TWELVE thousand squawking new residents will soon be moving into a South Lakeland dairy farm.

The dairy farming Dixon family of Selside recently decided to take the radical move of diversifying into free-range egg production.

"We wanted to diversify from dairy farming and this was one of the options we came up with," said James Dixon a member of the entrepreneurial family.

The Dixons have managed to sign up with a free-range egg supplier. They also took the leap of investing in new equipment and constructing a 240 feet by 66 feet barn at their Kitcrag Farm base. The chickens are set to arrive in batches of 6,000 this week.

The plans to diversify were brought a step closer to reality after the family attended a course run by the Westmorland Agricultural Society.

"Rather than going into the venture and not knowing anything about it we though the course would give us a start," said Mr Dixon.

"We approached the Westmorland Agricultural Society and asked them to sort out some courses so we could learn what to do. We didn't know anything about hens but the course gave us the fundamentals."

The family learned about all aspects of chicken farming from expert teachers on the course. Subjects covered included legal and hygiene issues as well as animal welfare.

"According to legislation, which will come in 2008, chicken farmers will have to go down either the barn egg or the free-range egg route," said Mr Dixon.

Westmorland Agricultural Society has been organising a wide range of courses, ranging from poultry rearing to plumbing at its base at Lane Farm, Crooklands.

"I think there is a lot of change out there in the agricultural community," said Rodger Read, chief executive of The Westmorland Agricultural Society.

"To invest in a capital project is a very expensive enterprise but if farmers or anybody else who is interested follows one of our courses they can find out a little bit more about it."

The courses are not only open to farmers but to everybody in the rural community. They are heavily subsidised by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and from the Cumbria Fells and Dales Leader programme and new courses can be added to the list if enough interest is shown.

Meanwhile, in his temporarily empty chicken barn Mr Dixon was excited about the 12,000 feathered additions to his stock. "I am looking forward to a new challenge," he said.

For more information about courses run by the Westmorland Agricultural Society, call Rodger Read on 015395-67804.