We live in a quaint village and have got used to village life and thoroughly enjoy it. There are five other British families living here and so it gives us a chance to speak English to other people now and again. We have lived here two years now and thought we had got used to what the Bulgarians do, but last Friday was another education for me because I went to our local bar to get some ciggi's and the village square was full of village people with push chairs and small carts and I wondered what was going on, I had never seen the village so busy.

After speaking to one of the locals it was apparent that they were all waiting for a big van to arrive from our nearest town with 7 day's old chicks on board. They would then take them home to wait for them to produce eggs in the coming weeks and at the end of the year the chopping board will come out!

So there we are another scintilating episode of our life here in Bulgaria living in a village.

More months than weeks to egg production, five or six. The boys will go in to the pot and the hens will produce eggs into next year when the cycle starts again, the only way to get all year round eggs and small ones at that.

We bought our hens off the man who came round every year with chicks or full grown laying hens. We started with chicks who, after a few months, produced eggs right through the year for several years. We had some that turned out to be cockerels for lovely coq au vin! When we moved we gave them to our neighbour and bought 4 more egglayers until we relocated back to Britain. However, we had lost 3 to a polecat and gave the remaining lonely one to another neighbour who probably put her in the pot too as she was a bit old! Farming life and I sooooo miss collecting and eating our golden yellow yolk eggs. Ah well, we can't have everything. At least we still have our dog on the caravan site who is loving life by the sea.

oldun wrote:

We bought our hens off the man who came round every year with chicks or full grown laying hens. We started with chicks who, after a few months, produced eggs right through the year for several years. We had some that turned out to be cockerels for lovely coq au vin! When we moved we gave them to our neighbour and bought 4 more egglayers until we relocated back to Britain. However, we had lost 3 to a polecat and gave the remaining lonely one to another neighbour who probably put her in the pot too as she was a bit old! Farming life and I sooooo miss collecting and eating our golden yellow yolk eggs. Ah well, we can't have everything. At least we still have our dog on the caravan site who is loving life by the sea.

We are hoping to complete a chicken coup this year, but there is still a lot to do here and it depends if we run out of time before the weather turns cold. There is a list priorities and the coup is well down the list at the moment. You certainly had a pleasant time with your chickens, but life moves on and we sincerely hope that you are enjoying life now in the UK.