Pickings can get a bit thin in winter, even for free ranging chooks. Here a few treats for your chooks:

1 worms - high in protein, with that added ‘thrill of the chase’ element for bored chooks. If you’ve turned your kitchen waste into worms in your wormery, you’ll be turning it into eggs and meat via your chooks.

2 silverbeet (swiss chard) or perpetual spinach – fill an empty space in your garden, and get some silverbeet growing in autumn so you’ve got some extra greens to toss over the fence to your chooks.

3 sprouted grains – more nutritious than whole grains when fresh food is scarce. Soak for a day, rinse and drain them once a day and feed at about day five.

4 native trees – anything that sheds a seed planted near the chicken coop. It will probably help the bees too.

5 lawn clippings – as long as you haven’t fertilised or treated your lawn, they’ll scratch around in a bag of lawn clippings very happily.

I’ve sold my two charming black pullets, hatched end of January 2010. They have the right heritage to be both excellent broody hens and egg layers.  Their mother, Mabel, is a small, black hen of unknown parentage who lays large, brown eggs. Their father, Rodriguez, is a very fine Rhode Island red rooster.

If you want to hear about when I have fertile eggs, chicks and chooks for sale, sign up to get email updates and select the category ‘chickens and eggs’.

If you’ve raised some chicks and have a rooster or two beginning to find his voice, I’ll be running a workshop this Sunday 11 April 2010 at 9am at The Kitchen Garden for you to learn how to slaughter and prepare your birds for the table. Please email me if you would like more details as I won’t advertise it widely. If you are interested but can’t make this date, please let me know as I’ll repeat it if there is sufficient interest.

I usually cull my roosters at about 6 months but I’ve found them to be great eating anything up to a year.  I close up the roosters the night before without access to food – either in the hen house or in a poultry crate. It makes gutting them much cleaner, as their crop and digestive tract are empty, without unduly stressing the birds.

You’ll need:

• disposable vinyl gloves

• a solid, stable, chopping block – I use a round of firewood about 40cm high and the same diameter

• a sharp, meat cleaver

• a sharp, narrow-bladed boning knife

• a sharp, large kitchen knife

• a large bucket (Gubba tub trugs are ideal)

I do this outside, with access to a hose to wash everything down afterwards. Wear old clothes and gumboots. If you’re right handed grab the rooster firmly by the legs and hold him upside down and lay his head and neck on the block. They’ll often flap for a bit so hold them steady until they calm down. Take a well balanced stance, with the cleaver in your right hand and deliver a single sharp blow to the chicken’s neck. You may cut the head off or you may not. You just have to make sure you’ve been firm enough to break the bird’s neck. The bird  will continue to flap after it is dead – keep hold of the legs firmly and hold him over the bucket to contain any blood until he stops flapping (sometimes a minute or two).

I skin rather than plucking my birds by cutting off the wings, tail, feet and head first with a kitchen knife. I cut around a joint, through the tendons, so there aren’t any shards of bone. With the neck towards me and starting from that end, I slit the skin down the breast bone and peel it off the shoulders, wings, back and legs, using a sharp knife to pull it away from the flesh if it’s needed. Generally it comes off quite easily in one piece. I then make an incision all around the vent, cutting down into the belly flap enough to get my hand it and pull out the contents of the cavity. If you can do this without puncturing the innards it’s much cleaner. Make sure you’ve removed the top end of the wind pipe too.

I keep the liver, heart and kidneys for pate – trimming off any membrane and sinew from them and the gall bladder (the little green bag attached to the liver). I keep a pot for giblets in the freezer to which I keep adding until I’ve got enough to make a decent batch of pate.

Rinse and dry the chicken, chill quickly and bag up to freeze. I don’t recommending eating on the day of culling – not that they won’t taste delicious, I just never fancy them the same day.

These are Mabel’s six little chicks – grumpy like their Mum, Mabel, and proud like their Dad, Rodriguez, our Rhode Island red rooster. Not sure whom they’ll resemble in looks. Here are some tips on raising chicks if you feel you’d like some of your own. Some books don’t recommend raising your own chooks, but if you want to keep a particular breed, would like your kids to see the process first-hand or are keen to witness the miracle of egg becoming bird yourself, it’s a not-to-be-missed experience.

There’s a world of difference between the yellow-coloured white sauce you make from custard powder and real vanilla custard. It’s easy to make, so don’t compromise with anything other than the real thing. It’s the perfect accompaniment for rhubarb crumble. If you use genuinely free-ranging chicken eggs it will be bright yellow without any colouring.

six egg yolks

half a litre of full fat milk

seeds scraped from half a vanilla pod (or you can use vanilla paste)

two tablespoons caster sugar

Scald the milk by bringing it to steaming point in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Put the six egg yolks in a large mixing bowl. Add the hot milk and whisk with a balloon whisk. Tip back into the pan, add the vanilla and heat slowly, whisking all the time. Resist the temptation to turn up the heat or the egg will curdle.  After a while the sauce will thicken. Turn off the heat and continue whisking for a few more minutes until thickened and cooled. Pour into a jug to serve.

Ten Plymouth Barred Rock chicks to be precise – raised in an incubator as Mabel resolutely refused to go broody. Now fostered by a most diligent and experienced hen who happened to have just brought one of her own little chickies into the world and had room under her ample wings for a few more.  The best way to raise chicks is under a broody chook. Momma Chook looks after turning, temperature and humidity for you. She teaches them to scratch and brings them inside when it rains.

It takes 21 days in an incubator (the same as under a hen) but it’s hard to get the temperature and humidity just right.  I had a good hatch rate thanks to some lovely healthy eggs couriered to me from Taurimu Equine, despite discovering after ten days that one egg had got stuck in the turning mechanism so they hadn’t been turned for at least a week. However I must have run the incubator slightly too hot, as they arrived a day early. A couple of these chicks had curled toes when they were hatched – another result of being too hot. I gave them some specially fabricated ‘chick shoes’ – a small piece of plastic cut from a margarine tub lid taped gently to each foot with medical tape as soon as they were hatched. Not an easy fitting and not the most stylish footwear, but after eight hours I removed them and since then everything seems to have been normal.

The chicks prefer a rough surface under their feet in the brooder – a piece of towelling or sacking rather than newspaper which is rather slippery. As well as chick starter crumble, delivered by the ever helpful Wellington Feed and Saddlery, I give the chicks greens twice a day as it occupies them and helps them learn to forage. Chickweed, puha, grass seed heads and silverbeet are the favourites at the moment. They seem to enjoy the roots and soil around them as much as the leaves.

I’ve recently read Jasper Jones: A Novel and thoroughly enjoyed it – a cross between Kate de Goldi’s delicious The 10PM Question and the classic To Kill a Mockingbird – best to see the film version starring Gregory Peck if you’ve been put off it by being made to read it at school. I’m keen to peruse the new book Organic Vegetable Gardening by Xanthe White too.

I’ve just started to get a regular supply of some vibrant, yellow-yolked eggs from Rodriguez’ five wives. Mabel lays slightly smaller eggs than her Rhode Island red counterparts. There are still lemons on my Meyer lemon tree. Time to make a batch of lemon delicious. Makes 16 slices or 30 mini-bites. It freezes well. I might repeat the lemon/egg combo and make some lemon curd too.

Shortbread base:
one cup (150g) plain flour
half cup raw sugar
100g butter

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC. Line a 20cm x 20cm baking tin with baking paper or use a silicone baking form. Put the base ingredients in a food processor fitted with a blade. Pulse until the butter is well dispersed and then run the processor until the mixture resembles very fine breadcrumbs. Press down well to form an even layer. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden. While the base is cooking, make the…

Lemon meringue topping
three large eggs
one cup raw sugar
zest of three large lemons
juice of three large lemons
half cup self raising flour

Put the sugar and lemon zest in the food processor fitted with a blade. Run the processor until the sugar and zest are well mixed. Remove the blade and fit the whisk attachment. Add the eggs (or you can put them in a bowl and use a balloon whisk). Whisk until thick and frothy, until it’s at least doubled in size. Pour in the lemon juice and sift in the flour. Fold together gently.

Pour the topping onto the base and return to the oven for 35-40 minutes. If the top starts to get too brown, cover with a scrap of baking paper.

Even the best jars of mayonnaise have long lists of ingredients on the back of them. This has just four and all of them are easily recognisable. You can make this in a blender or food processor but if you do it by hand you’ve truly earned a large dollop of mayo. This is a small quantity but if you double the mixture if doesn’t take much longer to make.

One large egg yolk, room temperature
Half a teaspoon of dijon mustard
100ml olive oil (I use a light one as I prefer a milder flavour)
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Put the egg yolk in a mixing bowl with the mustard. Add a half teaspoon of oil to the bowl and whisk it in with a balloon whisk. Add another half teaspoon and whisk again. Keep adding the oil a scant half teaspoon at a time, whisking well each time. If you get impatient and add it too quickly the mixture will ‘split’ and you’ll need to whisk the split mixture gradually into another egg yolk and start again. Once you’ve added about half the oil, whisk in the lemon juice. Whisk the remaining oil into the mixture a teaspoon at a time. Taste the mayonnaise and add half a teaspoon of honey or so if you think it needs it. You can add freshly chopped herbs and crushed garlic at this stage too.

I’m downsizing my flock of chickens so I’m selling a couple of my Rhode Island red hens on Trade Me to make room for some new ones next year. There’s a reserve of $50 for the pair so if you’d like to give these lovely girls a new home, make a bid soon as the auction closes on Friday.

Now’s the time to sow your greens for winter – cabbage, broccoli, pak choi, lettuces, kale, silverbeet, spinach, rocket, mizuna, mibuna, claytonia and spring onions. If you want to read more about growing winter salad crops, Joy Larkcom is my favourite expert. Root vegetables can go in now too – sow radishes, carrots, turnips and beetroot. With some sunshine and showers forecast, you won’t have to do much watering, just a bit of thinning and weeding. Everything will do better for getting started whilst there’s still some warmth in the soil.

I’ve sown some things in pots and some outside to hedge my bets. I’ve tried some peas and beans in large pots – they’re coming up after a week but I don’t know if I’ll get a crop. I’ll keep everything protected from birds and wind to help things along.

I’ve been doing some preserving. My first foray into jam making resulted in some delicious fresh peach preserve based on a Delia Smith recipe. It will be perfect for spreading on some hot cross buns. I make a secular version, without the crosses, using a spiced, fruit, dough in the bread maker. Fortunately I hadn’t got round to making Christmas cake so I still had some mixed dried fruit to spare in the pantry.

If you’re in the CBD this weekend, Sue Wickison is exhibiting some of her exquisite, award-winning botanical art at the Academy Galleries on Queen’s Wharf in Wellington from this Saturday.