welcome to my blog - day one

Hello and welcome to my blog, day one.
THIS MORNING'S EGG COUNT - 2 (probably on account of torrential rain which the girls don't really like)
We were first inspired to become chicken keepers by our good friends Clive and Hazel who live up the road.
Clive has recently retired but he used to work for DEFRA, he was your original 'Man from the Min of Ag' and there is not a lot he doesn't know about farm animals, chickens included. Hence, we have back up in the event of any hen emergencies of which there have been several in the past.
We have now been chicken keepers for two years and during that time there have been very few occasions when we have had to resort to buying 'yucky shop eggs' because of course, the main reasons for keeping chickens (apart from the comedy factor) are they eat most of your non meat kitchen scraps, do the weeding for you, munch slugs and produce beautiful, fresh eggs.
Any of you familiar with chickens will know they all have their own personalities, albeit in varying degrees of stupidity and can be rather endearing.
In our household, we currently have five chickens, two springer spaniels, two fluffy cats, two adult sons, two aged parents and us. There had been a mouse but it's lifeless body was discovered on the lounge floor yesterday morning Comforting to know the cats are earning their keep but slightly upsetting as I actually quite like mice However, as my wise husband explained, I possibly wouldn't like them so much if one had bitten through an electric cable, started a fire and burnt the house down - point taken. Hope you can join me tommorrow when I'll introduce you to the girls (our term of endearment for the chickens).