BlueTheBrahma’s thread!

[WingItRanch]

View attachment 4113101I saw this picture of the DCM pullet and thought she looked like a mole. So I think that’s what I’m naming her, Mole. I’m going with themes for the boys, girls can be named randomly.

The cockerel is (the Duke of) Wellington, opposing Napoleon from the French line. If I get another DCM cockerel he will be (Admiral Lord) Nelson.

She does look like a mole!

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

I’ve got some very unfortunate news my friends.
The environmental agency came round the allotments today and spoke to the man we all rent them through (I’ll pretend he’s called Garry for his privacy), who was not eager to cooperate with them as he has been on these allotments without issue since the 70s/80s. But they had had complaints about the noise created by everyone’s cockbirds.
Garry later got a call with a notice that all cocks and cockerels must be removed from the allotments within a fortnight or a DEFRA will be sent out to cull them.

So all the boys, Blue (Brahma), Freddy (Barry’s nephew), Slash (Polish), Napoleon (Blue Copper Marans), Flash (Olive Egger), Ezekiel & Woody the silkies and the welsummers are all being rehomed tomorrow, going to the same home Loki was given to. I’m still working out what hens to send to best preserve the lines but keep up our egg numbers for selling for eating. But it’s going to greatly damage the money we would have gotten this year from selling hatching eggs.

But what’s worse, the landlords happened to send a letter for the rent bill, with it a complain from the council about the keeping of Poultry so close to houses. The landlords permitted all chickens back when Garry started many years ago, but have been pressured to change policy, even though they are private allotments not ran by the council.

So a phone call tomorrow will decide whether even the hens can stay. There are hundreds of chickens between us all and they’ll all have to go if we cannot get permission for at least the hens.

What annoys me most is that all the houses were built after the allotments, so it’s not really our fault the new builds were crammed in all available space without warning the buyers about chickens, which had been there for decades.

If they are not rehomed the government is willing to pay (with public money) to send a team to cull all the chickens. I guess that’s why they’ve just raised road tax by 300%.

I do appreciate the complains made as we all know how noisy Roos can be, but I just feel better communication between all parties could have reached a less devastating agreement.

So all breeding projects are suspended for likely a couple of years, until I hopefully can afford my own land. I’ll still be on the treads, and I’ll let you know the fate of the girls soon.

Thanks for reading my little rant.

 

[WingItRanch]

Oh no. I'm so sorry. That's horrible that they can just change the rules after being established for that long. I'm a big fan of the show Clarkson Farm and it seems like there's always some sort of red tape to prevent people from trying to live a rural lifestyle.

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

Oh no. I'm so sorry. That's horrible that they can just change the rules after being established for that long. I'm a big fan of the show Clarkson Farm and it seems like there's always some sort of red tape to prevent people from trying to live a rural lifestyle.

I genuinely encourage anyone in any country to watch Clarkson’s farm, it does more for awareness of the seeming attack on British Agriculture than any amount of government campaign has. He’s a millionaire and can’t turn a profit from the farm, how is everyone else going to cope!

I’m from farming families but the farms were already sold off before I was really aware of any of this, and before I could step in. I kind if hoped by me bringing livestock back to the family I could preserve and regrow that heritage, but there’s just so many barriers now.

If war breaks out and we can’t rely on trade, seventy million people on this island will simply sit and starve because all the productive land has been converted and no one knows how to grow food!