Our chickens are going to town. Not literally....
I love having fresh eggs. Even better that I can walk out the door, and around the garage and get some of our own if I need to. For the most part, the girls collect the eggs for me and we have a steady stash in our cupboard.
Our flock consists of 22 chickens and 2 turkeys. I'm not counting turkey anything in this post as those are Riley's; lock, stock, and barrel.
Here's what we started with:
5 Rhode Island Red
5 Golden Sex Link
5 Black Sex Link
5 Buff Orphington (2 wound up being roosters and one died last week. He was mean so there were no tears over his demise.)
2 Barred Rock
I'm not great yet about tracking who's doing what laying but we've seen all the 'brands' doing their job in laying and we're getting anywhere from 15-22 eggs a day so something is working right. :)
Oh - and it's a total joke that 'chickens lay eggs in the morning'. Not necessarily. Nor will they always lay in the great nesting boxes you have set up for them. Some will prefer the corner behind the one of the trees in the back 40, some will prefer to lay on the bag of wood chips you have set aside for winter. Another funny was that up until a few weeks ago you could go out to the chicken coop and see several hens lined up for one particular box (never mind there are 5 other nesting beds right there). They'd be squawking at each other and in particular, to the one who was laying at that moment and holding up the line. Just like a regular Ladies Room. :/
Anyhow - they're figuring it out and so are we. Alan's jimmy-rigged the fencing for them and us so that they won't be coming up to the garden anymore unless I let them. We're going to be playing with their feed to see about some added nutrition and keeping them super happy and disease resistant. A cost ratio spreadsheet is coming on. I can feel it. Although, Alan and I have decided that we'll keep chickens and do eggs even if it's not 'cheaper', because we believe that it's much better to have/raise our own.
If you're interested in more egg info: this is a great blog I found through another friend.
If you can....and want your hens to lay in the boxes so you don't have to hunt eggs like Easter morning every day...lock your hens up in the coop for a week or so and they will always return to the boxes to lay rather than behind the tree and such. :) Glad you are loving your eggs. We agree...even if it costs more, it's better than store bought! :)
ReplyDeleteWe did do that and they STILL wander off to lay. I should say a 'few' do that because MOST of the time there are eggs in the nests. :)
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