Livestock – Sustainable Life Birmingham

Building a Warre Hive Quilt Box (BEES)

The weather is rapidly cooling and we’ve had a fair few frosty nights but our warre hive set up did not come with a quilt box. We were concerned.

What is a Quilt Box?

A quilt box is a separate section that fits onto your warre hive above the honey boxes and below the roof. It is designed to act like a quilt layer on your hive, keeping the warmth generated by the bees inside the hive and reducing the amount of heat that escapes through the roof. A warre hive is perfectly designed to allow the bees to regulate their temperature on their own as it has similar dimensions to a natural hive, with the addition of the quilt box the hive is quite sustainable over winter with minimum intervention. Indeed, one of the warre hives most redeeming qualities is that you should not need to barely intervene at all, causing the bees significantly less trauma.

Is wasn’t last minute.

I actually ordered a separate warre quilt box last year, around June. It took a long time to dispatch, but I was patient. It never arrived. After a long wait I then had to endure another long wait to get my money back. I then let the task slip my mind for a couple of months.

After a while, as the days got shorter, I remembered I still needed one and ordered another one. I waited. It was dispatched. It never arrived.

This was getting ridiculous. After having a look around online it seemed that it was the same person I tried to order from last time. Making phantom quilt boxes and having the cheek to try to delay my refund or replacement with “can I get your address and Ill look into that” followed by deafening silence. Meanwhile my bees are potentially suffering. As it turns out, I couldn’t find a single other person who makes these quilt boxes, it’s all the same guy.

Right, time to take matters into my own hands. As soon as Christmas is over and everyone opens up the shops again.

Sawmill to the Rescue

We have a great sawmill nearby to us. They have a good supply and some good staff members who know what they are doing. They will also cut up your wood for you at no extra charge – great news for me because I suck at sawing in a straight line. So at the next opportunity I sent my other half over there to pick me up a plank of wood. Specifically a plank of cedar wood, cut to specific dimensions with a certain maximum depth and width.

Huzzah! They had exactly the right plank of red cedar (Thuja) hidden away in the off-cuts section. This guy also knew his stuff and assured my partner that cedar really was the only way to go for a bee hive…

Thuja

Thuja wood is commonly referred to as Red Cedar. It’s not really a Cedar, but let’s not digress. The reason why Thuja is so GOOD for beehives is because it is naturally weather resistant and therefore does not require treating to be able to sit outside for it’s lifetime. That means less chemicals and happier bees! Apparently it’s also the material of choice for yurt floors for this same reason. To further ensure the minimum of chemicals in my beehive I secured the cuts together with screws – refraining from using the tempting wood glue – just in case.

Hessian & Sawdust

It also happened that I had a few damaged hessian sacks in my shed – perfect for a quilt box! The base of the quilt box is a piece of hessian stretched out and stapled to the box frame. This allows air to flow through the quilt box but still keeps it quite separate. The hessian I used for this box has some printed stuff on it – ideally you don’t want this either and for other people’s hives I would not use this particular off-cut. However, I wasn’t too worried about this minimal contamination for my own in this instance (for no particular reason). The box is then filled with 50-100mm of untreated, unscented sawdust that sits on top of the hessian layer. Boy was this ever hard to find. It’s not as simple as nipping to a pet shop because it’s all treated and scented now. It has to be clean, dry and unadulterated.

How to Tell if your Hen is Broody

For those of us that don’t have the inclination to buy an incubator and brooder and spend months rearing chicks by hand ourselves every day while loosing a substantial amount of space to the brooder in our homes, there is an all new invention: The Broody Hen.

Okay so it’s not so new, but it is a rare and beautiful find to possess. I figuritively cry when I see forum posts about broody hens when the owner just doesn’t want thier hen to go broody. Of course, I understand in smallscale operations you just want a couple of egg layers and no fuss, but don’t break your broody hen – give her to someone who really needs a broody prone hen and swap her for an egg laying machine. Not only is it kinder to the hen, it’s also vital for many natural method chicken owners. Personally not only do I find it MUCH easier to get a broody hen to rear your chickens, but I can’t stand the fact that many breeds of chicken now simply do not go broody, it’s been specifically bred out of them to ensure relentless egg laying machines for your supermarket eggs. If we didn’t incubate them, they would be in serious trouble as it’s quite rare for them to get broody and raise chicks naturally. Surely that isn’t something we should be encouraging just for our own convenience?

I digress…

Clear Signs you have a broody hen

1. You hardley ever see her outside anymore
This is a big one. If your hen is outside all day – the eggs are not being incubated. Eggs can be left without a hen sitting on them for approximately half an hour maximum before you start to loose eggs. Therefore, during brooding the hen has a strong urge to make sure they do not get off those eggs except to feed, drink and poop. For the first few days this can mean they don’t get up at all – as if they are making absolutely sure the ball is rolling before they risk anything. If you don’t think your hen has budged an inch for a couple of days, you may wish to consider picking her up off the nest and plopping her down by the food to encourage her to eat and drink before she sits down again.

2. Her poop is big and smelly
Because she isn’t eating and drinking throughout the day she also isn’t pooping regularly. This means when she does get up off the nest she has a nice big poop before she get’s back to work. All that extra stored up poop is going to be pretty ripe and much larger than her regular poops.

3. She has stopped laying eggs
Sometimes, she will brood even with no eggs underneath her! These are what I refer to as “Hardcore broodies”. But whether she has enough eggs or not, she will stop laying if she wants to sit and brood. If she still hasn’t “set” try adding some extra eggs into the nest box as it may be she doesn’t have the right number for what she wants to brood. Unless she is an old bird (4 years ish for most breeds to hit ‘menopause’ up to 7 years in some cases), not laying eggs is a good indicator that she has decided to try to brood.

4. She makes the “Broody noise”
I made a little video of an example of a broody noise from quite a tame broody hen which you can watch below. Basically, while she is sitting on the nest if you go anywear near her she will make a gutteral warning noise telling you to stay away from her and her eggs. The severity of this can vary depending on the hen, broodier breeds like maran and maran hybrid types can get quite upset puffing up to increase thier size, pecking at you and being very noisy! Your tamest most gentle hen can suddenly turn into a viscious rapter ready to eat you alive.

Video not working? Use the direct link instead and click here.

5. Missing breast feathers
In order to get her lovely hormone elevated hot skin on the eggs to transfer her body heat more effectively, the hen will often pluck a few chest feather out (little downy ones). She will then use these to line her nest for extra insulation. What a clever mommy! Seeing breast feathers in nest boxes is a great indication someone in the flock is getting ready to brood.

Worries/Concerns/FAQ

Q. My Hen refuses to eat/drink what should I do?

A. I have had this happen once, during the first week or so of brooding. Even picking her up off the nest did not deter her, she would storm right back to the eggs immediately. The brooding was strong in this one! My solution was to bring the food and water to her. I made sure they were both within reach from the nest if she stretched out her neck, she seemed happy with this solution as it meant she could have a drink and didnt have to leave her precious eggs uncovered. After a week she calmed down and fed/drank/pooped off the nest and I moved the food and water further away. If you have to do this, keep an eye out for pooping on the nest, a hazard caused by the hen’s unwillingness to get off the nest which can kill eggs.

Q. My hen is showing signs of broodiness but isn’t staying on the eggs enough. What is going on?

A. Your hen is thinking about brooding but something isn’t quite right yet. Sometimes I never figure out what it is! It could be not enough eggs, not dark enough, not private enough, not the right size nest area, the weather turned a bit too cold, she doesn’t feel safe there, it’s just not her favourite place to nest or her breed is ‘easily broken’ i.e. a commercial chicken breed that likely will never brood. Good luck!

Make your Own Chicken Nest Boxes

It’s easy to make your own chicken nest boxes out of almost anything. If you have a place that’s sheltered from wind and rain for your chickens, like a roofed run or polytunnel then you don’t need to spend a fortune on nest boxes or hutches. Assuming you already have a hutch where the hcickens will sleep, you can pop nest boxes anywhere off the ground and almost any box type object will do. If you have a broody hen, you can suddenly find yourself without the use of a selection of nest boxes and a hutch and these extra nest boxes may be just what you need in a hurry.

What makes a good nest box?

dark
no breezey gaps – fully sheltered from the wind (unless you don’t want any broodies but we like to encourage ours to go broody)
non slippy surface Or straw for grip if it is a bit slippy
Removable top so you can extract broody hens if you need to relocate them.
Easy access for the chickens and for you when you collect eggs
Dry/waterproof
Big enough for your chickens but small enough to be “safe” feeling. Bantams require very little space, but medium and large fowl will need at least 25cm high and as wide/long as possible. Larger is better because it will be too late to change the nest box if you find your chickens are a bit awkward trying to get in and out.

Wooden Boxes
Can be costly or require specific and accurate tools to construct properly. Wood may be purchased or salvaged but salvaged wood will be harder to turn into nest boxes.

Metal Buckets

Can be costly if purchased. Will require stableising on the bottom. Metal can get too hot or too cold with british weather.

Plastic Tubs

Can be costly depeding on wher eyou shop. Can be easily salvaged from skips and require little modification. Can be too bright – will need a coat of paint.

My Nest Boxes

I chose plastic tubs from the shop for my nest boxes. I measured up the space I had on the top of the main hutch and got appropriately sized tubs for £5 each. Then I cut a hole in the front of the the tub (one of the shortest sides) big enough so a chicken could comfortably get through (I have large fowl so this required some testing). Then painted the outside to block light coming in and let it dry. Add a bit of straw, place somewhere sheltered and viola, chickens are very happy with thier new choice of nest boxes.

If they look a bit confused, pop an egg into each one and sit the chickens next to the boxes so they can see. They will soon work it out!

What does a Fertilised Egg look Like?

We now officially have fertilised eggs! When you have a Rooster in the mix, it’s hard not to treat every little difference in your eggs with enthusiasm and optimism. I got excited over every little speck on the eggs thinking it might be fertilised. It’s important to note that blood spots on the egg are normal but not an indication of a fertilised egg contrary to popular belief.

Think about it, you see those blood spots on store bought eggs – where not a single rooster is found so it’s physically impossible for any of those eggs to be fertilised.

I took a picture of our eggs today so you can see our clear fertilised egg. There were actually a couple in the mix but there is one very clear example of what a fertilised ovum looks like.

Can you spot the fertilised egg?

Make sure you also remember that the ovum looks like a small white speck on the yolk, so it’s the larger, circles we are looking for here.

F for fertilised egg!

Saving egg shells

Egg shells: whether you have chickens or not chances are you get through quite a few eggs in your household. Don’t throw those egg shells away though! Egg shells have good stuff like calcium in them which you or a friend may find very useful!

I grind up my egg shells and portion them out into small resealable bags For my chickens, as giving them back the calcium helps them create new eggs again!

Bear in mind – don’t give chickens whole eggs to eat, or you will teach them to eat Thier own eggs.

But it’s not just chickens that benefit from egg shells, here are a few more ideas for reusing egg shells:

If you keep snails in a fish tank (to eat algae) or pond, try adding some crushed egg shells when they have baby snails. The calcium supplement of egg shells will help the baby snails to grow big and hard shells and protect them from fish as they grow up.
add egg shells to chicken feed as an extra supplement to Thier existing diet.
Instead of using salt which can harm plants, sprinkle egg shells instead (crushed) and this will also keep snails and slugs away due to the sharp edges.
Add the egg shells to your compost as they are rich in good nutrients to help your plants.

How and When to Cut your Chicken Flight Feathers

For those of you with an open top run, the problem of maintaining flightless birds may suddenly rear it’s head when you find yourself confronted with an escaped chicken. Chickens do not fly very high, but with flight feathers they can get over a decent sized fence and leave themselves open to predators.

To remedy this you need to reduce tier flight capability by cutting their primary feathers on ONE wing.

Check your chicken’s wings, if it looks like the diagram below it’s time to cut the feathers.

Before you start cutting, check the feathers to make sure they are not still growing. There will be blood in the feathers if this is the case. Do NOT cut growing feathers.
DO NOT pull out the feathers – the chicken will naturally grow new ones. Cutting the feathers allow them to stay flightless for longer and not cause any harm to the chicken.
Extend the chicken wing outwards to view the primary flight feathers (the first ten feathers from the end of the wing as shown to be cut in the diagram above).
Cut around 50% of the feather length off with scissors or nail clippers on ONE wing only. Cutting both wings will defeat the purpose of this. The idea is to unbalance the bird to prevent flight.
If you find this doesn’t solve the problem (your bird is particularly adept at flight) cut the feather back more so that the cut is closer to the feathers above.
The feathers will be replaced after a malt which is typically once a year so you will need to redo this every so often.
Cutting flight feathers prevents the chickens from not only escaping but also from getting into trouble with a predator.

How I Created my First Home Aquaponics System

After struggling for a long time with how to keep my fish tank as clean as possible (with as little effort as possible) and failing miserably I finally discovered aquaponics – and I wanted it. This system is so special it covers looking after fish, upcycling materials and growing your own food! The problem was most aquaponics systems costs hundreds of pounds and I had about a tenner to spare, if that.

I was not to be deterred however, I wanted one, so I was going to figure out how to build my own. I already had a small fish tank with a terrible water filter that dribbled out water at best and needed changing every week. I wanted to convert this into a self cleaning system that also provided food.

How Aquaponics Works

Aquaponics is amazingly simple really. All you need is a pump to pump the water from the fish tank to a tray with various sized filtering rocks in it. Here you plant a bunch of cress seeds (or even lettuce) on top of the rocks. The idea is the plants use the fish poo and turn it into nutrients to grow. Then, the water needs to be directed back down either into a second tray or into the fish tank again. The falling water being a bit cleaner than before and oxidizing the tank.

Cost to DO:

If you already have fish and a fish pump: £0
If you do not have a pump : £10 +costs of tank and fish according to your requirements.

Our zebra fish are around £7 each, snails to eat algae are 75p each (because our zebra fish are in cold water) and the tank was free from friends (you can also scour freecycle and supermarket adverts). While we did also get a free pump it broke within a few days and we had to purchase a new one – we got the cheapest one around which was £10 from our local pet store. Since we are improving the flow capability of this pump anyway a cheap one will be sufficient.

Equipment:

Glue/Glue Gun/Super Glue
Knife/Scissors
Plastic tray – such as those from supermarket bread/pastry products
Plastic tubes (we used kids toy tubes from a pirate bed – they were the perfect fit for the pump attachment!)
Gravel of different sizes (taken from the original filter and replacement filters and the fish tank gravel)
A couple of small bottles (those little innocent smoothie bottles work great)
A water pump (taken from the original filter). You can purchase a pump on its own but it’s actually cheaper to just buy the cheapest tank filter instead and get the extra gravel this way as a bonus.

Method:

First of all before we begin, I would like to let you know that the aquaponics system isn’t the one I first built. The one I will be teaching you to make today is our Aquaponics Mark II system.

The first one looked like this:

There were however several problems with this design that only emerged afterwards including:

Not enough space for cress – it grows hard and fast and we want more!
Roots clogged up holes
Holes were leaky
Fish filter pump was not enclosed enough

So we decided to create Aquaponics Mark II and significantly improved upon it’s design with some rather intuitive solutions if I do say so myself.

Step One

Gather together your materials including plastic tray (I prefer see through to maximise light access), plastic tubing, scissors, and glue (i used a glue gun before but ran out of sticks so used super glue this time).

Cut the tube into two sections: 1 long one to fit from the pump to the fish tank lid, and one short one to fit from the fish tank lid to just above the water level of the tank. The long tube will be your water out section and the short one will direct the water back in.

Step Two

Line up the plastic tray against your fish tank lid. Later on it will be glued into place but not now (just in case something goes wrong). Mark out where you want your tubes to go so that they go through the existing holes in the fish tank lid. I placed my output tube on the right hand side (so that the pump will be at the side of the tank and the power cable is closest to the wall socket). The shorter input tube I placed at the back middle of the lid/tray.

Put a hole through the marks and ease the tubes in, glue in place inside the plastic tray so that water can’t leak out (you can use bath sealant I guess if you have some spare). Allow to dry thoroughly before exposing to water.

Step Three

Take your small plastic bottle and check the water pump you have will fit inside it. The pump should be easy to remove from the fish filter and won’t require any tomfoolery. For my filter I found it fit easily with plenty of room into an innocent smoothie bottle.

Get your knife/scissors and score thin line holes at 90 degree points at the base of the bottle like in the picture above. You don’t need to widen these holes this will be plenty for the water to get into without endangering small fish.

Step Four

Remove the lid of the bottle and make a hole in the middle. Thread the long tube attached to the tray through this hole. Do not glue it in place (we want to minimise the use of glue where possible both for the fish and for the sake of easy removal and replacement of parts).

Cut the Bottle in half above the pump and slot the pump inside. There should be plenty of breathing room in there.

Cut a line hole in the top of the bottle and thread the wire through it (since it is attached to a pump at one end and a plug at the other, you need to cut a line to thread it through not just a hole for the wire). Do not seal the top of the bottle into the base yet – attach the long output tube to the pump first threaded through the open bottle top. Then screw the bottle top to the lid on the tube and finally slot the top half of the bottle inside the bottom half of the bottle so that the pump is covered and cannot trap fish.

Step Five

Secure the plastic tray to the fish tank lid with glue in the corners. If using super glue you will need to sit around for a long time. A glue gun is much faster to dry. When it is dry, place the system into the fish tank and close the lid in place. Check that the short tube is suspended inside the fish tank above the water level and that the pump bottle fills with water and is weighed down sufficiently.

Now is the time to check your system works before progressing further. It should all work fine but if your holes are too small, or too big you may have water flow problems or leaks and now is the time to fix those before finishing the system. Thankfully ours did not have leaks and had excellent water flow, yay! Remember we had a piddly slow water pump? Not anymore! Thanks to the vastly superior filter system the water flow was much better, some pre-built fish water filters are just designed very badly. Time to move on…

Step Six

In this design we also created a removable tube protection system that acted as an additional filter. This device will use the bio sponge found in your old fish filter providing a third method of cleaning the water. This sponge needs regular cleaning, so its important it’s not fixed into place – which means a tricky problem to solve for our aquaponics system. We found in our Aquaponics Mark I system, placing the sponge into the tube meant daily cleaning required and a vastly reduced water flow so this time we went for something a bit more daring.

Take your second small bottle and cut the top off. Then cut a small rectangle (smaller than the bio sponge you have) into the bottom side of the bottle.

Then with the bottom half of the bottle cut a thin strip off the top so it makes a circle like this.

Slot the strip of plastic into the base of the top half of the bottle so that it covers the rectangular hole you created. You should find the plastic bends inwards a bit creating a gap as the plastic ring is slightly bigger than the bottle top half. This is great and just what we need to get water through the sponge so align this inward bend so that it is behind the rectangular hole you created.

Then place the sponge between the plastic like above. It will be clamped in to place by the plastic strip but still allow water to pass through the sponge. Your tube protection device can now be sat on the plastic tray around the shorter tube hole. This will help stop roots clogging up the tube and provide an extra filter for the water exiting the system. Not all of the water will go through the sponge but it will capture a lot. It does not need anything to weigh it down – it will be heavy enough and the water flow won’t disturb it.

When the sponge gets brown – rinse it under a tap and then replace it. Turn the bottle top periodically to sever ambitious roots heading for your tube hole.

Step Seven

Fill the tray with your smallest gravel from the filter, then the second smallest, then the biggest and finally with the gravel from the bottom of your fish tank (after you have cleaned it all). This creates several layers of filtration. Make sure the level of the gravel is higher than the stable water level when the pump is on to help prevent seed movement.

Finally, scatter some cress seeds on the gravel, put your fish tank by a window and turn on the pump. Check the water flow is still good to ensure sufficient oxidisation of the water for the fish. Wait 3-6 days and eat the resulting cress – plant more on top and repeat the process!

If you do not have a spare window you can get a special growing LED bulb plate to fix above your fish tank but this will cost around £20.

Congratulations, you are finished!

Great job on getting this far, you now have your own aquaponics system that will/is:

Oxidise your water
Provide a multi-filtration system by: Plants, Gravel layers and Bio Sponge
Provide quick and easy to grow healthy food to snack on and use in salads (the kids will LOVE this!)
Make happier healthier fish
Reduced cleaning for your fish tank required (deep clean once a month if the water starts going green and consider adding one or two water snails).
An amazing self sufficient system you didn’t pay £400 for.

In a few days your tray will look something like this one did (picture from Aquaponics Mark I):

Warning: Acorns as Chicken Feed

Having just got two big healthy chickens my partner and I have been looking at low cost ways to supplement their pellet feed. This means compiling big lists of poisonous foods and foods that are okay. It’s actually quite complicated and lots of foods that are okay for us are actually poisonous for chickens including nettles and parsley! We now make it a habit of researching any spare scraps we have properly before giving them to the chickens to ensure we are not harming them in any way. I will post a growing list of foods that are poisonous to chickens shortly that I will update as I learn more.

Now I am pretty thorough when it comes to my research, I do not do anything by half. Not everyone is as keen on this side of things and tends to jump on ideas as soon as they see them however. My partner Alan saw a long and well established blog called Living the Frugal Life where the author had become quite excited about feeding his chickens Acorns in abundant amounts to cut down feeding costs. The problem was that he mentioned at no point how to remove their TOXINS and actually feeds his chickens raw crushed acorns. This sent alarm bells ringing in my head as I was sure I had seen somewhere previously that Acorns were poisonous to Poultry because of the Tanins in them – the same reason they are toxic to us. Now chickens have delicate and simple digestive systems, if pretty much nearly everything is toxic to them, surely Acorns would not be so good for them either? I found a few lesser blogs that claimed they were okay and a few that also claimed it was poisonous. Who was right?

It was then I came across this blog post: Acorns: Toxic Feed for Poultry which is not only an experienced homesteading blog it also contains the facts and maths behind Acorn Toxicity!

Now which blog post am I going to trust? The one that simply says ” I did it and they haven’t died” or the one that says “scientific studies show not to and here is my source of information”.

If I could, I would quote the entire blog post from Woodridge Homestead. It’s basically a pure block of useful knowledge. But let’s glean the facts we need to know out of this:

Acorns have KNOWN TOXIC and ANTI NUTRITIONAL effects on certain animals including POULTRY.
Studies with poultry and other animals have been conducted and all of these animals show negative side-effects with Acorns used as feed.
Chickens show weight loss, egg production changes, and other adverse effects, including DEATH.
Tannins in Acorns negatively affect FEED INTAKE, DIGESTION and PRODUCTION.
Tannins (<5%) cause DEPRESSED GROWTH RATES, LOW PROTEIN UTILIZATION, DAMAGE to the DIGESTIVE TRACT, alteration to the excretion of certain cations and increased EXCRETION of PROTEINS and essential AMINO ACIDS.
Chickens react to as little as 0.5% tannins causing SLOW GROWTH AND LESS EGG PRODUCTION. Level from as low as 3% can cause DEATH.

“Generally, tannins induce a negative response when consumed. These effects can be instantaneous like astringency or a bitter or unpleasant taste or can have a delayed response related to antinutritional/toxic effects … Tannins negatively affect an animal’s feed intake, feed digestibility, and efficiency of production. These effects vary depending on the content and type of tannin ingested and on the animal’s tolerance, which in turn is dependent on characteristics such as type of digestive tract, feeding behavior, body size, and detoxification mechanisms.

”

Cornell University’s Dept of Animal Science

It was after reading this I also noticed the guy on Living the Frugal Life had even HINTED that his hens were not LAYING as they should:

“I would bet they’re pretty well on their way to a complete laying hen diet.”

The more I looked at his post the more anger I felt. It was basically guesswork and irresponsibility. Not only is he feeding his chickens a toxic substance he is telling other people to do so: and they are listening. His chickens hadn’t died yet so he figures that’s okay, never mind their long term health and wellbeing, his responsibility to his readers or finding out the facts.

What we Recommend

If you want to give your chickens Acorns you can but you MUST remove the Tannins first just like you would for human consumption and do not use them as sole or main feed crop, they are a special treat for your chickens and do not hold nutritional value.

To remove the tannins you can cook the acorns through thoroughly or run them through running water such as in a stream for several weeks. We suggest cooking is easier, faster and more reliable.

It goes to show you how untrustworthy a lot of information online is, always triple check or quadruple check your facts before making any decisions! This goes for anything and everything but especially for food stuffs!

Nest Reminder Eggs for Chickens

A handy little trick I just picked up was to buy fake eggs for your chickens. We have just got two chickens in our yard and after a quick change of things we built a new nest box. The chickens were taking it in turns on just one nest so I wanted to encourage eggs in the new nest box too.

I picked up 9 of these plastic eggs from the supermarket for just 75p all in. It’s easter, so take advantage of this and get some fake eggs for your chickens just in case. You can also get proper chicken eggs that look much more realistic but I found it really doesn’t matter. Pop an egg into each nest and your chickens will get the idea. It also prevents them laying outside of nest boxes with a gentle reminder of where to go.

As you can see compared to the real deal these eggs are much smaller and definitely not chicken like but my chickens are quite happy with their egg reminders and now laying in both nest areas.