Self sufficiency is going to be the buzzword for 2009 I think and judging by my site search queries since Christmas a fair number of gardeners seem to be keen on keeping a few chickens for fresh eggs and perhaps meat and even for their Nitrogen rich guano as a fertiliser.
Penguin Books saw it coming by re-releasing their 1941 book - Keeping poultry and rabbits on scraps.
Even here in France I seem to be seeing small pieces of land being fenced off or rotovated ready for vegetables or fruit trees.
My best mate here in France is a fellow woodworker and we coincidently have the same combination machine as the centre of our workshops and it has enabled us both to save many hundreds (thousands???) of Euros by making fixtures and fittings for our respective houses.
Now that Mark has completed the majority of his renovations he intends to start a micro enterprise under the new l'auto-entrepreneur system later this month.
In the meantime, similar to myself with projects like the garden bench, Mark is keeping his hand in with woodworking projects and has just completed a fantastic Chicken Coup for a friend who wanted to give it to his wife as a Christmas present.
Mark explains a bit about his research into keeping chickens before embarking on his challenge.
The net result is a mobile coup complete with egg nest boxes with substantial goors and fittings to keep out the fox.
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