Collected the hen crates today/ 10 eggs

I'm chuffed to bits, Hubby took our daughters for a day out to Hampshire and they collected the poultry crates we bought from a chap on eBay. The kids loved driving on the M25 passing Heathrow and a huge jumbo jet appearing out of the mist just above them. I remember driving down that direction many years ago and being shocked how low the jets are over the motorway.

The hens laid ten eggs today. I changed all their bedding to the new one called "Sundown yellow", smells of Eucalyptus but is different texture to the usual Sundown with woodflakes, hard to describe really. It'll be easier to clean out the playhouse now as I'd had straw in that and hate shovelling cack out of straw. The proper hen house had ordinary sundown so was easy enough anyway but I've changed that to the new stuff as I did a mass clean out. The birds freeranged the garden whilst we did it. The ducks were shovelling their beaks full of any soft mud or soil. It took ages cleaning the smaller hen house out as all the ladies kept jumping in the laying boxes to lay an egg. They were queueing up so Edward and I sat outside on the straw bale playing bowling on our DS consoles.

At hen bedtime I wondered where everyone was.
3 white hens were in the playhouse but no ducks or brown hens in sight........and they were ALL in the smaller hen house, crammed in. No idea how the huge ducks got thru the opening! Anyway, I couldn't leave them packed in, it was so humid in there with all their sweaty bodies, they'd have overheated.
I moved the ducks and put them in the playhouse with the white hens and I also put a few brown hens in there too (no idea who, in the dark with just a lantern for vision)
Maybe the ducks wanted company or felt their own kennel/duck house is too small now.
Hopefully they'll all get along in the playhouse. Mark is going to build a shelf in there to accommodate more birds (as the hens don't seem to like perches as ex batts have never had them before)

We'll just close up the kennel/duck house for the time being and save it for when Mark gets his lavender Pekin ladies which he'll get as soon as I find any for sale locally.