Chickens # 7 - New stock imminent!

With the general busyness of work and life we haven't been able to put the plan of buying day old chicks and raising them to POL into practice yet.  However, we do need to get more stock urgently - Jo has been really successful at farm-gate sales and I could definately sell more at work; to solve the problem in the short-term I have ordered 10 more hybrid Light Sussex from Stewart at www.salspurebreedpoultryinwales.co.uk/ and I can pick them up on the 8th September.  They'll be around 16 weeks old at that point, and based on our current 6 chickens, it will take another 4 weeks or so before they start to lay regularly & a bit longer before they get really productive.

So, by mid-October we should be at a pretty decent production level!  Typically our little flock produces 5 eggs between the 6 hens, so if we assume the same level of productivity we should achieve:

16 hens x (5/6) eggs per day x 7 days per week = 93 eggs per week

That will leave around 14 half-dozens for sale and 9 eggs for use at home.  Our sales target will be 10 boxes for 'in-work' sale and 4 boxes for 'farm-gate' sale.  If we can make this level work, we'll step up to a higher level.  You can keep up to 50 chickens without any kind of registration  http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Environmentandgreenerliving/Smallholders/DG_189309 so I expect that will be the next level for us.  Looking forward to it!