A Good Egg!

Did you know that a chicken lays the same egg all the time?  Yes, by species, an Ameraucana will always lay a little pastel blue egg, a Black Sex-Link will always lay a brown egg and a Leghorn will always lay a white egg. But, more than that, each individual hen will lay almost the exact same egg every time she lays!  Some girls lay an almost round egg, some lay long, oval eggs every timem some have freckles.  One of our girls is laying a wrinkled egg quite regularly!  It's definitely one of the young Black Sex-Links, because this is a new thing.  An Isa Brown would not start doing this in her third year.  It's a perfectly fine egg in all respects, it's shell is just wrinkled!  It's the kind of thing you would never get in a package of eggs at the store - egg companies remove this kind of imperfect egg and use it for processing into powdered eggs or baked goods.  It's rather a pity that only 'perfect' eggs are deemed fit for consumption!  I like my eggs with a little character!  Would you be unnerved if you found an egg like this in your carton?  You can have one if you care to come buy some eggs at our farm gate!

Farmer Man Is A Big Softie!

Farmer Man has given me a bit of hassle about caring for the little wild kitties. He wonders what I'm going to do with them, how much our feed bill is going up and practical stuff like that. He shook his head when the little kitties started showing up in the garage, where Loud Cat already lived. The wild cats must have been following me back to the house, or following my trail and they've decided that the garage is better than the drafty old straw bale chicken coop. Loud Cat seems to have no problem with that, so they've all been hanging out in the rafters together. Makes feeding them soooo much easier. Farmer Man decided, with some really cold weather forecast, that we needed to replace the second, little heat lamp in the chicken coop. I thought the arrangement had worked well last year, but sure - a better heat lamp is always, well, better. Much to my surprise, the second little heater quickly re-appeared - as a warmer bed for the little kittens! Farmer Man has a bigger heart than he likes to let on! And just in time: we woke up yesterday to a morning temperature of minus 32 Celsius, which is about minus 32 Fahrenheit, too. Freak deaky cold; but we had the confidence that everybody in our little domain was warm and cozy!

A Couple of New Things For Me!

This is my first experience raising chickens. Farmer Man grew up with chickens as part of the farm, so he's seen it all. This was a first for me: a perfect egg - without a shell. Both membrane layers intact, the shape perfect, just soft and squishy! Isn't Mother Nature amazing? Farmer Man says they would get one or two of these a year when he was young, but it's new for me!

Also new for me is the notion of chickens molting. The Leghorns were a year old in May, the Isa Browns were one year old in June, and both have been laying just a little over a year. We didn't go through molting last year - they were too young, I assume. But, boy, are we molting this year! The chicken coop is layered with feathers, the pasture is dotted with them and all the chickens are looking a little, well......dishevelled. Even the usually majestic Rocky the Rooster is looking a little ragged: he's got a definite bald spot on the front of his neck and he's 'wispy' here and there around his neck and onto his shoulders. Hopefully, they'll all grow some new feathers before it gets too cold!

The Chicks are Growing Up!

The little fluffy chicks we acquired in June have been laying for a couple of months now. The eggs are always small for the first little while. But, The Chicks are coming into their own. The sizes of the eggs are improving, including this monster! Almost three inches long! Way to go, little one!

Progress Report

Linda's been in touch with a great photo of her new chicks. Apparently 'Clucky' the hen is an excellent little mother. She's a very involved momma, constantly tearing up food from the veggie garden for her three little ones (like the 'Rainbow Lights' chard in the picture), herding them up, tucking them in. She's earned the name Clucky because she's almost constantly talking! How cute!

Rocky May Be A Dad!

Our friend Linda had a hen go broody, which means want to sit on the nest. Normally, laying hens like ours lay an egg and walk away. Now and then, one gets the urge to be a momma, and goes 'broody'. She really wants to sit on that egg and hatch it! Linda was up for that but hadn't had any success in previous attempts. She suspected her rooster may not be, well, up for the task. She asked for some fresh eggs from us to slip under her hen. She slipped a few of her own under the little hen, as well. Three little chicks made their debut this weekend - and, apparently, such a proud little momma! One white chick, which could be an Isa Brown male, from Linda's own flock. The second chick is a little golden beige one, probably a female from Linda's flock. But the third little one - definite black spots! We can hardly wait to watch the little ones grow!

One of These Ain't Like the Others!

Careful what you wish for! We were wishing that all the 'girls' would lay monster eggs. What we got was the world's tiniest egg, so everybody else's egg looks monstrous! This little egg measure just barely an inch in length! It's so cute! (the 'c' word, again). Farmer Boy can hardly wait to crack it for Sunday breakfast just to see if it has a yolk or not! We're thinking it may have come from a little chicken we call 'Funky Butt' who has a funny twist to her rear end and tail feathers. Farmer Boy has often wondered if she'll be able to lay at all - and we have leveled out at fifteen or sixteen eggs a day from twenty hens.

You GO, Girl!

Somebody is doing very good work! Everyday, for the last few days, one of the girls is laying a monster egg! Bigger than what we would get if we bought large eggs! Rather puts the others to shame. When we first got the hens at nineteen weeks of age, we were getting four or five small eggs a day. The number has increased to sixteen or seventeen a day and the sizes have been getting consistently bigger. But,so far, no one else is laying the monster eggs. We'll have to do some more reading and see if it's genetic, or can we look forward to all happy hens laying huge eggs!

The Girls Are Settling In!

All our little hens seem to be settling in well. They are spending all day outside, scratching and clucking. It's so.....farmyard! It's adorable! They immediately head to the row of old spruce we incorporated inside their pen - good protection from the red-tail hawks we know are in the neighbourhood. They finally used the nest boxes Farmer Boy faked up for them from old nursery pots. Much better then trying to collect eggs off the floor! We do also find at least a couple of eggs under the spruce trees - a hard crawl to collect those. We've noticed the eggs are getting to be a better size everyday; they've been very petite so far, with yolks the size of quarters. Now, to get Farmer Boy to build the proper coop.........

The Girls Are Here!!!!

Well, the girls are here.....twenty little hens, just starting to lay eggs. About nineteen weeks old. Now, I am aware of how trendy it is to have chickens but we have been planning on it for a couple of years, really! We're on a farm, so we can have a few, too!! We got 'the girls' rather on short notice, so we had to fake-up a quick home. Straw bales and an old camper top. Farmer Boy has been looking over plans and getting quotes on lumber but no proper coop yet. It will come quickly now, though, because we have 25 chicks coming on June 4.

The makeshift coop seems to be working well. We were told to keep 'the girls' inside for two days so that they would know that the coop was their home. We kept them in three days because the third day was soooooo cold. They've been roamin' around outside for a day, now. We're getting about five small to medium eggs a day, yolks the size of quarters. So far, so good!