his feet and made a timid appearance. He soon stood tall and began to patrol his patch. We spotted a bare patch of skin on his leg and rear ... it seems he put up an amazing fight with the fox to protect his girls and offspring and that all those feathers scattered across the field belonged to him. I'd like to reward him a medal and a special dinner.

So what seemed to be a predetermined miserable ending actually turned out well. There have been a few things ruffling our family feathers too lately, and I really hope that the chicken's happy ending is a good omen for us.

Hatching Chicks

It's three weeks since the chicks emerged from their shells, you can watch one hatching on this video clip.

They come out all sticky with their fluff stuck to their skin but immediately begin to try standing up. A comical couple of hours follow as they dry off, fluff up and topple backwards and forwards on their little stick legs. They also begin to peck at the ground and soon find their sources of chick crumb and water. By the following day they are running about at high speed, preening their imaginary feathers, scratching the ground with their feet and nodding off for thirty second naps slumping to sleep in the most peculiar poses. After just a few days their true feathers begin to emerge at the tips of their stumpy little wings, and a few days later the tail feathers. The rate of growth is amazing, and so is their rate of consumption for that matter. A daily litter change, or sometimes more than that, is required to keep odours at bay! They now sleep for longer spells, all together, in a little heap.

They currently reside in a large box under a heat lamp in the spare bedroom. Their loud chirps and constant scratching and pecking sounds have become part of the household, but in only eight weeks or so they will be having their first ventures outdoors and will have to find their pecking order in with the rest of the flock.