Good evening,

We’re looking for retirement homes for our 82 hens. They moved onto the farm last spring and have spent most of the year roaming, scratching and basking in our orchard. It’s a sweet life for a bird.

We dutifully moved them indoors late last year to help slow the breakout of avian flu. The new digs don’t quite compare to the free roaming they were used to, but we do our best to keep them entertained - a twig & twine swing, stale bread snacks donated by sympathetic bakeries and regular drop-ins to catch up on the hen house gossip whilst having our feet pecked. It’s not been too bad and we’re hoping flock-down restrictions will be lifted over the next few weeks.

They turn veg scraps into eggs with rich orange yolks, they are entertaining company and they poop fertiliser - I think this makes them preferable to most human housemates I’ve had. Their production is dropping off but they have a few more years of egg laying in them and would make superb garden lodgers if you have the appetite for it.

We have a batch of young birds landing in the yard in a few weeks so let us know if you might be interested in rehoming any of our old girls. We will be charging £5 / bird and donating all of this to a Ukrainian relief fund.

Pictures taken by Julia Claxton for BITE Sussex in the yard on Saturday.

The next Trenchmore yard party is on 23rd April where SLAM Tacos will be filling our bellies and local folk classics cover band, Poni Mitchell (!!) will be filling our ears. We look forward to seeing some of you there.