Black Rock hybrid chickens are hardy, productive hens that lay up to 280 eggs a year and have been a very popular choice for both smallholders and backyard poultry keepers. Black Rock hens are bred by crossing two very unique strains of Rhode Island Red cockerels with Barred Plymouth Rock hens which have until now come from the Muirfield hatchery in Scotland. For 40 years, Peter and Margaret Siddons have looked after and improved these strains and have distributed day old chicks all over the UK to distributors who have grown and sold them from this age to point of lay.

Many years ago, a group of scientists in Cambridge discovered that certain characteristics are passed down from parent birds to their sons and not their daughters and vice versa. Some of these characteristics are down colours and markings that can be used to identify male and female chicks when they are hatched. This is a very useful characteristic for commercial or hobby producers of hybrid laying hens, it effectively halves the rearing costs since unwanted cockerels need not be grown on un-necessarily.

Haynes Chicken Manual (Hardback)

The complete step-by-step guide to keeping chickens

by Laurence Beeken (Author)

Publisher: Haynes Publishing Edition Published: 4th Feb 2010 Hardback: 200 pages ISBN-10: 1844257290 ISBN-13: 978-1844257294 Available from: Amazon or via Haynes Online

At one time Call Ducks were known as Decoys and were fed or tethered at the entrance to long traps. Their loud calling would entice wild ducks into the traps which would then be caught for commercial use. Calls have been known in Britain since the 1850's and was one of the first six breeds to be standardised in 1865.

Devon-based charity the British Hen Welfare Trust has just announced a change of name to more accurately reflect its pro-British stance.

Formerly known as the ‘Battery Hen Welfare Trust', the charity re-homes commercial laying hens, educates the public about hen welfare and encourages support for the British egg industry.

I have built a number of different nest boxes over my years as a poultry keeper, some more successful than others. Too small and they won't use them or you will get broken eggs, too big and they won't use them or they will scatter the eggs, too high and they will roost in them, the list goes on. All of them have had red mite take up residence in the cracks at some point and most of them have had broken eggs in them where a clumsy chicken has trodden on a slightly thinner shelled egg or two. Broken eggs can be a real problem in the coop since the birds soon get a taste for them, which leads to chickens breaking and eating eggs, a vice which can be difficult to stop.

With lengthening day light many chickens, turkeys and geese should be approaching peak egg production. Although egg production is related to age - with 35-45 weeks being the optimum time for chickens - it is also related to day length. Around 12 hours of daylight or more is needed for hens to produce eggs at a production rate of 90% (or 9 eggs in 10 days), depending on the breed. Producing eggs at this rate can be stressful for birds, so it is important they receive good nutrition at this time.