News from Thomas House
The recent situation with coronavirus has made a lot of people think about food security, and where their food comes from. One effect of this is that the Hen Rescue charities have never been so busy, with a long waiting list for people wanting to re-home commercial hens.
No need for this here at Thomas House – we have always kept a small number (less than 20) of genuine free-range hens, who spend their days foraging in their large run. As with the re-homers, our primary interest is in the eggs they produce, but it is interesting just to stand and watch them too.
Many people expect to see the plain brown commercial hens that dominate the UK poultry farms, but at the moment we have some varieties with beautiful plumage.
Here is one of our white hens – see its splendid black feathers in the neck cape?
And here is one of the dark brown hens, with a slightly speckled look from the lovely golden-edged feathers.
All these fine feathers apparently made some of the more ordinary-coloured hens jealous and they got together for a good gossip about the situation!
But whatever colour the feathers are, when a few tasty scraps are thrown into the run, it’s “Eyes Down, Cluck In!” for everyone.
