Madeye

I had a pleasant conversation with Madeye over the gate this afternoon. She was enjoying the sunshine, whilst keeping her good eye out for passing tasty morsels. We discussed many things and solved the problems of the universe.

At the age of four, Madeye is getting on a bit. She's a Lohman Brown, which is a standard intensive commercial egg laying breed. Normally they wouldn't make it past 18 months as they would be slaughtered when their egg production drops below one a day. So I guess Madeye is one of the lucky ones as we don't demand that she continues to lay an egg a day (she is still laying 2 or 3 eggs a week) we just like her company.

Out of the 6 hens we bought at the same time as Madeye only she and her pal Scrounger are still with us. Lohmans aren't a hardy breed, as they aren't bred to live outside or last long. We've had other breeds of hens live 8 or 9 years in the past so we're hoping that they will both live a few years yet. But they've both gone a bit grey at this years moult and they certainly don't move so fast as the younger chooks. So we will need to make sure they get a little extra TLC this winter.

Interestingly though they are both still top of the pecking order. It obviously pays to be a cantankerous old bird with one eye!