Eggs (week ending 6/25): 41Here's a date for me to remember, for a while anyway: 6/27/05. That's the date on which I hit the mark of having had 100 dozen eggs laid this year. When you're collecting them 5, 6, 7 at a time, it doesn't seem like that many. But production should be way up by summer's end as the new hens start to lay, and the older Reds come back from their molt break.
Eggs (closing month 6/30): 34
Eggs (month of June): 187
Eggs (week ending 7/2): 15
Eggs (year to date): 1241
Summer is in swing and the chooks are growing up. Members of the Class of 2005 have been spotted venturing outside of the barnyard, and have learned to come running to Brings Food Man, just a few weeks after the older Barred Rocks and Buff Orpingtons figured out the same thing.
It's been a busy couple of weeks inside and outside of the barnyard. The first thing to report is that I officially broke Lady Poofalot of her broodiness. Saturday (6/25) I took the one remaining egg out from under her (the others all disappeared without a trace) and took her off of the nest. Throughout the last couple of weeks, hens continued to lay eggs in the hatching nest while she was out, and she would sit whenever there were eggs there. In one amusing incident, I found Beaker, one of the more Silkie-looking Silkie/Cochin crosses, sitting on top of Lady Poofalot, having laid an egg that rolled down under the sitting hen.
In the meantime I did an autopsy of sorts on the unhatched egg. It broke open with a loud pop, which I took was not a good sign - I think it was an indication that there was bacteria inside generating a lot of bad gasses. There was a chick inside, but it looked to be about a week away from hatching. I figure it had been dead for a while - it didn't move or struggle when I broke the egg open. It was dead long before the 21 days plus an extra week just in case that I gave the eggs to hatch.
Meantime, Clark the goat may have slipped in the rankings and ceded his dominance to his brother Lewis. This was due to an accident he suffered while grazing in some unexplored territory - he stepped on a board that had a nail sticking out of it, and it impaled his foot. It was a good thing the nail was attached to the board - I might never have seen it otherwise. As it was, I saw what happened as Clark bleated and shook his foot, trying to get the board off of it. There was blood. My wife and I (daughter was off on a vacation with my in-laws) soaked the foot and got a goat-keeping acquaintance to give him a tetanus shot. Lewis didn't leave his side during the week or so he hobbled around, but he also took over the top goat position in the barnyard. Since Clark has pretty much recovered, I don't know if Lewis is still number one at this writing or not.
Finally, the crazy White Rock biddy is out of her misery now. She's been hiding in a back part of the barn as she completed her molting, and turned up in the barnyard on a couple of occasions when I was scattering food. She was out this morning, but unfortunately I think the roosters were too much for her in her weakened condition. I saw a rooster hop off of her and she was sprawled on the ground, not moving. One of the arrogant Easter Egger hens tried to mount her and I booted him off, then picked her up. She was still alive, but didn't want to move or walk or do much of anything else. I figured that was it, so I put her out of her misery. And while it seemed to be a waste, I opted not to prepare the body for the freezer. She was so beaten up and sick that I don't think she would have been desirable eating. Instead, I opted for the Mother Nature recycling plan.
No thought has been given to what shape this weekend project will take. Might be limited to scraping manure off of the concrete.
