A YEAR OF CHANGE,,, The Poultry.

One area of the Farm which has, over the last year or so experienced some considerable change is the Poultry. Although nothing is ever guaranteed to stay exactly the same, I do however feel the systems & ways we manage our Birds is for us, for now, just about right.

When we first came here & set up the Farm, we stocked up with a breeding pair of Geese,  countless Chickens, & eventually a dozen or so Ducks. Back then, when we first started, there was quite a good trade to be had by selling the eggs locally. Over time though, the birds got older & therefore stopped producing so readily, & what with so many people opting to raise their own Birds,, it gradually became non-profitable for us to continue.

So, early last year we took the decision to have a good ‘clear-out’ of the Birds.

DUCKS

We (cough) offloaded the Ducks to a neighbour, who promptly lost them,, & by Lost Them, I mean just that,, the Ducks ran away & never came back! A shame really, because not only did I find the Ducks quite entertaining, but I thoroughly enjoyed the taste of the Ducks eggs. Contrary to the popular myth that Ducks eggs are  Strong  or Tainted  in flavour, I personally found that providing that the Ducks are kept in a clean & tidy environment, & the Ducks are kept in good health, then the eggs are equally as nice, if not, then better tasting than Chickens eggs.

GEESE

Our original pair of breeding Geese were the Chinese  variety, pristine in condition, very good natured, & a pleasure to keep. Sadly though they both died, HIM from a cut which got infected, &, if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes I would never have believed it, HER from a  Broken Heart  . From the day he (the Gander) died, SHE never touched her food or fed herself again. She eventually wasted away & died several weeks later,, very sad!

In complete contrast to our mild mannered original Geese,, we now have   Basil  &  Tarquina.  Tarquina (female) looks like she has been dragged through a hedge backwards (so to speak).. & Basil, our new Gander, is just an utter Twat .

The idiot Bird wants to fight EVERYONE.

And what with  ‘His Gal‘  sitting on a clutch of eggs at the moment, he’s even worse than usual. So bad has it got, that if one is unlucky enough to have to enter the Goose pen for any reason, then some self protection in the way of a  Dustbin-lid  &  Broomstick  would be well advised.

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Hopefully though Mrs Goose  will carry on sitting on her eggs & hatch some Goslings, one of which we can fatten up for Christmas.

Yup, even though last years Tubby Christmas Turkey,   washed down VERY well with a glass of White Wine, we fancy however, a bit of a change by the way of Fresh Goose this year. Mind you, it has to be mentioned that the bird   fattened up toooo well last year. So well that come Christmas day he wouldn’t fit in our oven. So Christmas morning I had to chop his legs off with a meat cleaver, just to squeeze him in.

Finally we come to our  CHICKENS 

We have now got rid of the mass of old non-productive Birds that we had before. In their place we now have four pretty, white Chickens running around with the Goats,, just for our entertainment. We also have a proper Chicken run with four adult brown Chickens which we keep solely for eggs, & in with the four egg producers we have at any one time up to twenty Chicks/young Birds which we fatten up for the table. We buy them as  Day-old  Chicks, fatten them up for three months, then cull them & store them in the freezer until we’re ready to eat them. As soon as one batch has been culled, we buy the next batch of Day-old chicks,, & the cycle is repeated.

 

So yes, things have changed quite a lot with our Poultry over the last few years. What with the current economic outlook & rapidly rising food bills, especially here in Spain, it helps to produce as much of our own food as is possible.  Our system & the way we manage our Birds may not be without fault,, but it works well for us.