Old Speckled Hen

PS....you could look here https://www.facebook.com/groups/beehaus/

I hate to say this but you are going about it the wrong way, even with the best intentions. Get him a membership of a local beekeeping association and a course of beekeeping beginners' lessons. That way he gets his hands on somebody else's bees first and hopefully a mentor to help him through his first year and beyond. Then buy your kit and bees. You can keep bees in the smallest of gardens if you manage how they exit the hive to minimise annoying your neighbours. Bees sometimes get unruly so you have to have a back up site to move them if you need to. I hope you both enjoy the journey. It is addictive and fascinating......oh and no more holidays away from the bees for more than a few days from March to September

Nothing wrong with Rex cats. The Cornish are big and blocky like a Moggie, just curly. As for Sphinx....I think it's disgraceful that somebody should be breeding cats like this for rich folk with no sense! They have no end of problems.....designer breeds

Envy!!!! My favourite breed along with Cornish Rex.....now there's a cat that doesn't shed

And how are housed birds behind biosecurity getting infected when our chooks won't if they are behind dove sized netting?

What's the betting this order will become permanent?

As they were right from the beginning A small child called DEFRA I would like to know whether the few cases in garden flocks were in hens already kept in or being allowed to free range despite the regulations to keep them in

Which brings me back to what I said about the rules DEFRA made up about backyard flocks having to be kept in being about them appearing to be doing something. There's "Ooops, word censored!"ody quite like the Brits in their zeal to conform to regulations. Of course DEFRA has scientific advice but it is largely peopled by jobsworth civil servants What about the ridiculous slaughter regulations for Foot and Mouth when so many other countries vaccinate? What about the ridiculous badger culling farce? A beefarmer has just been successfully prosecuted for taking the life of his bees and the jobs of his employees into his own hands after DEFRA failed to supply him, on time, with a treatment they had agreed to supply. The judge said it was a waste of time and fined him peanuts because he pleaded guilty while the taxpayer picks up a bill for 100K for the VMD's costs. Edited for typo

I had house up for sale with estate agents for six months. Sacked them and went with houseladder. House was sold and it cost me £100. Estate agents fees would have been 15K. No brainer !

I wonder what DEFRA are going to do at the end of February if there are cases still. Or the end of March/April/May? I suspect they will re-evaluate the risk for back garden flocks and we will be in a position to let our birds out again scratching our heads and wondering if all this was pointless. We have thousands of birds visiting the garden and starlings foraging in surrounding fields. How much gets blown into our birds' runs? I am at a loss at the wisdom of all this.

Thank you sjp I ask because I have been following this outbreak minutely and haven't heard of a mass round up and culling of neighbourhood garden flocks....particularly in the one nearest to me which was in Carmarthenshire

Excuse me butting in but is that what happens? If your birds get Avian flu DEFRA rounds up all the other poultry in a 3Km radius and kills them?

Don't give them away unless you actually know who is taking them. I gave cockerels away thinking they were going to a good home and the chap ate them..... You need to charge something. People are not always what they seem. Sorry if this upsets some of you but it happened to me and upset was an understatement!

I always get mine off ebay even cheaper. Hens love them http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5KG-WILD-BIRD-DRIED-MEALWORMS-MEALWORM-/131740562153?hash=item1eac5972e9:g:h-wAAOxy039TNYFF

Birds will be coming over here till the end of March then they will start disappearing back East and North to be replaced by our Spring Migrants....which are largely songbirds