About/Bio

My Name is Neil Armitage.

I grew up living in Africa and came back to England in the early 1990's.

I currently live in North Yorkshire with a very understanding wife and work for a conservation charity called the National Trust.

Find us:

We are located in  Steeton, West Yorks, BD206NX.

Please note we are not a shop and all visits and collections are by appointment only. 

I have kept poultry for more years than I care to remember including Guinea Fowl, Ducks and Turkeys in addition to around 300 chickens from 22 different breeds.

My hens are kept in 6 and a half acres of fantastic North Yorkshire countryside and I am a firm believer in things being allowed to roam free.

The Barnevelder was my first breed and I successfully bred Silver laced Barnevelders in both the large fowl and bantam.

Over the years I've seen and made a great many mistakes with chickens and essentially that is what drives me to write about poultry. It isn't after all my skills with the pen!

This is one of my La Bresse Gauloise. A young pullet. A breed I have kept for around 10 years now.

I Am also very lucky to have a science background and be married to a Chemistry Teacher and have access to some scientific equipment to help with my research into chickens.

This is an analytical balance accurate to the ten thousandth of a gram. This Wyandotte bantam hackle feather is just 119 ten thousandths of a gram. I have also been doing some research into how much calcium is absorbed by the chick from the shell during incubation.

Contact us:

 By far the best way to contact me is by email - webmaster@clucking.net.

Alternatively you can reach out to me on twitter - https://twitter.com/themuttsknutts or @themuttsknutts .

Our Pinterest pages - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/neil0armitage/ 

Out YouTube channel. -  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb3oqaTPzOZbillU4J2Duzg

About us:

I raise rare breed hens in Yorkshire, mostly Barnevelders and these days only to order. Hatching eggs are posted to UK postcodes and some EU countries.

All the Images you see in these pages are of my own birds unless labelled otherwise.