Strike a pose, there’s nothing to it. Vogue! We’re heading ever closer to a world of sad this coming Saturday, which is the day we bid ‘farewell’ to our beloved Buff Orpington cockerel, Captain Buttercup. He’s lived with us for such a long time, ever since he was a tiny...

I observed something in the garden yesterday that had me laughing out loud at the absurdity of it. An incident occurred in the chicken run involving our cockerel, Buttercup, and the famous (or infamous) miracle hen, Galadriel. Newer readers who know nothing of Galadriel’s lucky escape from dea...

Well, for better or worse my beloved and I have had a discussion and decided we want to keep Buttercup. We simply can’t bear the thought of her… sorry, him… ending up back with that disorganised and unscrupulous breeder, let alone killed for somebody’s dinner table. It’...

We were burned in our experience of one particular poultry breeder last year, which was our first as poultry keepers. She sold us four birds, one of them going back after being with us several months when it turned out to be a cockerel. I was distraught—Dietrich was a fine example of the Cucko...

For weeks now, there’s been a question mark above the head of one of our Cuckoo Marans, as to whether it’s a hen or a cockerel. When young, it’s hard to tell. I’ve been praying this bird didn’t turn out to be a he, because I’ve grown very attached to the magnifice...