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AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR CUSTOM, YOUR INTEREST AND YOUR KIND WORDS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. | |||||||||||||||||
| Here at Kintaline Plant and Poultry Centre we have very full days with our birds and plants outside, students, guests and customers visiting the farm, as well as email and phone customers. Please email with your daytime and evening telephone numbers if you are having difficulties getting hold of us by phone. We will return your call as soon as we can. | |||||||||||||||||
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Our main flock is made up of Black Rock hens. We consider it the Best Egg Laying Breed of chicken for free range pastured units. It is bred from specially selected strains of Rhode Island Red and Barred Plymouth Rock from a single hatchery in Scotland. With the parent birds being both natural breeds the cross retains superb genetic vigour and excellent health record. There has been no recorded salmonella infection in any U.K. flock ![]() We will be adding other breeds from this year to our egg laying flock to give our customers a choice of egg colours - Our birds range over permanent pasture. We move the houses regularly to keep them on fresh grazing all the time. First thing in the morning they are let out of the houses - they spend a few hours grazing and chasing bugs. Gradually they go back inside to lay and top up with layers meal which is available ad lib. The feed we use is not organic because here in the Highlands of Scotland it is too expensive to get and it would make the eggs very costly. However we do use a feed that has no animal products and has no artificial colourants to the best of our knowledge. Over the middle of the day they carry on laying, dust bathing, exploring the fields and on good days sunbathing. In the afternoon we feed a wheat feed outside. This allows us to encourage them to investigate certain areas of their surroundings and is a valuable feed supplement. We also collect eggs for a second time, top up feed and check all the hens. It is a 16% protein feed and does not leave a fishy taint to the eggs that other higher protein feeds do. As our birds range properly on good mixed permanent pasture they find all the extra protein they need. The eggs are brought back to the packing room (converted from the old grain room of the mill) where they are trayed ready for sale. Because we use clean shavings in the nest boxes and keep the hens on fresh grazing - we rarely have problems with dirty eggs (the few we do have, the dogs or we enjoy).
When we were registered as "free range" we had rave reviews from the quality chefs who use our eggs - for colour, cooking ability and taste.
In the evening they are shut in at dusk to protect them from predators. In the summer this means staying up very late as the nights are very light here and Black Rocks don't like to miss a minute. It is a lovely time - they sing a delightful melody roosting on their perches. In the winter we allow the birds to have a full moult and production goes down a bit. This coincides with a drop in numbers of tourists so we let them have a good rest and are rewarded with great laying in their second ( and even third season ). The old layers we sell in the autumn go on to make great backyard pets and can continue to lay for 4 - 5 more years. If you live in North Argyll and are interested in trying our eggs please contact us at any time. We are also selling our eggs at the Fort William farmers market which is at the auction market on the Aonach Mor road on the third Saturday of every month from 10 a.m. (we also take a wide selection of hardy garden plants - say hi if you visit). Oban Farmers Market is new - and will be on the last Saturday of the month.
For information about our black rock hens - CLICK HERE
I have a lot of information to add to these pages this year - please come back soon to see what I find.
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