Amidst the worry of housing our birds for another two months we have to report that egg production is slowly rising as the daylight hours slowly increase too. From one to two eggs a day a couple of weeks back, we are now getting anything from two to five!! And the one good thing about the birds being inside all day is that they cannot wander all over the smallholding to lay their eggs, meaning that Jack does not have to spend her mornings climbing hay and straw bales looking for them. She misses that a lot - NOT!!! Funnily enough, all the eggs are being laid in the same nest box every day, with competition to get there first extremely rife!! Queenie in particular makes such a huge noise if she cannot get in when she wants. The box is actually big enough for a good four to five birds to get in at once but of course, they all want to lay in exactly the same spot!! Naturally!!! Bramble here is not yet back in lay – she is our oldest chicken although at six and a half she potentially has a few years left in her yet. When she does lay she lays huge whopping pale eggs, although they can get a tad mucky. This is because three years ago she seemed to develop a hernia (where the intestines break through the muscle wall) which left her with a saggy back end that sticks out below her vent. As such, when she poos, the poo can get stuck on the feathers of the saggy bit which then means any eggs she lays can get poo on them too. Every few weeks we give her a jolly good clean and cut the feathers back so that they are less likely to get poo caught up in them. It gives poor Bramble a bit of a bare bum but she does not seem to mind and despite her ungainly rear end, she is actually very healthy and a very nice looking bird still!! We were once told that she is a fabulous example of her breed, a Light Sussex - (the person concerned was not given an opportunity to look at her from behind!!!!).