Very hot. Dug up 3rd batch of peas & dug over that piece of ground. Red mite again very bad. Most of the leghorns now moulting but not so many of the Rhodes. Notice that the birds’ appetites always drop off in this weather, ditto the goats, though they don’t drink much.
11 eggs. Sold 35 @ 2/- score. Total this week: 58
[NEWSPAPER CUTTING]
FEEDING ALL HOME-GROWN FOODS
A Hampshire smallholder’s system
SMALLHOLDER poultry-keepers should be able to make a good income from their fowls if they take advantage of the opportunities for growing their own foodstuffs, or using those which they may have already grown.
On a Hampshire holding recently was met a poultry-keeper who uses nothing but home-grown produce, except fish meal.
Like many others, he has no special equipment for milling, although he can grind his corn coarsely. He has naturally adopted an all-mash feeding system, because coarse ground meals are excellent for such a purpose. It may not be the ideal way of feeding layers, but then, he says, it must be remembered that profit is the difference between production costs and returns.
The Grain Crops Used
The three crops which he uses are wheat, oats and beans. These are coarsely ground and the fish meal is added. The mixture consists of: Wheat, 34 parts by the weight; oats, 43 parts; beans, 14 parts; and fish meal, 12 parts. This makes just a hundredweight.
The food is kept in front of the birds all the time in hoppers large enough to hold four-days’ supply. This supply is plenty, because one of the secrets of feeding is to use freshly-ground meals, since they are more palatable, and thus the birds eat more.
However, with this feeding system, it is essential to supply a considerable quantity of greenfood – on occasions when the daily allowance has been omitted production has fallen off considerably. But the farm produces plenty of kale and other forms of greenstuff, which is fed at the rate of about 11/4 oz. per bird per day.
A second point for emphasis is that, being fed on an all-mash diet, the birds require more water than usual. The vessels must be kept filled and during the hot weather shaded, so that the birds have a cooling drink whenever they want it.
Orwell Diaries 1938-1942 
I told you that the British secret weapon was the English gardener. Hell may be raining down on Europe and about to rain down on Britain, but the digging, seeding, mulching, weeding, pruning, the manuring… went on forever. No Nazi would understand, which is why Britian POWs in Stalag Luft III could tunnel their way out of the place – for them it was just like digging over the potatopatch. No wonder the most memorable wartime slogan was ‘Dig For Victory!’
Touche!
Max, indeed. And for the average wartime Brit, this all-mash diet with fish meal and kale sounds pretty good.