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The market, the word is expectant, as it looks like prices are moving up, even when it is no change, the discounting has stopped, we expect more changes next week, there is no Lion code Free Range spare!
The clocks change this Saturday night
How kind of the government to bring the date forward a week and to follow the Poultry Club of Scotland Dinner to allow an extra hours sleep the night after to recover, (good forward planning for once).
Free Range and Organic producers in particular will be pleased to see the girls going in at a more respectable time, as Barry Thorp ( the vet) was saying that at the height of our Scottish summer with the very short summer nights Free Range hens in the North of our country are staying out playing till 11.30 at night which was affecting egg numbers and size, which is just another problem on top of the higher feed price the further North you go, there is a slight advantage less disease problems and some beautiful eggs.
The debate on GM goes on but this latest proposal from Brussels is a whole new can of worms especially since our Scottish government has put a ban on GM crops in Scotland already, when we are still dependant on tonnage and ingredients from other countries.
Leading on from that we are interested in the experiments on the feeding of live insects, looking to the future insects might very well be a valuable source of protein in feed, but live insects might give day old chicks that all important start in life with a more natural high protein boost.
And has nobody informed Free Range hens that it is illegal to eat live insects, as that is the very reason they want to stay outside into the dark on summer nights to get that evening hatch of insects, which is the problem with our long Scottish summer evenings again!
The debate is still on going for production systems, it is still science over heart and sense over market forces which sometimes over rule engineering and cost of production!
