You've no doubt heard the expression "rare as hen's teeth" and not given it a second thought. In the unlikely event you have pondered it any further, maybe you concluded: "they obviously don't need teeth if they're just eating grain, worms and the like," or simply, "if they needed teeth they would have evolved to have teeth and not just beaks" - valid points, and true to a degree.

Well their Archosaur ancestors did have teeth but, for one reason or another, they evolved to become the creatures we know today. And, while they may not have teeth, they do have a digestive system that gets around the problem in an pretty ingenious way. Because, while chickens that just eat grain are perfectly capable of digesting their food without chewing, organic chickens like ours eat both grain and whatever they forage in the fields, so they need a little help.

Long story short, hens do have teeth (but they're rocks), and they keep them in their stomachs (not their mouths).

Chickens use their beaks to pick up food which gets stored in a large sack called the crop. It then gets moved along to the proventriculus which produces digestive enzymes that start to break it down. The food and enzymes then move along to the gizzard, and it's here that more fibrous material such as grass gets broken down. The gizzard is just a really strong muscle though, and it relies on grit, stones and small rocks that the bird has eaten when foraging to grind the food into small enough particles to be absorbed later in the intestines.

While they may well get the grit that they need simply by foraging in the fields, it's really important that younger birds have access to plenty of grit as it's essential for the development of a healthy gizzard. So, while it may seem strange, we regularly add a little Flint Hen Grit to their feed to keep their digestive systems in a good, healthy condition.

The type of grit is important too. Too small and it will pass straight through their system without aiding in digestion, too large and they won't be able to swallow it. So, if you keep chickens at home, grabbing a handful of gravel from your drive won't do it - you need to pick the right kind of grit for the size and age of your birds

So that's what's going on at the moment: checking up on our 'hen's teeth'...

This year we've been treated to an unusually hot and, perhaps more impressively, consistent summer here in the UK.

While we're certainly not going to complain about it (when you see what we deal with when winter comes around you'll understand), it has made us consider some things we don't ordinarily have to contend with. And right now, that's dust... so much dust!

The chickens certainly aren't bothered - they take dust baths for heaven's sakes. They love it, and it's great for their feathers. But for us it's a problem - too much dust leads to dust-lines on the eggs. With the exception of our Mis-Shapes any Rookery Farm eggs that you buy are Grade A organic eggs. And that means they are graded for size and delivered to our customers exactly as they came out of our chickens (usually within 24hrs of being laid!). Any eggs that need a bit of a wash have to be classified as seconds and we sell them as Mis-Shapes directly from our farm shop.

Thankfully the solution is for once, straightforward, cheap and easy - for the first time ever we've been out vaccuming the sheds, egg belts and control boxes...