Eggs (week ending 8/6): 20The egg count continues to be low compared to last year around this time, but at least one of the factors has been taken care of. I keep finding hidden caches of eggs, mostly broken by scavengers, around other parts of the farm, and I think that in part this is because of crowded conditions in the coop. Now these are fenceless free range birds, but if a bunch are hanging around the coop when a hen is looking for a peaceful place to plop an egg, she just might go looking for greener pastures. So to speak.
Eggs (week ending 8/13): 25
Eggs (year to date): 1420
Well, Saturday night, while they were roosting, I went in and abducted 11 birds, all roosters or suspected roosters. Sunday night they went for a little drive, and as I type this, my wife is probably on the way to pick them up again so they can be taken to their new home - the freezer. This batch will be a bunch of slow cookers, being a bunch of six-month-old roosters and rooster suspects, but there's still a lot of great slow-cook recipes out there. No problem there.
The other problem will take care of itself. The Wyandottes are now beginning to molt, just as a couple of the older Reds are starting to come out of it. Good thing, too. I miss the dark brown eggs that the New Hamps were laying. I like their personalities, too, and will no doubt get a few with next spring's order of chicks.
I still have more roosters than I should. That's okay - I've got a couple of people who have expressed an interest in raising their own chickens, so homes will be found for a couple. The other extras are to have around as guards for the hens. I wouldn't do to have one roo as a guard and then lose him.
One of the keepers is the mystery bantie, who recently started crowing and trying to take liberties with the much bigger hens. This morning he faced off with a Buff Orpington hen that was easily twice his height and three times his weight - and he won, chasing her off. The highlight was when the hen tried one of those patented chicken flying leaps at him, and he simply ducked, letting her fly over his head. Yeah, just like the cartoons.
The two Easter Egger hens walked the Green Mile, leaving what was supposed to be a hen - but now I'm not so sure that the one left over is a hen. The tail feathers are getting kind of long for a hen. There are also a couple of mutt males that I kept, one because it keeps following me around (I call it Rusty because it has a barred rock kind of pattern with some red thrown in), and other calico looking one that might yet turn out to be a hen.
I also suspect the Buff Orpingtons are starting to lay. I've been finding eggs that are light brown - but are lighter than the light brown that the Wyandottes were laying before molt hit them. These eggs also have rough ends on them, and look to be the work of an amateur layer, one whose body is getting used to the idea of pushing out eggs every 24 hours or so.
The weekend of the 6th my wife and I were in the midst of what turned into 10 days of celebration of our 25th Wedding Anniversary, so there was no Saturday project. Last Saturday's was getting caught up from everything I didn't do the previous weekend. With all the molting birds, I really want to get the chicken tractor built. At the beginning of the week I was ready to buy lumber on payday since I couldn't find exactly what I wanted around the farm - but now I'm thinking of scavenging again. I did that to build the large goat gate and the floor of the chicken coop, so it's kind of a tradition. And having a hefty tractor will discourage predators as well.
I will also have to continue the chicken experiments. They continue to run back and forth when I let them out mornings. I must see if I can get them to run North after running West and then East to see where I put the scratch down.
And I should also add that my daughter has been harvesting goat's milk on a regular basis. I've got to try it on top of some Cheerios.
