Countryfile magazine

Juliet Kindersley posed with chickens and solar panels today, for a feature in a summer edition of BBC Countryfile Magazine.

They sent freelance photographer Sean Malyon to take some pictures.

Our organic, free-range birds have mobile sheds, which need a self-sufficient power supply. That’s why Sheepdrove chickens have solar panels and wind turbines to provide their electricity.

Sheepdrove farmhouse also now has a new array of 32 solar photovoltaic panels, equivalent to all the solar generators on the chicken sheds.

The chickens didn’t easily cooperate for the camera, they prefer to roam free… which is only right. So we were careful not to stress them too much. Juliet Kindersley cares dearly for these chickens and she has long championed the cause of a better life for farm birds.

Sheepdrove’s chickens enjoy clover, herbs and trees in their ‘agroforestry system’ with habitats rich in food and natural remedies. The agroforestry fields are managed in rotation, and so the old section was being ploughed for the crop stage of the cycle, which follows the fertility gained from flocks. In between cereals and chickens we also graze sheep on these fields.

Later, Sean moved on to see the pigs and cattle – who got very close indeed! If only the chickens were so inquisitive.

 

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

Tags: Countryfile Magazine, Juliet Kindersley, organic chickens, Sean Malyon