An update: Maggot cocoons.

The chickens are doing well. 6 are laying every day and, our broody, caroline is up to no good again! It is getting tempting to get her some fertilised eggs, but this summer isn't the right time. We already have 7 chickens! Maybe when we have to increase stock again we will try letting her have some chicks since she is so keen!

The local fishing shop was closing down yesterday and gave us a bag of maggot cocoons free. They are a bit smelly, but the chickens think they are lovely!

Cadburys creme egg cupcakes

What to do with so many eggs? Well, baking! I do love baking and so I thought I would share some ideas for using fresh eggs.

Starting with some of these! 3 fresh eggs from our ladies. I weighed these and then measured out the same weight (185g) of butter, self-raising flour and caster sugar.



Using this beast, I creamed the butter and sugar then incorporated the eggs and flour. I finalled added 100g melted dark 70% chocolate.



The kitchenaid is brillant at creaming the butter and sugar and gives a very light cake batter.



I divided the mixture into 12 using a muffin tray. This makes quite large cupcakes.



I bake my cupcakes on quite a low setting (165 degrees C fan oven) with a tray of water at the bottom of the oven. This helps to get a nice soft finish to the cakes.



18 minutes is a good estimate of the time, but this batch took 2 minutes extra.



Now for the topping; the secret ingredient - condensed milk! I got the inspiration for these cakes from a friend who had made some similar cakes. She said she had used the condensed milk in the icing and, I have to admit, it gave a really nice flavour and links well to the filling of cadburys creme eggs. I added 100g of condensed milk to the icing mixture.



I used the kitchenaid to make the icing also. Nice and fluffy!



I split the icing into 2 batches and coloured half with an eye-yolk yellow food colouring. I used 250g of butter and 500g of icing sugar and this made enough to cover about 24 cupcakes. Buttercream keeps really well in the fridge though so I will save the leftover icing and make another batch later in the week.



The 2nd secret ingredient real mini cadburys creme eggs!



By now the cakes were ready to come out of the oven.



After letting the cakes cool slightly I pushed a mini egg into each cake.



I piped the cream-coloured buttercream around the edge of the cake...



...and smoothed it with a spatula.



I piped the egg yolk centre in a similar way.



Here are the finished cakes.



Cut down the centre you can see the mini egg inside.



A close-up.

A little bit of interior (and exterior) design

To ensure our little group are comfortable we thought it would be a good idea to extend the length of the perch in chicken coop. The original perch was about about 4ft long. 5 of the girls have been perching happily together on this since the new ladies were introduced. Broody Caroline has been in one of the nesting boxes and dusty has been either sleeping on the floor or in the other nestbox. We are not sure why it is always her on the floor; perhaps she is the bottom end of the pecking order. She certainly can perch has we have seen her do this in the day.

Here Ant is installing the new perch; it is just over 6ft.



We created a hanging perch with the original coop perch. A chicken swing!



The other good news is that we found this cream 49g egg. That means that Blossom must had laid! It is definately not a Snowy egg as hers are pure white in colour and she has laid too; infact she was just releasing the egg as I opened the nestbox this afternoon. I am not sure who was most shocked, me or her!



Here is Blossom. 18 weeks old and laid her first egg! Blossom is a Tiffany green and so should lay green eggs. This first egg is most definately cream though so I shall research to whether her eggs may change colour or they will stay cream.

A few pictures of the new girls

A week has passed since we introduced the new girls to our flock. The first evening I had to place them into the coop and for the next 3 to 4 days they rarely came out. I think the bigger chucks were patrolling the outside run and scaring them in. Saying this, we haven't had any bad pecking or fighting so this is good.

By Thursday the new girls were alot more confident and everything seemed harmonious. All the chickens are roaming around the run together as a nice little group. All except one that is! Caroline has become broody and is sitting in the nestbox. We have no cockeral so she won't be having any babies, but I have read that sometimes the broody behaviour can be so strong that the hen doesn't get up to eat and drink. She could then become ill through dehydration. We are having to turf her out to ensure she is drinking and we are collecting the eggs regularly. As soon as they are laid she is straight on top of them.

The weather has been particularly bad these last few days and the run is quite waterlogged. It doesn't seem to bother the chickens though. They have been wading through the puddles. There are plenty of places they can stand out of the water and the house is nice and dry. Afterall, if it really upset them they would just stay in the house.

Since the new girls are out and about I have been able to get a few more photos.

Blossom



We decided on a name. Meet Dusty!



Dusty is massive compared to Blossom, but Blossom's comb suggests she is more developed.



Blossom again.



Finally, Noodles.

Introducing some new girls to our flock

Since you can never have too many eggs we decided to get 3 more girls. The original idea was the half dozen, but then 7 seemed tempting so 3 more it was. Again we bought our chickens from happychicks (www.happychicks.co.uk). Sarah has a really great choice of birds and a lovely set up with happy chicks (excuse the pun!).

Here are some photos of our original girls:

Caroline.



Nugget



Snowny with her impressive comb!



Hiding away in the house are the new babies. Blossom (white) is a Tiffany green who should lay green-shelled eggs and Noodles (black and white) is a Sussex.



Blossom seems to have quite a well developed comb. They are 16 weeks old point of lay, but certainly seem further forward than our original chickens. This, coupled with the approaching spring, should hopefully mean they come into lay quite quickly.



We also have a bluebelle/blue ranger who is currently un-named. Favourite suggestions include dusty and damson. Decision to be made shortly.

Double-yolkers

This week one of our chickens laid a giant egg.



In comparison to our usual 50-60g eggs this one was a whopping 83g!



We have been told that hens that have just come into lay can lay double-yolk eggs. This happens because 2 yolks are produced at once from the chicken's ovaries and both get incorporated into the developing egg. This is quite rare (1/1000 eggs), but is most common in younger hens. Younger hen's hormonal systems are still settling down and this is one of the possible affects. The hen laying the egg is is the major stimulus involved in triggering the hen's hormonal systems to produce the ovulation hormone (called LH, which is the same hormone that triggers ovulation in humans). The control mechanisms for this are not yet fully understood, but it is believed that when this doesn't happen properly you can end up with another yolk being released before an egg is laid; hence the double-yolk egg. Double-yolk eggs are similar to how non-identical twins happen in humans, but twin chicks is very unlikely to be possible due to the space restriction within the shell. In our case, this is totally impossible as we don't have a rooster so none of our eggs are fertilised.

Here is our double yolker, which Ant enjoyed poached this morning!



As a comparison a standard single-yolk egg from our chucks.