Record Egg Sales!!

The Brand New Old Fox Egg Dispensary (Patent Pending)

After much waiting and messing about our egg sales commenced today. Having added some additional decoration to the egg dispensary so that potential customers could see a picture of the egg production operatives and also see a few words to describe their personality, we were ready for action. Katherine and Hannah chose the best spot for display outside the front gate and I pegged the dispensary down to prevent wind damage. Having set things up we retreated to a safe distance so as not to look like we were stalking customers. Katherine went to get ready for her riding lesson and by the time we left the first half dozen eggs had been bought and paid for! I dropped Katherine to her lesson, went to collect Brodie from his friend's house and then went back to collect Katherine. On the way back down the lane we bumped into Allie who stopped us to say that all the eggs were gone and that she had put the money tin in the porch. I was amazed. There was another six eggs spare when we left but Joanna and Hannah had already put those out and they had sold as well! Thirty eggs gone in less than an hour - unbelievable! At £1.50 per half dozen that is a first day profit of £7.50 plus an extra 40p left for no apparent reason. I did attempt over lunch to set the children a task of calculating net profit after costs but there wasn't much enthusiasm, maybe next time if I give them a little more encouragement.
The production operatives must have sensed there was something afoot as this morning I collected five eggs which is a first. Mind you with the amount of special treats that Joanna has been giving them over the last few days I can't say that I am surprised that they have upped their efforts. We used to fight over seconds at dinner time but now that fight is resolved before it starts. The extra portion is now allocated to the chickens before anyone else can get a look in and, in actual fact, I suspect that extra portions may be being deliberately prepared by a certain somebody just to keep the chickens sweet.
Anyway, all in all a very exciting first effort at "farm gate" selling of produce made even more special by a text message received by Joanna from one of the other residents of the lane congratulating us on the quality of the eggs and encouraging us to keep it up! Well worth the effort I would say. All of the proceeds by the way will be going towards more equipment for the chickens and also towards any further "agricultural" endeavours that we may undertake in the future.
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Eggs for sale!

We have decided to sell our hens eggs because they are now consistently producing four each day which is more than we can really get through between the three of us that are here all the time. We did have scrambled eggs on Saturday morning but that only used up six so we still have stacks left. I have had a look at the law regarding such sales and found that, like so many other laws, it is completely over the top. Hens eggs last about four weeks from laying and as a "farm gate" seller we have to put a "use by" date on our eggs so we might need to buy a little stamp which might be fun. You are not allowed to wash the eggs, but they must be clean! You are not allowed to mix large and small eggs in the same box. You also need a reference number from DEFRA which is fair enough. The most idiotic thing however is that you cannot sell in second hand boxes, you have to buy new boxes or get your customers to bring their own second hand ones! We have decided that in order to get around this we will not sell the eggs in boxes but that there may be some old boxes lying around nearby, possibly waiting for the bin men to collect, if you catch my drift... Hopefully DEFRA will not decide to send a SWAT team down in the middle of the night to close down our operation and confiscate our egg producing operatives!

Obviously when selling eggs at the gate there are a few other things to think about. Price was the first debate; I said that £1 per half dozen was fair,Brodie felt that 50p an egg was more like it but in the end of course Joanna told us that free range in the super markets were £1.50 per half dozen so that was what we should charge. The next discussion was how we would collect the money for our egg sales. The children were horrified by the thought of a trust tin where people could simply choose not to leave any money at all or even help themselves to all the money and eggs that were there. They were all for 24 hour armed guards to protect our assets! Eventually we convinced them that it would be fine and hopefully it will be and they will learn that there are more honest people in the world than they yet realise.
Obviously selling eggs requires some method of display and,this being a Mee family venture, nothing simple will suffice so construction has commenced on our all new fangled egg dispensary. Basically this involves attaching a wine case (sorry father we will need another one for the time capsule now. With the lid if possible) to the top of a post so that it stands about four feet from the ground and making a cross shaped stand to stop it falling over. It is probably ridiculously complicated but that never normally stops us. Having drawn a basic plan we got stuck into it yesterday and with the help of Brodie and Katherine, (Brodie showing some excellent sawing,chiselling and sanding skills and Katherine dancing around the garage like a woodland pixie!),we have completed the basic structure and given it a coat of paint. The plan is to give it another coat today and let it dry. I will probably drill some holes in the base so that we can peg it down with some tent pegs just to make sure it doesn't blow over.
We have started work on a poster to sit in the back of the box with a price and also a picture of our four egg production operatives;Sunday Roast, Shelley, Chucky Egg and Biscuit. Next to each picture we are going to put a few words ( if you can believe that looking at the length of this posting) describing each hen in a little more detail. Something like "Biscuit is a Rhode Island Red, very friendly, likes scratching about in the mud, pecking your wellies and making sweet little clucking sounds whenever you go near. Dislikes foxes, rats and queues at the bus stop"

Joanna has just come in to say there is a deer on the front lawn nibbling the herbs! They are Muntjac deer that live wild in the woods and they are very partial to certain domestic garden plants. They particularly like our European Bluebells and chew them all to the ground as soon as they get any foliage on them. Interestingly they do not seem to touch the native Bluebells that are prolific in Bricket Wood. That is food for thought is it not?
I will leave it there for now. Chicken pictures will follow next time as well as the egg dispensary. I have told Katherine that her public is eagerly awaiting a bunting update so she had better get cracking on it next week. The picture at the top is off the ducklings when there were ten on Boxing Day. Very sweet and sadly missed!

And then there were none.

It is now New Years Day and there would be appear to be no ducklings left at all. We let the cat out late last night but then brought him back in because I noticed that mother and three remaining babies were still wandering about by the pond. We figured that maybe there were dead ducklings in the duck house and maybe they didn't want to go back in there. It was too late to investigate so we left it until this morning but now think that there are no ducklings left at all. I have consulted Father and he suggests that next time we build some sort of run so that the ducklings can get out of the water and scrat about but with the safety of a run to protect them from the other wildlife and domestic pets! Sounds like a good idea. We have been here for two years and have not yet seen a batch of ducklings grow beyond a few days. The pond has very steep sides so young ducks and moorhens can only get out by climbing up the wooden ramp which used to lead onto the back lawn which is out of sight of the house so we had assumed that the ducklings and mother were simply relocating elsewhere. It would seem now that they were simply not surviving all the general perils of duck youth. The moorhens are generally more successful and tend to manage to keep one or two young and bring them into adulthood. I have to say that they do seem to be far more aggressive and protective parents than the ducks. This time we have had the ramp coming up onto the front lawn so we have had the great pleasure of seeing the youngsters feeding and playing, and they really do play. But it has also made us realise that they are much more vulnerable than we had previously thought. We will construct some sort of run in time for the spring hatching. It is very sad to see so many young ducky lives end so soon and we are determined to do whatever we can to help them survive. I realise that they are wild ducks and as such we should leave nature to run its course but they are protected as a species so I feel it is only right that we try and protect them a little more to give them a better chance of survival.
There is no bunting update because unfortunately Katherine didn't manage to get any more sewing done as she was far too busy playing treasure hunt around the house with our New Years Eve afternoon visitors.
The girls went home today so we are back to a family of three here. Brodie is missing them so much that he is having to sleep downstairs. Either that or he is just too scared of the ghost that prowls around upstairs at night.... But that is a story for another day or night.