How can I find my old pictures?

[AndyRoo]

Hello everyone!

I hope you're all doing well? What has everyone been up to?

The partner and I are in the midst of a house renovation so I've been busy painting and decorating and knocking buildings down and laying flooring and designing new a new kitchen - and, yes, it is as exhausting as it sounds!!

On top of all that I'm now studying English, Japanese, and Counselling (which is what I'm about to embark on as a degree), and I am also getting close to the point where I am nearly ready to publish my first book! YAY! We also now have our long term plan in place: once I've finished my degree (still a few years away), we're moving to France (courtesy of Brexit... c'est la vie!) - but that should be fun; we're planning to buy a place for us and a villa to run as a B&B! I'm also genuinely considering breeding some pure breed hens to sell as pets on my own little small holding.

We're now up to 9 hens! Although we lost one recently to our fist ever fox attack! *grinds teeth* Still, I suppose I can't knock a fox for its nature; although I have now installed an electric fence and a few other measures (scent sprays, sonic alarms, and some motion sensor lights!). If he somehow gets hold of another hen, I'll plug it directly in to the national grid and blast the little git into the neighbouring postcode! lol

I do have some questions for people:

Does anyone have any experience with a Light Sussex? I've had my girl for a few months or so now, and although she has been laying for a while, he eggs are on the small side... probably about the size of a bantam egg. Will these get bigger over time?

Also, we bought a Speckeldy hen the other day (along with a few others) but she looks identical to a Coucou Marans hen. Is there a technical difference between the two? The Speckeldy hens I saw before had a dappled neck like a CCM, but then their bodies were just standard grey; our girl, however, is dappled all over just as our CCM (who got taken by the fox) was. Is this sometimes the case? Or is it more likely that we bought a CCM in 'error'?

Hope all is well.

Oh, I thought I'd include a pic of their new enclosure and the new hens for fun! Not the best picture; I'll try and get some close-ups another time. Enjoy!

TTFN,

Andy

[soapdragon]

Love your set up, Andyroo and nice to hear from you again; we missed you!!

We had 3 Light Sussex Bantams in an Eglu and did gather that their eggs, even from full size, can vary somewhat which, indeed, they did!! They were fr most of the day and I think egg size depended on what nummies they had found!

[Millie-Annie]

What a lovely set up.  Your girls are lovely.  

I cant help with the other questions as have never had those breeds.

I have seen your fox deterrent post, good luck I hope it works.  Sadly I have never been brave enough to start again, so I am chicken free and miss them still 

 

 

[Ursula123]

I was only thinking the other day that you had not been around for a while Andyroo. 

I have a light Sussex and she lays normal sized eggs and always has done.

Also I live in France so if I can be any help with your future plans then please shout.

Nice to see you back

[AndyRoo]

1 hour ago, soapdragon said:

Love your set up, Andyroo and nice to hear from you again; we missed you!!

Thank you, my love!

I guess we'll just have to wait and see about her eggs; we're obviously being spoiled by the other girls laying such hoofing great big ones. Our white star (2 years old now) still gives us a fair few double-yolkers in the 90g range - and still an egg nearly every day! The poor girl must be absolutely exhausted.

The MiL had a Light Sussex and she used to get massive great big eggs from her, so I was hoping for the same. No bother either way - I just fry up 4 eggs instead of 2, hehe.

I'm quietly hoping to get some darker eggs from the Boran Neva / Speckeldy as the guy in the shop said theirs tend to lay slightly darker shells, but we shall wait and see. I was going to get some dark brown egg pure breeds, but every single place around here was out of stock or had a long waiting list, and I'm very impatient! lol

18 minutes ago, Millie-Annie said:

What a lovely set up.  Your girls are lovely.  

I cant help with the other questions as have never had those breeds.

I have seen your fox deterrent post, good luck I hope it works.  Sadly I have never been brave enough to start again, so I am chicken free and miss them still 

 

 

Thank you!

Don't be deterred by the fox, let him know who is boss! I know how awful it must have been, I burst into tears when I found my hens, but I refuse to be at the mercy of him.

I hope you feel confident enough to get some more again one day! x

[AndyRoo]

25 minutes ago, Ursula123 said:

I was only thinking the other day that you had not been around for a while Andyroo. 

I have a light Sussex and she lays normal sized eggs and always has done.

Also I live in France so if I can be any help with your future plans then please shout.

Nice to see you back

Thank you. We had a lot going on at one point and I'd had enough, hence why we're now looking to move once I have my degree (and I improve my French - my partner is ok, he's almost fluent!).

A lot of our friends are doing the so-called Brexodus move, so we thought that we would bite the bullet too - assuming we're still allowed to once the dust settles. It'll either be France or Germany, although I'd like to be a little further south for the more temperate climate.

It'll be at least 3 years before we can make the move but we're saving like mad. It'll be dependent on jobs too, although my partner has some weird French ancestry thing going on which we're hoping will help. His cousin was able to get some dual nationality deal because of his great grandparents or something odd like that, so we're hoping it'll be the same.

Whereabouts in France are you?

Edited June 3, 2018 by AndyRoo

[GrannyTrish]

I'm a newbie to the forum but I just wanted to welcome you back. I love your set-up!

[AndyRoo]

31 minutes ago, GrannyTrish said:

I'm a newbie to the forum but I just wanted to welcome you back. I love your set-up!

Thank you!  When we got the electric fence we gave them a space upgrade! They used to have 12sqm 'indoors' and another 12 outdoors, they now have 12sqm indoors and 85sqm outdoors!

Also, you may be new, but you've figured out how to do a signature and I haven't, so you're already one step ahead. lol

[Ursula123]

Sorry Andyroo, been run off my feet for the last couple of days, when we moved to France we were going to take it easy and seem to be busier than ever.

We live in the Southwest of France in Lot et Garonne. I am two fields away from being in the Gironde dept and 10 minutes from home I can cross into the Dordogne. I love living here, my French is passable but nowhere near fluent, everyone is so friendly. 

[AndyRoo]

14 minutes ago, Ursula123 said:

We live in the Southwest of France in Lot et Garonne. I am two fields away from being in the Gironde dept and 10 minutes from home I can cross into the Dordogne. I love living here, my French is passable but nowhere near fluent, everyone is so friendly. 

Oooh, that's good to know.

We were think that, ideally, we'd like to be somewhere nearish the sea but also with relatively easy train access to Paris (ideally just one change) as then it's easy for us to Eurostar everywhere (I don't fly due to a paralysing phobia!). If it's somewhere towards the south or in the wine regions, that would be great too. We did say if we're not allowed to go due to changes in rules over the next few years that we may be looking for marriages of convenience at some point too. lol

[Hippie Chick]

Speckledys are Rhode Island Red x Maran, yours does look more Maran than mine does.  The Speckledy lays brown eggs that are usually speckled, I'm not sure if Marans lay speckled eggs?  Anyway, this is my Speckledy for comparison and one of her eggs (turns out I don't have a decent current photo so this is from when we first got her).

[grahamrhind]

Chickens aside, I hope it works out for your move to France as we're all rather on tenterhooks about what the regulations will become. I've been out of the UK since 1984 but I'm still British. I have permanent residence in Germany but would prefer to be able to continue easy cross-border migration as the whim takes me (I've previously lived in Belgium and The Netherlands). I was thinking of trying for dual German/British nationality, but I may be timed out with that one because I wouldn't have been in Germany for long enough. My better half is Croatian, so we're hoping that will allow for some flexibility as far as residence choices are concerned.

[SeramaSilly]

Lovely set up Andy and so nice to see you back - you always make me chuckle! 

[AndyRoo]

8 hours ago, Hippie Chick said:

Speckledys are Rhode Island Red x Maran, yours does look more Maran than mine does.  The Speckledy lays brown eggs that are usually speckled, I'm not sure if Marans lay speckled eggs?  Anyway, this is my Speckledy for comparison and one of her eggs (turns out I don't have a decent current photo so this is from when we first got her).

I've no idea how true it is, but I got told that Speckledys and Coucou Marans are essentially the same bird, but the egg you get depends on the strain of the breed (which supposedly has three different types). So sometimes you'll get a speckled egg, sometimes you'll get a chocolate brown egg, and sometimes you'll get just a typical light brown 'supermarket' egg.

I think our hens may be slightly more similar than they appear from the picture, as our hen also had a few green-tinged feathers on her back too, although they are more subtle than on your hen.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see if we get any notably different eggs.

2 hours ago, SeramaSilly said:

Lovely set up Andy and so nice to see you back - you always make me chuckle! 

Thank you.

[AndyRoo]

9 hours ago, grahamrhind said:

Chickens aside, I hope it works out for your move to France as we're all rather on tenterhooks about what the regulations will become.

Thank you. Us too! And tens of millions of others, but c'est la vie!

9 hours ago, grahamrhind said:

I have permanent residence in Germany but would prefer to be able to continue easy cross-border migration as the whim takes me (I've previously lived in Belgium and The Netherlands). I was thinking of trying for dual German/British nationality, but I may be timed out with that one because I wouldn't have been in Germany for long enough. My better half is Croatian, so we're hoping that will allow for some flexibility as far as residence choices are concerned.

I speak some German and a little French, Spanish, and Italian - German being my best, so it would make sense for us to go there, but my other half isn't so keen on Germany. He speaks almost fluent French, so it would make most sense to try France and for me to learn it. We both researched our family trees and other than my partner's rather tenuous French connection, we were pretty much out of luck. We were quietly hoping one or both of us would have had Irish grandparents somewhere we didn't know about but no such luck.

I think our best hope may be that Scotland goes independent and rejoins the EU - in which case we'll be heading north. lol

[mullethunter]

Hey Andyroo good to see you back. I was kind of hoping we could cut Cornwall off and float it down somewhere off the coast of France so we could remain European, but apparently despite the county taking massive amounts of European money most of the Cornish voted to leave.......(biting my lip to avoid thread being taken down).

Anyway - just saying hello and that as others have said your set up looks lovely 😊 

[AndyRoo]

6 minutes ago, mullethunter said:

Hey Andyroo good to see you back. I was kind of hoping we could cut Cornwall off and float it down somewhere off the coast of France so we could remain European, but apparently despite the county taking massive amounts of European money most of the Cornish voted to leave.......(biting my lip to avoid thread being taken down).

Anyway - just saying hello and that as others have said your set up looks lovely 😊 

Hello! Hope you're keeping well.

It's pretty much the same set-up I had before, just with a bigger outdoor space. I'm thinking of replacing the Mk1 run and building a bigger enclosure and moving the cube inside of it so that I can give it a 'solid' roof. We've had a lot of high winds this way over the last few years and I must have spent £300+ on replacing tarps!

We need to get the garden re-landscaped so that would be the time to do it. I'd also like to get a trio of duckies, but Rich isn't so keen!  

It may be a while before we can do it anyway; this year all our money is going on renovating the house which is costing us an eye-watering £100k!! Still, I get an enormous new extension with a new kitchen and a new look throughout so I can't complain too much.

[GrannyTrish]

18 hours ago, AndyRoo said:

I think our best hope may be that Scotland goes independent and rejoins the EU - in which case we'll be heading north. lol

 

We'll make you more than welcome when the time comes in the next few years.