Welsummer Egg Colours

I suppose one of the first things that drew me to keeping Welsummers was the fact that their eggs can be chocolate brown colour.

Welsummer eggs are also well known for their attractive speckles.

My oldest Welsummer Matilda, now just a week off her first birthday, regularly lays eggs of the classic brown colouration. Sometimes these have speckles, but often they don't. Her younger sister Sparkle, now 41 weeks old (having hatched on Brexit referendum day), lays tinted eggs with the slightest hint of brown. I can't remember Sparkle's eggs ever having speckles.

I guess the message I am trying to get across is that not every Welsummer lays chocolate brown eggs with pretty speckles on them.

I am very happy with my Welsummers. They are hardy, attractive and friendly birds. They are proving good layers too, with a egg nearly every day even through the winter months. My only complaint is that they have a very loud egg song, but I guess I've just been blessed with noisy individuals!

Strange Welsummer Egg

Something a little bit different today, with the arrival of a very unusual looking egg from Matilda the Welsummer.

Matilda is a handsome bird and there really is no doubting her Welsummer status. Welsummers are known for laying decent sized brown eggs that are often speckled. They are certainly not known for laying eggs that are almost white. The egg in question is shown in the image above. It has a small circular patch of normal pigmentation, but is totally white apart from that.

From what I can gather the pigment of a Welsummer egg can be rubbed fairly easily from the surface of the shell. For some reason it appears that the usual pigment wasn't put on the outside of this shell, or it had already been rubbed off somehow before the egg was collected.

I'm sure the taste of the egg will live up to Matilda's normal high standards, but I thought its appearance was notable enough to mention here.

Update (10/2/17): Matilda has just laid her next egg and it has reverted to normal Welsummer speckled brown.

Rodent Control for Chicken Keepers

The field over the garden fence is like paradise for rats!

There's a train of thought that you're never further than about 20 feet away from a rat wherever you are in the UK.

Certainly a rat will have been within 20 feet of where you are now at some time or another.

It was probably around November last year when I noticed the first signs that some unwanted furry creatures had taken up residence in the garden. Living in the countryside I wasn't overly concerned that I'd caught a fleeting glimpse of a rat one day, but a couple of weeks later - when I saw three of them sat brazenly underneath the chicken loft in broad daylight - I knew it was definitely time to act. If I'd seen three of them together, the chances are that there were many more out of sight.

I should probably say at this stage that prevention is far better than cure. If you remove sources of food, shelter and water from your garden then it is far less likely that rats will take up residence. For that reason it is crucially important that chicken feed is removed every night, spillages are cleaned up and the run is kept in a generally clean and tidy condition.

Controlling Rodents

Having established there was a problem, I quickly got to work researching different ways of controlling our resident rodent population. There were three main options:

• Get a small dog or cat: Small dogs, terriers in particular, will sniff out rat nests and destroy the contents. They latch onto rats with their teeth and effectively shake them to death. Outdoor cats will also have a go at rats, but not as effectively as a terrier. Cats are pretty good for dealing with mice. Unfortunately we don't have a dog or cat and I wasn't going to get one just for the purpose of killing rats.
• Trapping: This involves placing baited traps at strategic points where rat activity has been seen or suspected. The traps need to be somehow protected so that they are not accidentally sprung by other animals. You can get lethal snap traps and non-lethal cage-type traps, which allow you to release the rat elsewhere or otherwise dispatch it. Rats are clever animals and suspicious of anything new in their surroundings. For that reason it might take a few days before they are bold enough to spring the trap.
• Poisoning: This involves placing poison at strategic points where rat activity has been seen or suspected. In common with traps, it will take a few days for the rats to become bold enough to take the bait. Once they've started eating they will return for more and quickly consume a fatal dose. It might take a few days for the poison to act.

Having weighed up the options, I decided that a combination of trapping and poisoning would work most effectively. Speaking to fellow chicken keepers, I think most of them do likewise.

Trapping

I bought half a dozen Victor Easy Set rat traps from Amazon. You should always wear gloves when handling rat traps, so that your scent doesn't get onto them and no nasty microbes get onto your hands.

A Victor rat trap next to the garden shed and feed bins.

I baited the traps with a tiny amount of peanut butter and placed them underneath the chicken loft and beside the shed without setting them. They were left out for a few days for the rats to get used to them. When it was time to use the "live" traps I put the chickens away in their loft for the night and set the traps. The following morning I had a dead rat in each trap. I disposed of the bodies in the incinerator, but it is acceptable to bury them or wrap them in plastic bags and put them in the normal rubbish bin.

I repeated the cycle every evening and slowly but surely the number of rats caught in the traps went down. There are still a few traps in the garden just in case, but I have not caught anything for months.

Traps should always be covered to prevent non-target animals from being caught.

Traps should always be covered, so that non-target animals do not get caught by them.

Poison

In addition to the rat traps I bought four double bait stations and 3 kg of Pest Expert Formula B rat poison. Again, you should always wear gloves when handling the bait stations or poison. The poison should be stored securely somewhere cool and dry. For safety reasons, it should never be used uncovered. The enclosed design of the bait station protects the poison from non-target animals and children. Even so, it is a good idea to position them where they won't be disturbed by anything apart from rats.

Pest Expert Formula B rat poison.

I filled the bait stations with poison and used a permanent marker pen to mark the level of poison in each of them. I them placed them in likely "rat runs" along the garden fence and beside the shed. It took a few days for the level of poison to go down, but once the rats had found the taste for it they ate a lot. Every few days I would walk around and check the bait stations and refill them as necessary.

I also took a few of the small poison throw bags and pushed them underneath the shed with a broom shank.

Bait stations should be positioned on known "rat runs"./

After a month or so, it was apparent that bait was being taken from only one of the bait stations, which was right next to a hole underneath the garden fence. From this observation I concluded that there were no more rats living in the garden and bait was only being taken by a few visiting rats from the adjacent field. That remains the situation today, but I can live with that. Living in the countryside it is unrealistic to expect to get rid of rats entirely.

Bait station and trap next to garden fence.

I should probably mention that it is a good idea to change the brand of rat poison that you use on a regular basis. This helps to prevent the rats developing immunity to any particular brand.

I have never found the body of a poisoned rat, because they all head back into the nearby field to die a few days after taking the poison. If you do find the body of a rat then it must be disposed of properly (e.g. buried, burnt or bagged, as described earlier). If the body was left in the open another animal might come along and eat it, thus being exposed to the poison.

Fried Eggs on Toast

Sometimes it's the simple things in life that give the greatest pleasure.

This morning, it being New Year's Day, I thought I'd treat myself to a proper breakfast of fried eggs on toast.

People often say that eggs laid by your own chickens taste much better than anything you'd get in the shops. You certainly can't get them any fresher, with many of the eggs collected from my chicken loft still being warm after laying. I also get real satisfaction from the fact that my girls have had a happy, healthy and active life. They are pampered pullets, which pay me back with delicious, thick-shelled eggs.

Until recently I didn't realise that most shop bought eggs are at least a week old before they're even put on the shelves. One of the tell tale signs of an old egg is a watery white when you crack it into the frying pan.

Really fresh eggs, like the ones laid by my girls, stand pert in the bottom of the frying pan. The white is more jelly than water, as the proteins are still in perfect condition. The yolks stand proud and bright natural orange.

The trick to frying the perfect egg is to make sure that the oil is hot before you crack the egg into the pan. After a minute or so, tilt the pan and baste the top of the yolk with the pooled hot oil. After only 2 or 3 minutes, depending on personal preference, the egg is done. There is no need to turn the egg over, as doing so risks breaking the yolk.

A quick grind of salt and pepper and there you have it - perfection on toast.

Quick, simple and delicious.