A Farm Girl?

I'm not exactly one.  More like two weeks of crazy, inspired self sufficiency in which I start ripping out kitchen walls, crafting from someone else's garbage cast offs, and buying chicks by the double baker's dozen to the other two weeks of dragging myself around and having freak-out-I-want-to-shop-for-shoes-in-a-pretty-store days.  

All this and I want my coffee too.  Yeeesh.

*I should put links in to quickly direct you to those particular posts but THIS is one area of life where my organizational skills have completely tanked.  My apologies.  Most days this blog is a choice.  The other one?  Educating my children and actually being mentally and emotionally present more than just having my body in the room so I'm doing my best to choose to BE there.*

Anyhoo....This is a great blog.  They're doing a Farm Girl Friday Blog Fest.  *could NOT get the button to work so here's a boring ol' link.*

I found it through - shocker - an online friend from the homeschooling forum I'm part of.  I'm trying to remember the exact context of the connection - maybe using egg shells.  Or was it that freak out time I cracked an almost ready to hatch CHICK into our cake batter?  "Happy go back to Spain, Auntie Joy" cake.  Ummm....THAT was gross.   And cool.  And really gross.  And became the Science lesson for the day.  And GROSS.  Did I blog about that?  Hmmm...I'm not finding it.

For your viewing pleasure - or really gross/cool side.



This is how I prefer to have my fresh eggs.  You can't say we aren't learning as we go.  We're getting 10-14 eggs a day. 

  

FYI:  Anyone who buys eggs from me, rest easy as the rooster is dead and gone.  (Riley's school lesson was a long one that day.  Practical though.)  No more fertilization even possible.  Whew - that and we now candle every egg we find that didn't come in THAT VERY DAY.  With the flashlight app.  On the iphone.  In the dark bathroom. 

We maybe need to get out more.  Or just realize we're something in between a farm family and an urban one and enjoy the ride. 

Eggs

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.

Got Eggs?

YES!  We do.....awesome!

We Did the Chicken Dance in Our Kitchen

....because one of them (not sure which one) FINALLY laid an egg!!!!! 

SO. Stinkin'. Excited.  We have 22 chickens.  So far only two roosters out of the bunch (dinner someday soon) so we should be set soon with eggs!

Now - to get them to actually lay them IN the nesting boxes.  Hmmm....for now, the kids are starting a new class called 'egg hunt'.  It's not just for Easter anymore.

The 'Not a No Spend' Project

Wow - there's a grammatical error for you.  Ack.

Anyway....the other day we went to the local feed store and....picked up some chicks.  :)

I'm praying we don't have 22 roosters.  It's pretty hard to enjoy fresh eggs that way.