The 12 days of Old Style recipes

Tabatha_Kitten

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]II[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]till The Total Gift List[/FONT]
Still think this is a wind-up, but you have me hooked, so much so I googled it.
Laughing my socks off when I found this:


The total accumulation of unwanted gifts at the end of the 12 Days is:

• 12 partridges
• 12 pear trees
• 22 turtle doves
• 30 French hens
• 36 calling birds
• 40 gold rings
• 42 geese
• An unspecified number of goose eggs
• 42 swans
• A lot of water
• 40 maids (assuming you have kept the Lords away from them, so they are still maiden)
• One assumes, 40 associated cows
• More gallons of sour milk than it is pleasant to contemplate
• 36 very tired ladies
• 30 even more tired Lords
• 22 breathless pipers
• 12 drummers - still drumming

This gives a grand total of 416 presents (including the cows, but not the eggs, milk or water). That's quite a Christmas...

EssexHebridean

Tabatha - SHHHHHHHHH!

:rolleyes:

Tabatha_Kitten

Oh sorry !! Shhhhhh!
Me & my big mouth. My Mum always said it would get me in trouble one day !!!

julieq

I believe that French hens are not good layers, because one egg is un oeuf.

EssexHebridean

julieq wrote: »

I believe that French hens are not good layers, because one egg is un oeuf.

I trust you're suitably ashamed of that one?!

purpleivy

EssexHebridean wrote: »

I trust you're suitably ashamed of that one?!

Wonder if the dirty birds can be trusted to lay ?

sillyvixen

:j:j:j tomorrows post should be interesting - unfortunaly i have no budget budgie recipies.

Julu

purpleivy wrote: »

Wonder if the dirty birds can be trusted to lay ?

...Without a doubt!

splishsplash

julieq wrote: »

I believe that French hens are not good layers, because one egg is un oeuf.

dear oh dear...


As your story unfolds, I imagine you're under pressure to come up with ideas for using the birds sensibly, but in the interim, I wonder if you've considered the following?

As you've now taken ownership of a rather large collection of birds, including pigeons and budgies, you may be well-advised to consider the health and safety implications, not alone for you and your OH, but also for the birds now in your care.

Pigeons and budgies (and presumably chickens, if there are any left) can cause problems for owners who are sensitive to bloom, droppings and dust (pigeon fancier's lung; interstitial lung diseases) - so please wear a mask when handling the birds, and make sure to keep everything spotless and as well-ventilated as possible.

The birds' welfare needs to be taken into account also - here's an interesting article about how best to look after the pigeons (I'm presuming they're squabs, as you mention making parcels using breast meat in an earlier post). The budgies also, have needs that will have to be met. Here are a few guidelines which I hope will help. Simple, yet practical.

It may be worth getting a vet to inspect your new charges - as you're presumably housing these birds in a relatively small space, any outbreak of disease will spread like wildfire, and you could find your new organic meat source decimated. Vaccinations would probably be a wise investment - I think the charges could be negotiated down because of the numbers involved?

You think you have French chickens - do you think your ex-OH had these imported? If so, you might want to check out exactly where they came from and ensure they were imported legally - DEFRA helpline is 08459 335577.
See question 't' here for further information.

Finally, I'm not sure whether you need to check with your local council about any by-laws covering permissions etc for keeping pigeons. Here's a handy article which gives good information about housing them.


I do hope I'm not worrying you with all this, and I look forward to reading the OS recipes to come!

Bennifred

OMG!! I've just thought! BIRD FLU!!:eek: I believe it's even worse than Man Flu. Definitely isolate all the birds and WASH YOUR HANDS!