That's unbelievable. What a shame for the poor little thing. Possibly she's better off without them but it must be a blow.

I don't know how you do it. I'd have a house full of dogs by now.

I wonder, Grannyof4, if the question was about preventing health problems rather than promoting egg laying? The science of all this defeats me really but I think it may well be to do with chopping and changing light levels. Some of my older girls made it through the long winter last year but we lost...

Thank you LL. I've watched it now. Sprout curry??? I love sprouts and we do have loads in the garden but I'll have to think about that.

Couldn't make this work Ilona. Tried copy and paste, typing in directly, accessing GMB directly onto YouTube where I got about a minute and a half of the highlights of what was coming. Hey ho.

Thank for the other info. I'm in town at the appropriate time tomorrow evening so I'll see what I can do.

I accidentally bought a car this week - so FF is definitely for me this year. For a start we will be living out of the freezer for at least a month. This means that I can probably miss at least one week's big shop except for fresh fruit. We have plenty of frozen fruit, veg, portions of cooked mince ...

One of our dunnocks is a real character. Whenever the sparrowhawk flies over all the birds leave. He's always the first one back again and often just sits in the shrub near our back door and has a little sing.

I haven't seen a jumble sale round here either. We used to have them regularly at my town centre chapel. The choir had one once and when sorting everything out we thought we'd be lucky to make £20. In the event we made over £100.

Well I love the picture of Izzy and the horse both laughing. I'm very sorry that it has come to this but sometimes you have to make the decision.

One day she will be able to look at the photos and laugh; I'm sure at the moment she only feels like crying.


Love to all.

I hope they deserve her - and appreciate how you made a difference to her life.

You are a marvel.

I am not horsey at all, but when I was about 18 I saw a hunter put down on a track at the side of my uncle's farm. It was quick, it was merciful and as an anti-hunt protester I had to admit that they all behaved admirably in the circumstances. Having said that, I can still remember the sound and the...

I didn't see Jericho but I did enjoy the programme on the Tsars. It's a fascinating period of history and I think the link from the Imperial Days to post-Revolution might clear a few things up in my mind.

Victoria - Phoenix Hen Rescue do a great job. I volunteer with Fresh Start for Hens. Would you be OK with me putting shout out to the members? Sadly, I have rather more hens than I would like at the moment but I'm quietly confident that between us we should be able to help. We have a rat. I know tha...

Possibly I don't find the storylines as outrageous as you Richard. As a Samaritan volunteer I am no longer surprised by anything (much).

I saw that Greg Wallace programme. On their recommendation I had a wander round A**I and bought a couple of things. The Christmas Tree briochette was OK but had a scarily long list of chemicals in the ingredients. The allegedly careful Christmas still looked a bit lavish by my standards. My husbands...

The excomms that I got during the autumn are the ones laying at the moment I think. Hard to know exactly but they are smaller. I agree that when my older ladies lay eggs the eggs are less frequent but larger. I don't want to do anything to encourage hens to lay more, or more often. I'm happily retir...