The Bantam That Laid

Digby is our smallest bantam. Raised from an egg by two nearby children, she has lived with us, her brother Geoff, and unrelated hens Maureen and Silvia for a couple of years. I can’t tell you why she’s called Digby because we would probably be sued for defamation by the very significant public figure she is named after – with affection of course.

 A chicken’s propensity to lay eggs is dependent on light, and to a lesser extent warmth. Which is why chickens lay eggs from Spring to Autumn but not in winter. Winter is when they add feathers and stop laying. In Spring they moult and start laying.

We may be on our way to a fortune because since the snow and ice dropped on us like saturation bombing from the arctic, Digby has moulted and been popping eggs like a sten gun. All this in the dark and biting cold.

She hasn’t been seen outside (bantams have very short legs; the snow is very deep). So she’s in there somewhere, pushing hard. 

Her genes must be worth a lot, so once this has all melted I think we’ll take her along to Dragons Den and see if we can get a couple of mill to develop cold weather egg layers.

Defra is chasing us for the completed sheep and goat census. I become incandescent with rage that people are being paid by me to count all the sheep in the country. They need to know where they all were, what their numbers were, what their owners do for a living, and much more, as at December 1^st last year. Which means our Shetlands don’t count, having arrived on December 6^th. So provided the previous owner filled in her forms correctly, Defra think they live in Robertsbridge. If she didn’t, then they don’t exist. And who gives a toss?

Now logs. I’ve been quite good holding back on my OCD re logs until 11 days into the new year. But I can’t keep this in any longer. We have now emptied log shed number two (of three), and we’ve done that rather earlier than I had hoped in my previous calculations as to how many logs we have, and how many we use a day. I had calculated bin 2 would last to the end of January. The last logs are in the house and will last until January 15^th. So two weeks early. This causes me great anxiety and I think I need help.