Yes you can fix up lights in the coop to extend the hours of light to keep egg-laying going and this is what commercial producers do. Younger hens will often lay during the winter but as they get older this tends to stop. Personally I am happy to let nature takes its course and take what comes. If y...

Sometimes boredom can casue hens to start pecking and a frequently quoted suggestion is hanging up a cabbage for the hens to peck. When I had a hen going through a hen-pecking phase I regularly put out some carrots for them to peck. I found it seemed to help.

I'm afraid there is no way of saying this without coming across as rather smug, but for dinner today we had a Spannish omlette and salad, the ingredients consisting of:- Eggs - laid by our good ladies Red onion, garlic, moolie, tomatoes, courgette, beetroot, lettuce, cucumber, spring onion - all hom...

Sounds good (and simple )- what did you have to go with it?

I am always surprised by how much my four hens drink each day (at least during the summer). A 3 litre drinker is nearly emptied each day. How does this compare with your experiences?

Sorry to hear this Paxo. I once lost all my hens in one go to a fox. The fox is almost certain to come back and try its luck again.What time of day was the deed carried out? Runs are also difficult to make fox-proof for a determined fox so you need to ensure the hens are back in the coop as the ligh...

Congratulations! In my expereince hens will choose to lay where they want to - usually a dark, quiet place. nesting boxes normally fulfil this requirement but all mine have ignored this and lay on the floor in one corner of the coop.

Woodshavings for me in the coop - compressed bag for £4.99) has a surpising amount in it once opened up and spreaad about. Bark chips/shaving in the run.

Similar for me except I lay newspaper under the perch so eaach day I can roll it up and lay frsh paper. keeps the litter clean.

I use flubenvet as mel describes. You can buy it online from farmrite but they phone you before despatching it to confirm why you want it. One thing to add to the routine mel described is for those 7 days don't feed the hens any treats etc, just their regular feed.

Are they mites or lice? Lice are bigger. Mites live in the poulty housing and come out at night to suck the chickens' blood. Lice live on the chickens. Neither can survive on other animal species so your rabbits should be okay. Neither are good for chickens so some sort of treatment is needed - lots...

I've not tried any of these myself (yet) but:- Recipes from "Farmhouse Fare" Sloe and Apple Jelly Stew equal quantites of ripe sloes and green apples (skins and cores included) until soft, barely covering the fruit in the stew-pan with water. Strain through a jelly-bag. To each pint of jui...

Checked out the bushes from last year when I was out walking today. Nice crop for picking later in the autumn.

Toni has described it exactly. You will find the more you handle them the tamer they become and therefore easier to get hold off when you need to.

I have one hen who is particularly noisey and I wondered if she has taking on a cockeral role as the one highest in the pecking order. (Does not include mounting the others though!)