The evening chores start with putting Orville, a Scots Grey cockerel, to bed with his brood of seven chicks (six hens and a wee cockerel). He’s useless with hens and was going to be eaten, but as he’s good with both small children and chicks he had a reprieve. He fusses over his brood like a hen with her chicks!
With the chickens that are kept inside the steading in bed, it’s time to feed the pigs and the “babes” are first. Thunderpig (a mish-mash cross boar), Smunch and Bunch (Tamworth gilts) are hyperactive and by far the loudest pigs we’ve had. They’re also the best diggers.
After the Terrible Trio and then Ginger and Dolores, we feed Doris (front) and Graham (lurking a rear). Both are pedigree Berkshires and they’re the sensible couple out of all the occupants of Piggsville. Appropriate given their names!
Another view of Graham and Dolores enjoying a romantic, moonlit dinner for two.
If you’re carrying three buckets and two cans of water, then you need someone to open the gates and here he is… Pa’s helper.
The final chore is to check on the main flock of chickens, 15 ISA Browns and a mixed bag of Scots Greys. With all present and correct, it’s time to head in for a cup of tea and then make our own dinner.
Hi I live in Melbourne, Australia. We have pure Scots Greys. We are trying to keep this rare breed alive, as you can imagine they are even rarer in Australia! Loved seeing your Scots Greys : )
You can see more of our Scots Greys if you click on the chickens link under Categories on the right.
Nice to hear from another Scots Grey breeder as there aren’t many of us.
We currently have five mature Scots Grey cockerels (from four different lines) and seven mature hens (from five lines), plus the chicks I mentioned. One of the cockerels is our current breeder and has four hens with him, another (Orville) looks after the chicks, one (Rasputin) is waiting to be eaten, and the remaining two are awaiting new breeding boxes.
Any of the hens that aren’t being bred go in with the “egg” girls - the ISA Browns.
The main problem we have with the Scots Greys is that we are getting 70-80% cockerels from our hatching programme. Still, it means plenty of chicken dinners!
WOW we only know of maybe 2 pure Scots Grey lines here in Australia (ours is one)! When we have bred them in the past we have only got roosters. But a rooster we donated to a national trust farm here had offspring that included hens & roosters. We are going to pick up some Scots Grey eggs next Thursday to take to a friend to incubate. They will keep all the roosters & half the hens. We will have the remaining hens to breed with our rooster. Assuming there are hens hatch that is! Its interesting that you are having 70-80% roosters. Would you consider yourself a Scots Grey expert? I mean im not so im wondering can I ask you some Scots Grey questions about colouring, etc? Is there some way that I could send you some photo’s of our Scots Greys? Thanks,
Sam : )
I wouldn’t describe myself as an expert! Just an enthusiast who’s trying to keep an old, rare, handsome and quite nice breed of poultry going.
The Rare Breeds Survival Trust here in the UK has them on its critically endangered list - I also have one of their pamphlets that claims there are only 200 or so left.
There is a Scots Grey Club here in the UK, but its website is now defunct and I’ve never had a reply to my letters in three years.
Kintaline Farm and Poultry Centre over on the other side of Scotland appear to be the most knowledgeable people about the Scots Greys.
I managed to source a cockerel and three hens from a local flock to start our flock (one of the hens died), then sourced hatching eggs from the Western Isles (ex-Kintaline stock), two English flocks and a Welsh flock. Earlier this year, I managed to source another two cockerels and two hens from another local flock, and unrelated to my first local flock.
While all our Scots Greys are very upright, long-legged and slender birds with the correct markings (cockerels have less distinct barring and are more dark grey than black; hens have more distinct barring and are noticeably dark), after that we have a lot of variation.
A couple of the lines we have aren’t much bigger than bantams (and there is a bantam line in the UK), while one of the local lines has very large birds. The rest are line with the description Kintaline Farm gives - hens 7-9 (3-4kg) pounds and roosters 9-11 pounds (4-5kg).
Some lines lay a medium-sized egg - colours are off-white, creamy white and chalk-white - others lay smaller eggs that are entirely chalk white.
All but one line have white legs, the odd ones out have a yellow tinge to their legs.
All are very hardy, forage well and the hens (and one cockerel!) are good mothers. But, we’ve found hens from two lines are non-sitters, one line sits but doesn’t last the distance, and one line gets very broody.
The cockerels are varied in temperament. Most are quite relaxed around people and can be trusted, but one line is bolshie and occasionally downright demented. Rasputin is one of the latter - he’s kept separate from the others and us as he cackles constantly; runs, flaps and bobs up and down constantly; and alternates between attacking everything and everyone (bar me) or running away in a total panic because a puff of wind made a branch flap. It’s shame as he’s otherwise a fine example but there’s no way I’m going to breed from him.
Anyway, other useful sources of information and photos include the Scots Grey photos on Poultry Photos, a short description on Omlet, and a very short description on the Poultry Club website.
Thanks that is very informative! I have already looked at the links you have provided that’s about all that I could find on the internet. Check this link to see photo’s of my Scots Greys. Tell me what you think of their quality? Ihope this works it is a link to a topic I posted on an Australian pet forum. I am Sam on the forum. http://www.petsoz.org.au/forum/viewtopic.php?t=238&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
Thanks so much for your assistance, we are trying to save the breed as well : )