IN addition to selling surplus birds at shows, poultry clubs often organize sales and auctions. If you see one being held in the early spring, you can be sure that the majority of birds on offer will be around a year old and in peak condition for breeding or just ready for a long life of egg laying.
I DON'T like using the expression "run before you can walk" as we all have to start somewhere, but in poultry keeping, in particular, it is very easy to get carried away with enthusiasm and end up with a garden full of back-to-back chicken runs, each containing a different breed chosen as a result of the heart ruling the head.
AT our home here in France guinea-fowl, or pintarde, are a common sight around the farms and smallholdings, no doubt due to the fact that they do well on dry, sandy or chalky soils, especially in warm situations and are virtually trouble-free, providing a tasty meal for little if no outlay. They are cheap to keep, finding a great deal of their food naturally and they are more interested in animal food, such as grubs, bugs and insects, rather than vegetable, so the kitchen gardens of which the rural French are so proud are generally quite safe from their unwanted attention.
IN considering your choice of species and systems of management, you need first to be clear about your aims. You may have had a long-time ambition to keep a certain breed of chicken or bantam, in which case your choice is a simple one and the only problem will be finding out where to obtain some stock.
Being both a Yorkshireman, (notoriously tight') and a smallholder, Jeremy Hobson looks at ways of combining the two situations and suggests a few tips.
