Monthly Archives: January 2005

Eggs for Jan 21 2005

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1-21-2005 Egg Count:

12:10 PM – 1 White 1.9 ounces
1:00 PM -1 White 1.9 ounces

Total Eggs Thus Far: 2

I’ve checked for eggs a few times today, and there are none yet. Yesterday I collected a warm one at 11am. It’s now about 12pm, so maybe I’ll get something very soon. I just changed the Leghorns nest box for a fresh one. [I use water boxes, sturdy thick cardboard, with the perfect lip to hold hay or straw in if one top flap isn't pulled open when opening the water box ... I cut a three sided hole in the top with a steak knife to act as the egg retrieval flap, and connect the box to the SuperYard using bungee cords which hold on through the "side hole handles". It works beautifully, and only needs replacing if the rains have been often and the box falls apart. Can withstand normal rainy day usually, if next day is dry. If I painted the boxes with outdoor enamel paint, as I've wanted to but haven't yet, I think they'd survive a whole year or so. In any case, I need to replace them on and off, not very often, a few or four a year maybe, unless I start out with an inferior box, which I did last time :) ]

The A-Frame was moved, Frank swung it around to the left. No brown egg there at that point. I’m going to figure out a new nest box for them. We got a light out for them last night. Frank got a hanging lightbulb dealy-do. So I was able to see lovely things in their after dark. The Australorps all huddle together under the loft on the grass in the corner, and the three Wyandotte types stuff themselves together onto the loft.

That explains what I thought was probable but could only sense in the darkness, but not see. So I saw it in full disclosure last night. That explains the lack of hay entirely up there now too. The lip on the edge of the loft isn’t as high as I’d like for hay retention. With three biggish hens sleeping there nightly, well that’s a doer-in of a totally only nest box loft. :(

I’m finding myself thinking of putting a loft on the other side too. Door on that side as well. Nest box jutting out behind it as well, a shed roof type that opens on the outside, under the handles that move the A-Frame. ONE of those places should be an egg laying place, I hope. I mean dedicated a bit for sure by the hens themselves, a dedicated nest box. With them thinking the same as me about it. :) One thing I want to do also is make a stairway kind of roosting bar deal. Like a stringer coming out from the board that comes down in the front of the loft … and then sticks going across to go up the stringer giving levels to roost on, and hop to the loft on. They fly up there fine, but figuring if roosts supplied, they might decide to roost on the roosts. Maybe. Maybe not. Worth the effort. This is a proto-type experimental pen. :smile:

Before I published this post I went back out to the Leghorns to check, and yes, there was a nice white egg. Hay made into two circular depressions, which is indicative of two hens in there at once. Which means, another hen is interested in laying, maybe today, maybe not, but at least happy to have a full hay nest box again, for one day at least. I reinstalled the bungee cords to make the box ride high — they had been getting on top of the older one that I just took out this morning, sleeping on top of that, some of them. :roll:

They have a nice roosting rail that they use. It’s just funny that some of them want to cram themselves on top of a box as they did. They have done that in the past too, but not always.

Wednesday and Thursday Eggs for Jan 19 and 20

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Estimate:

1-20-2005 Egg Count:

8:30 AM – 2 White 1.7 ounces, 2.1 ounces
11:00 AM – 1 White 2.4 ounces
11:45 AM – 1 Brown 1.8 ounces

Total Eggs: 4

Estimate:

1-19-2005 Egg Count:

2 White

Total Eggs: 2
note: 1 egg was frozen when found

Eggs for yesterday and today are a bit confusing.

Yesterday, Wednesday, January 19, 2005, I retrieved 2 white eggs from the SuperYard, the Leghorn pen. One egg was cracked — frozen solid inside. That egg I peeled (easily) and put in a dish for the cats.

The other egg wasn’t frozen.

My guess is that the frozen egg was laid on (moreso later that not) Tuesday … and the non-frozen egg laid early Wednesday morning. Maybe. The non-frozen egg was very cold. The morning was very cold. The nest box has no straw/hay in it so the eggs laid would have no protection from the air temperatures overall.

My thinking is that the one egg was laid on Tuesday late in the daylight hours, and therefore was frozen solid by the time I got to it on Wednesday morning, seeing as the temperatures got down to 18 or so in the hours before Sunrise.

The other egg might then have been laid early, as the sun came up, and the cold temperatures then would have cooled that hot egg down very quickly. I didn’t get the egg until after 9am I think, most likely after 10am.

So that is Wednesday. Sort of. We went out yesterday so have no verification of what was laid the rest of the day. Got home late last night, and having no flashlight –didn’t check the nest boxes.

I was out there this morning at 8:30am, and in the Leghorn’s nest box there were two eggs. Both very cold. Overnight the temperature supposedly didn’t get below freezing. It looks that way in the yard, with no frost around –and the air felt balmy to me when I was out there. I didn’t button up and felt fine. Currently Accuweather is saying it’s 32 F. with a “feels like” temp of 24 F. Yeah, right. Not so! Not here, at any rate.

So the two eggs in the box early this morning are from … ? Yesterday or today. Sigh, we’ll never truly know. I can take a good guess about it later today or tomorrow or the next day though, if other hens are laying now. :)

I haven’t weighed the eggs I got yesterday or the ones from this morning. Maybe later, maybe not!

Update 11:15 AM: I just checked the hens and there was a nice big, warm egg in the Leghorn’s nest box. So I weighed it and the other two eggs I got this morning from their box. Measurements in the box at the top of this post.
Update 12:00 PM: I went out to check for eggs again just a little while ago, and decided to move the A-Frame a bit since they had no eggs in their “nest loft” again, and one was found in the corner of the pen that is only findable by sight when the pen is moved … so, I moved the pen, and voila! There was a brown egg. It was in the grass, of course, so very cool. Laid when? Last time we did this was on Tuesday, which was the first time we found a brown egg this way. We didn’t move the pen on Wednesday, so today’s move unveiled an egg from this morning? Or yesterday? Seeing as it didn’t really freeze over night, I’m not entirely sure, but the egg itself was clean with a few dirty streaks which wiped off easily with a damp cloth.

Eggs for Jan 18 2005

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1-18-2005 Egg Count:

11:15 AM – 1 Brown 1.6 ounces

Total Eggs Thus Far : 1

It’s cold. 18 degrees on the F. scale. Brrr!

I’ve not donned the gear to trudge through the backyard to check the hens yet. Once I do, this is the post on which any findings will be reported. :)

12:00 PM Update: I went out to feed and check for eggs a bit after posting this earlier. No eggs in either nest box.

Frank and I went out after 11am, checked for eggs and looked at some things in the yard. There were no eggs in either nest box. Frank then moved the A-Frame over a quarter, he was going to move it the other direction but I asked him to move it the way he did — which unveiled an egg that had been laid in the corner of the pen, opposite end from the official “Nest box” loft. It’d been too difficult to see it in the pen. It was perfectly safe the way we found it, could have been crushed in other instances before being found :shocked: So we are thankful that we were led to do things the way we did.

This one egg so far today is brown, and comparing it to the brown egg from last week, it’s the same nice shape, weighs the same ounces, it’s identical except for being a darker shinier brown. Still light brown, but not pale brown as the other is. Hmm. Could be an Australorp, could be a Wyandotte. Could be the same Australorp as before, or another Australorp. Case is made for it being a hen that didn’t previously lay this year yet. Hawklady and one Australorp did lay in the lofty nest already. That’s the logic I’m going by, that either of them MOST LIKELY would use the nest box again, not lay on the ground.

The egg itself I deem from a morning laying, today, it’s top was clean and dry, the bottom damp as if it had been laid and the bloom had dried on top, but not on the area resting on the grass. It was cold, but so was the ground! The temp was the high 20′s at the point we found it, with a 38 “feels like”.

Eggs for Jan 17 2005

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1-17-2005 Egg Count:
10:00 AM – 1 White 1.8 ounces
12:30 PM – 1 White 1.9 ounces

Total Eggs : 2

It’s a cold day. It was in the 20′s last night, and supposed to be around 39 for a high today. It’s not bitterly cold though, fairly a mild cold. It’s creeping into the house now, as the Sun progresses to the South/SouthWest. The house has windows that face SouthEast mostly, and so by Noon in Winter, the rays hit the side of the house with no windows.

For us I am considering a fireplace fire a bit later today. For the hennies, well, they have the same old same old. :) The Leghorns are laying fine now. Not that they are up production-wise so much, but that SOME of them are producing well. Two so far today, two yesterday. That’s great when we had NONE for so long.

The A-Frame hens aren’t doing much but eating. So that one green egg and that one brown egg were what? Just one from two different hens, then nothing more for days … how long? I’m anxious to find another green and another pale brown egg.

Saturday and Sunday Eggs and more

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1-16-2005 Egg Count:
AM – 1 White 2.1 ounces
PM – 1 White 1.8 ounces

Total Eggs: 2

We are home this Sunday morning. Still drippy nosed and such, with Dh getting worse, me getting better.

About the hens:

On Saturday, yesterday, January 16, 2005 — there was an egg in the SuperYard, underneath the nest box (which hangs on the side of the pen, enough room to squish underneath it if you are a scrappy leghorn hen size). It was dirty, from being on the ground, in a pen that needed to be moved for a couple of days already.

We had no other eggs that day.

Today, since we are home, we did move both pens and re-water them during feeding time. In the SuperYard nest box, was a nice big white egg. I weighed it on my digital scale and it’s 2.1- ounces. That’s in the Large/Extra-Large realm of egg measurements “officially in the US”. I say that since it was flipping back and forth from 2.0 to 2.1, so it’s hedging towards less than but not totally surefully, 2.1 ounces.

As it goes, that’s a good size. Glad to take it!

I like measuring egg weights. I started doing that last year and recording things in a journal book manually. I didn’t do every egg, just sometimes. Like in April and May I recorded most of it.

2.1 is a general nice size for a veteran hen. That was a low norm for them last year. 2.167 oz. is the “extra large” rate. So that’s why I noted the fluctuation of the weight on today’s white egg, and why I said it’s between two sizes. My scale doesn’t have that many decimal points either.

Most white eggs in 2004 were Extra Large or Jumbo. Jumbo is 2.417 and up. Most of course were just under 2.4 with some over that. So 2.0, 2.1, were the low end, 2.2, 2.3 the middle, and 2.4, 2.5, 2.6 the upper. More lower than upper, but more middle overall.

I didn’t record the egg weights all year. I did well for awhile, then stopped. That’s normal for me. I lost interest in it. Too methodically, routine, it just got really old.

I am finding that my way of doing things is to discover a way to do something neat, then set it up to work well, then mangage someone else into the position of doing, check up on them, then let them just go with it if I think them capable.

Seeing as I have such a small labor pool in the family, very young yet, it’s been ALL ME. Entrapenorialness doesn’t work so well without a labor pool of capable folks to draw from. Aha! I find that I do better directing a job in the house as well. Me pittle around, they do. Me support and help a bit, but mostly they do it under my guidance. It’s not the same as “ablility to delegate” It somewhat that, but not. I mean, I can’t just “delegate”. I must create, setup, run, control, THEN hand over piece by piece with oversight and THEN say “It’s yours” eventually.

I never knew that about myself until a couple of months ago when my 8-year-old-boy became much more useful around the house. :)

So somehow this will figure into recording a full season of eggs and sizes — :) Team effort. Not “just me”.

Year before last, 2003, I created log sheets on the computer and printed them out. I had configuration for the possible eggs each day, and X in the box if got one. Left Blank if not. Then I could do things on that sheet too, for at a glance knowlege of how many eggs we got that period of time, and how many eggs we had on-hand to use or sell.

I just couldn’t stand that method season two. It wasn’t half-bad, it was good. But I didn’t figure on how to make it better, so abandoned it to a fully manually written journal.

That was more interactive and worked, and I did different things throughout the season, but it didn’t facilitate the same “at a glance” knowledge as previous years data had going for it. But also it was contained in a nice book, not on floaty-away-paper.

I also tried to update my Hen Report weblog with all the egg counts and “interesting” things that occured that are good for me to reflect on later, and anyone else can read if they want. But I ditched that format when I went to WP, and haven’t decided what to do with that data, bring it in here, or leave it there for posterity, or turn it into a self contained WP weblog, as it was an MT one before.

I do think I’ll manage to squiggle it into this weblog somehow. I’ll do some special page category thang and have it out of here, just on the side bar as a link, with counts a sub special category that’ll show on the sidebar.

Just means I have to institute that through coding. Not hard, just takes time. Tedious due to time.

So that’s the housekeeping I need to do. As well, I have my church’s website over my head needing much input. I’ve a document to un-Word, and code and split into several pages … and that is cooling my heels about it. I’m needing to get my ‘puter here back to a table, so I don’t feel so compressed. It compresses some of my HTML/CSS/PHP Webmaster Creativity. The stuff I need to implement MORE and do MORE where I NEED to. :)

2:00 PM Update: I just retrieved another egg: White 1.8 ounces. It could be a third bird laying, or not. It was warmish, so not layed that long ago.