Second post.

I don't expect I'll keep count for very long but I'm still newfangled with this.

I've got 12 little hens out there in the garden, eating everything in sight - and not producing eggs. Admittedly six of them are a little bit young and we'll probably be overrun with eggs when they start laying in 2-3 weeks time. I've got several people queuing up for eggs and will have no problem finding homes for the surplus. In the meantime, though, WE want some eggs. The other five bantams and one hen are just not pulling their weight round here.

I'm just not good at culling the ones which don't lay for whatever reason. None of them are really too old. In commercial terms, they are well past it but these little hens are a cross between pets and me playing at being a very part-time smallholder. When we decided to get some new hens (so that we could have eggs reliably again) we got a couple extra because I had people who wanted to buy the eggs from me. Not that I charge much, but the few pence from the surplus eggs will subsidise the food costs for the rest. That is one try at 'smallholder thinking'. We'll see how that goes...