212. Our first hazel harvest . . . and news from the hatchery . . .

In March 2012 we planted 20 hazel hedging trees aiming to coppice them and become self-sufficient in pea and bean sticks etc. A friend from the NFG (Northern Fruit Group) suggested reducing every other plant to a stool to encourage useful (ie straight) growth.


 So, this year we have reduced 4 plants - some of the growth is 8 feet long but much of it is not that straight. On each stool we have left nothing except small and ramrod-straight new growth. The plan in subsequent years is to reduce a similar number of trees.

And so to the hatchery . . .

. . . sadly, when I took our broody bantam off the eggs to eat something I found that 2 eggs were broken. I removed them, cleaned up and put her back. So, she is now sitting on 6 eggs. She is over half-way (today is Day 11 of 21) and we are getting increasingly excited / nervous!

On inspecting the eggs I found nothing much left in one of them - just some yoke - but in the second one I found the foetus. In the picture below it is the dark blob beneath the spoon; the black spot in the blob is the foetus's eye.


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