Category Archives: Hens

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:

Hens and dog again

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I just moved the Leghorn pen, the slow way, inch by inch, pull this side, pull that side, straighten that part, pull again … etc.

I checked for eggs there this morning, much earlier, and noticed dirt next to the pen, and a hole right there. There were no eggs in the pen. Victoria had said yesterday that there were 3 eggs in there. I hadn’t gotten them, they should have been there today. But they weren’t, and I can venture to say what it was. Not really a guess, just a “didn’t see it” but evidence is high enough to understand it.

Doggie ate baby bird today. Doggy must have dug next to and under the hennie pen to get those eggs. They don’t have a nest box in there right now, so they’d be available if they were near to the side of the pen. Doggy has never done this before. Dug, yes. Dug into the pen? No.

There are several white feathers all over the pen. It’s my guess that he did the deed earlier this morning, he was out loose all night. He had been in his crate all afternoon because of the thunderstorms, so I let him out last night to run free, didn’t put him in his own pen out there. I should have. He just must have scared the whities, and some lost a few feathers in fright, they all were there, and looked aright. [yes, that's it, "aright" not a mispelling!]

I just didn’t realize that the baby birds would be out of their nest so soon, or that the dog would dig to get eggs ever. Dumb me. I knew previous to yesterday that I wanted the dog put away from about then on “because of the possible mocks out of nest soon”. Kick myself a bit there.

So I finally decided it’s best to move the hens further from that hole the dog made. I moved them a bit, then more, then figured since I was doing it inch by inch and I’d done that much, it’s not much harder to just keep going and move them out to totally fresh grass. I’m bad about it when Frank’s not here and I don’t feel well. So now that I’m thinking on it I do need to give them a box again. I’ll try and get them one a bit later, the sun is brutal at this hour still.

I did get one egg from that pen this afternoon. The A-frame biddies haven’t laid a thing in a few days, and just one egg before that, and very little before that. They look fine. Nice and red combs and all that. Figuring it’s time to turn on a light for them. Already. I don’t know, and don’t feel like looking it up, how much daylight we have this week each day, or how soon it gets down to much lower. All in all, the hens have laid when they’ve wanted to, in their second year, and don’t go by conventions sake at all. God knows why, but we don’t. :)

So when it comes down to it, those three eggs the dog got *most likely* really add up to be missed at this time of the year, especially seeing as the A-Framers haven’t contributed to the pot at all recently.

Rainy Monday

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Frank is out of town today. He’s got my cold now too, just the headcold part so far. He doesn’t sound so good over the phone. He says he’s feeling OK though. I, for myself, am not feeling that bad, but I had another bad night last night, that’s three in a row. It’s this virus-cold thing. I’m just bothered by it enough that in the day it’s just blah and not bad just blowing the noze and sneezing off and on, and feeling a bit tired, more tired when I sit down, but at night, I’m tired, very tired, in bed I am just achy blah, not comfy, not totally horrid, just not comfy at all.

I’ll be glad when this thing lifts.

I’m a bit yuckied at this though, since I was planning on painting the hallway upstairs, with Frank not here. But I’m feeling bad enough not to undertake that job. Well, I do have to get the hens moved outside. They were moved yesterday, but Frank was going to move them for me today before he left, and forgot. It’s been raining, so it’s mucky in their pens already. It’s like that. If it doesn’t rain it’s alright to leave them there a day or two. With rain it’s best to move them two or three times a day. Rarely do they get moved when it’s raining though, so the white hens get really muddy and terrible looking. The other hens are all dark and look fine in any sort of weather.

The last few days the hens haven’t laid as much as they had been doing. Don’t know why. It’s just the way it is sometimes. So off I go to slosh through the wet grass, it’s very soggy underneath it all.

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. :)