Seems a silly question, I know, when there's so much of it about, when we're burdened not by hunger but by obesity and early onset diabetes. It's only the crazy doom-mongers with nothing else to worry about who nag about our importing more grub than we have done for...

Life's hard for a farmer when the cold comes. And for us mini-farmers too. With the ground solid as concrete and the grass stiff and grey, I am painfully aware how dull life has suddenly become for my chickens. There they huddle on the barren ground, unable to scratch...

Nice promotional number recorded in London earlier in the summer - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00bf1jz

So - little snowball the silkie got the chop today. Well, not exactly the chop. Jay tried to dislocate her spine in the usual fashion, but her head came away in his hand - her whole musculature was so degraded, her little body so emaciated. This time the reason for...

So - there it lies at the foot of the plum tree - popcorn's gravestone, carefully strewn with daisies and forget-me-knots and inscribed by Elinor 'with love'. Popcorn the 30 week cockerel had his neck dislocated on Monday - Jay's first kill; a peaceful and trusting...

So - the Barracks Lane Community garden chicken launch was good fun.  Lots of people squeezed into a yurt to hear me read from my tome, and to grill me on the pros of keeping chooks. Questions from what to feed them to how to kill them...Only problem was little Bea...

My aunt Wendy has just sent me a hilarious missive - a leaflet that says, Help us knit hen jumpers! Reading my chapter about 007 the ex-bat, she was reminded of the time she knitted woolies for bald battery hens. Her charity 'Little hen rescue' provides a fully...

New piece on the Campaign for Real Farming website.