Category Archives: Eggs

The ‘new’ hens and egg news

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We got the ‘new’ hens on Saturday, 3 seem to be a mix of Aracauna-ish and Rhode Island Red –though are supposedly all brown egg layers, and then we have 6 Rhode Island Reds. The man set aside 9 hens for us, not the 7 we had said, so we ended up with 2 more, DH took them anyway.

We have one pen thus far from that farm, and will hopefully get the other one today or tomorrow or the next day. The one we have doesn’t have a top and needs to be retrofitted for our usage — a door or two on the sides (or more), a laying box or two accessible from a door on the side or top, and a top that is secure but open-able. We have a temporary arrangement of metal roofing overlayed and a couple pieces of fencing as supports for that, and a piece of plywood on one end to fully fill out the space, since the pen is longer than the metal roofing. Like I said, that’s a temporary situation.

The new hennies are beat up looking, probably from the Roosters they used to live with on the farm. Thus far they are getting along with each other, and not pecking each other at all, as far as I know. We got 2 eggs from those hennies on Saturday, maybe 3, the third one being either late Saturday, or very early Sunday, and I think it was late Saturday. On Sunday we got 6 more eggs from them, as well as one of my other hens actually laid an egg! It was in the Black Australorp pen, and that surprised me, they didn’t look quite ready to lay (comb and wattles not waxy red, just getting redder lately but not “waxy and fully red” looking) but my two Wyandottes both “look more ready” with Trinity having a very waxy red comb and wattles and fully feathered and getting noisier, and Pointsettia having a waxy red comb and wattles and still not quite feathered out at the base of her back where her tail starts, and she’s not noisy. (A noisier hen is a sign of laying coming, during their laying season they will often get vocal every day a bit before laying, then quietly lay the egg, maybe announce it a bit loudly, then be quiet until the next egg laying session.)

I have to get some sort of laying box rigged up for them today, that I can access from the top of the pen. The pen is too high for me to get any eggs laid on the ground, seeing as there are no doors on the sides especially. DH has to get the eggs, I can’t do it alone at all, though he can, FWIW. Not good, since he’s not always here some days, for one to three days in a row.

I’ll see about a picture of the ‘new’ hens later –like I said about, they do look rather rough and ratty, and so aren’t pretty like my hens are when they aren’t molting. I don’t know how long it’ll take for them to feather out nicely, they are in a laying cycle and I don’t know how long they’ve been in this laying cycle. It’s a “just see what happens in the future” situation, which I am very accustomed to dealing with on many fronts. :)

I will have “egg reports” available on special pages, as I used to have in 2005 (and this blog was non-active for 2006) –look on my sidebar for “month year” links currently starting with (03-07) March 2007. I’ll try to keep it “up to date” daily as much as possible.

Gaining hennies

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Our hennies haven’t been laying since the end of November. I’m hoping they’ll start laying soon.

Recent picture of the Wyandottes. They are looking like they are ready to lay …

I have other news about eggs though.

We’ve been getting eggs from the meat store a few miles up the road, which carries mostly natural/organic meat varieties. The eggs were from a farm a bit north and west of there. That farm also has honey.

The other day my hubby came home from the meat store and told me that they said the farm was closing, so they’d not have any more eggs once the store’s current supply ran out. So he bought 5 doz. eggs.

We pass that farm when driving around sometimes, and I’ve wanted to go there, they are open to visitors, just drop in. We just haven’t ever done it, and so yesterday we were driving home and we passed the farm and I mentioned to my hubby about it, wondering what they’ll do with their hennies, and so he hit the brakes, turned around and pulled into their farm property.

Soon thereafter the man of the place came out and talked to my hubby (they’ve seen each other at the meat store before) and hubby motioned to me and the children to get out if we wanted to.

They were giving away their hens, and had at least 100 left. They’d already had someone take the green layers. :(

They have left some auracana/mix sorts that lay brown eggs, Rhode Island Reds and Black Stars, both also lay brown eggs.

Hubby and I will get 7 hens, the first two varieties, maybe 3 and 4 of each respectively. We weren’t prepared to get them last night when we were there, and won’t be able to get back there until Saturday.

Walking back to the vehicle hubby asked the man about some pens and the man is giving them to us. Well that is great. We need stuff for the new ones and want to build on that stuff with our old ones, reducing what pens we have to nearly nil, getting everyone together as best as can.

Once we get the stuff I’ll see about posting pictures on this blog. We’ll get the pens retro-fitted to do what we want and then build something to go with them.

Before we left hubby asked for the man’s “card” and he had to go inside to get one and said he had something for me too. He came back with a big tray of eggs, and was giving them to me, ‘layed the day before,’ he said. 2 1/2 dozen more eggs. We’ll sure use them and the ones we bought the other day as well.

Well the story of the farm is that they have run it for 3 years, bought the land as an investment, hoping to make something ($) on it eventually. The area is growing, it’s very country right now, but about to explode, firstly with a new 4 lane road, which is major expansion, and other things being built around there. Don’t know if he was approached or if he looked for a deal, but he’s getting out, a commercial something bought him, at least doubled his investment. He’s liquidating most everything, and that’s what happened for us, gaining things of value for no $. Nice, but we’ll miss the fact that the area in question is developing. It’s a sad thing.

So we’ll have some “new” hens that are laying, hopefully, soon. I’m hoping that my current hennies will get down to business sooner. The farm has roosters, and the ladies there are used to having a rooster, plus more, taking care of things. Sans rooster here, but my ladies haven’t a clue about roosters. The “new” ones might spread some tales, and I hope they’ll all be OK without a rooster, won’t carry on about it, if you know what I mean. :rolleyes:

Hot Hennie Update

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Our hennies egg production has picked up a bit the last few weeks. I have tried to keep them in order, get counts to put up here and all that, but … last week and over the weekend I’ve not been my best, so some things slide. FWIW.

The biggest thing to note though is that I took HawkLady out of the A=Frame the other week, put her under a metal basket that is supposed to go into a shelf thing for a panry sort of setup, but it’s a cheap thing and the basket is strong and not useable in the pantry thing, why not use it?

Upside-down it works to contain one hen. Not wing-flappy-able, but alright. I put HawkLady under it with a small former-catfood-can for water. I took her out since she hadn’t been laying much and had dropped off totally and was loosing more and more feathers. She has had a minny-molt going on for some time, in other words. She looked better after a few days in the new space. She got new grass every day at least once and looking at her today I saw her looking so much better, feathered out nicely for the first time in … and later the boys came running in to tell us that there was a green egg in her little pen. Ah, yes! There was! A beautiful green egg. Sigh.

There’s another that needs the same treatment, she is a Wyandotte, Pointsettia, and has lost a lot of feathers on her back. It’s not nice to see, and not nice for her, a big red target to the other hens in the pen with her. Peck, peck, peck.

That’s what Hawklady went through and it wasn’t that bad, just some days, and with something to do, it works to do it. So I have another basket I can use.

What I want to do then is to get a little pen built to hold the Wyandottes and HawkLady alone. It’ll be easier getting them together in a small pen, rather than getting them back into the A-Frame with the big girls, the Australorps.

The Australorps are laying something most days, up to 5 brown eggs a day, more like 2 most days though. So it’s an every other day sort of thing. The “up to 5″ included the Wyandottes, of course, seeing as we have 4 Australorps, not more. :)

The Leghorns are laying about 50-75% every day now. That’s really good for old women like them. We aren’t sure what to do with them, we’ll get them a light soon and see how to keep them laying over winter and maybe then when they quit we’ll do the deed.

I want some new pullets. I’ve wanted new ones. I’d be happy with more Australorps, or Golden-Laced Wyandottes. I love them both. My Australorps are so sweet, they remind me of an older sweet cat, in general. We shall see what we can do.

It’s been Summer again, very hot lately. It was Autumn-like then, bam! here comes Summer again. The 15-day outlook is pretty hot still. In any case, our Cherry trees have lost most all their leaves already, and our October Glory has a lot of changed leaves, and lost leaves already. This is early for both of these types. I’ve seen other Cherry tree types without leaves too, when driving around the last couple of weeks. It was the end of August when it started for them, and sortly after for the October Glory Maple.

I’ll get some pictures I just took of the trees on here soon.

Moving the pen caused loss

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Yesterday I moved the Leghorn pen, to give them some fresher grass, as well as to collect the five eggs they’d laid. For some reason without a box they all lay in a different spot, so the eggs are not in a pile or even close to one another, but all spread out. The pen they are in, to remind readers, is the Superyard, which originally was a baby containment gate system in our home. I carried it outside one day whatever year that was, and the rest is history. Since this year the roof consists of a large piece of plywood, which is VERY heavy, I can’t move the pen easily. My method is now: two long 2×4′s, get them under the pen, which I can do on the sides, then pull the pen over the 2×4′s to fresh grass. It works, it’s easy compared to any other method I could choose from. :)

This 2×4 method to move the Superyard pen makes collecting the eggs, as yesterday proved, easy yet very hard. The dog was running around and I had no human helper. I pulled the pen, intending to stop before getting to the first egg. I pulled and dog came and ran away. I pulled too far. He got an egg. Urg! Oh no! He got TWO eggs! How did that happen? Hmm. I pulled it too far too fast. I didn’t realize how much of my strength I had put into it. It’s not that I had to output the strength, it’s more like, I put more pull into it than I needed to, without realizing how far I had pulled. I ran after the dog, I could see the white egg sticking out of his mouth, he must have had two in there, he has a big mouth. :) I couldn’t get him, so he went off under the deck to munch on his unexpected bonus win. He’s quick, I know that, so I pulled the pen fast so that I could get the next egg, there were only three left to collect, and one was right there a few inches away, I could get it if I hurried, without worrying about the dog getting it. I hurried alright, smack — crunch. I didn’t pay attention in the rush of it all and smooshed the egg, I didn’t have enough clearance to get over the egg. Usually I do using the 2×4 method, sometimes extra care needs to be invoked, and in this case, I didn’t pay close enough attention to consider that. :(

So I carefully pulled the pen the rest of the way, scanning my environment for the dog as I pulled, and I got the only two eggs I could collect, and pulled the pen to it’s final grassy position for the day.

The dear Leghorns laid 5 nice eggs yesterday, but I only got 2 to take into the house for human consumption. The dog took 2 and got a 3rd as extra-bonus-bonus.

The hennies are all doing fine. They are laying fairly well, I’m just not counting their eggs. Somedays we don’t get many from either pen, not the same day necessarily. It’s 2 in one pen, 5 in another, or 6 in one and 4 in the other, or none and 7, or 3 and 5, etc.

It’s mid-point in Summer, sort of. Laying of eggs will go on, if all goes well, into November, maybe longer. I do hope to have good enough surroundings for some of them to continue on laying in Winter. I want to get some new girls, this fall if I can, who will be new layers next Spring. If we wait until Spring, we won’t have new layers until Summer or later. The Leghorns we have hatched in October the other year. They began laying in March. That was nice. So if I can get some hens to keep laying over Winter and let some molt, then have new pullets laying begin in early Spring, and the molters will begin laying then or a bit later, and during later winter/early spring I can let the winter layers molt if they want to or not if they don’t want to. Sounds nice, but it won’t work out so easily.

We are at the point to plan “What do we do with our old biddie Leghorns”. They are not cheap to keep around, and as long as they lay eggs they are valuable … we won’t be eating those stringy chickens, they are scrappy Italian production facilities, not to-be-eaten-by-us-hens. The other hens we have, the Wyandottes and Australorps are much meatier. I don’t want to eat them either. They are my dear friends. I want to raise chickens to eat. We raised these chickens to lay eggs for us to eat. In worse times I can see eating your old biddies, but not in these times, currently. :)

Exciting day

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Today our hens laid! As far as we know, three today. It’s raining quite heavily now, frequent lightening, so we haven’t checked the hens in awhile. :)

Hawklady, one the Leghorns, then one of the Wyandottes laid. So we have a green, white, and brown each. My favorite combination! I didn’t see who laid the brown egg. Frank did. It was a Wyandotte, but he knows not which one. (He can’t tell the difference between them, for some reason ;) I can, Trinity has a tri-topped comb, and Pointsettia has a pointy curved topped comb, distinctive, both of them, and their feather patterns are a bit different as well.)

Earlier this afternoon Frank went to the store to get a few things, as well as get some mousetraps. We found a dead baby mouse on the front walk earlier this week. So that signifies other mice around no doubt. Foster, our outside cat, might have gotten that mouse, or another cat prowling around might have. In any case, the ants ate it, not a cat.

So Frank was at the store, and there’s Scarlet in the kitchen holding a mouse in her mouth. Russell saw it first and drew my attention to it. It was a regular sized big mouse. Well I couldn’t do anything, just keep my eye on her and the mouse in her mouth. It was alive. She held onto it, growling at the other cats gathering around her, following her … she’d put the mouse down now and then, it’d sit then try to run, then Scarlet would just pounce again and grab it up in her mouth to hold it.

Frank finally got home. He picked Scarlet up and put her in the garage, with the door down. We checked her a bit later and she still was holding that poor mouse. Another time Frank went in the garage to do something and Scarlet got in the house, holding the mouse still. I got her back out. It wasn’t fun, not wanting the mouse to fall on me, or for me to really touch it. So then she was in the garage again. Later I looked and didn’t see her. She must have been hiding. But on the step there was some white thing and gooky blood-like stuff around it. Not a lot, just a small thing, um, mouse-size innerds of some sort I guess. Sometime after that Frank looked in the garage and Scarlet came out of hiding and back into the house. She was all cutesy rubbing our legs and proud of herself. :rolleyes: Doing what God intended for her to do.

We have mousetraps now then. I hate using them. I really like mice. We had pet mice when I was growing up. Wild mice are different, I know. I still think they are cute though. That poor mouse that Scarlet had in the house, it was squeeking a few times, right after she’d put it down then pick it up again. Sigh. Poor little thing.

We live out in the country but not totally, but it’s country around and our yard is big. We have gotten mice in the house a couple of times in the past. I haven’t seen any in the house, just know they might be in the garage. So Scarlet’s mouse from today shows that they can get in the house. She got one, afterall, and is an indoor (totally) cat.

So it was a big day here, three eggs! And a live cat and mouse game.