OK, before you start to worry, let me assure you that no hens were harmed in the production of this post.

One of the joys of being a gardener is watching the seasons change and savouring the different produce. However, keeping animals adds an extra dimension to this connection with nature. I know, for example, that there will be fewer eggs from the hens in the winter, which makes them all the more precious in the summer. But hens do other stuff than lay eggs and perhaps the most spectacular is the autumn moult. Now, not all hens moult and not all moult completely, and those that do moult don’t always do it in the autumn. However, every so often one of the hens embarks on a complete change of feathers…

and so, Tiffany has gone from being fully-feathered last week to well on her way to oven-ready today. There are feathers all over the garden and in the hen house… to look at it, you really would think one of them had exploded (or been got by a fox).

Anna had a much more gentle moult over the summer and you can see her beautiful blue-grey plumage in one of the pictures above. Anna has always been rather rubbish at laying eggs, but having got over her moult, she is doing her best now. The other day she produced the egg on the right in the picture below (the middle one is ‘normal’ sized and the one on the left is from Aliss our smallest hen):

well, that’s not very impressive, Anna

Yesterday, however, she did manage to lay a normal sized egg:

well, that’s a better size

However, all that effort that went into making a white and a yolk left no energy for a shell:

We’re hoping that the next one is full-size and fully formed!