Welcome to the Red Light District

Roxanne!  You don't have to put on the red light.  

You don't have to...put on the red light!

(click to watch the original video)

That is, unless it's supposed to be 9 degrees outside and you want your beloved chickies to be toasty.  And the brooder light adds some nice ambiance, even if it does look a little risque.  (Insert your Chicken Ranch jokes here.)

If you peek in the window in that pic, you can see some of the girls roosting for the night.

Speaking of chickens, there have been a couple of interesting things that our feathered friends have been up to recently.  The first has to do with their slow down in laying:  in December, I barely got an egg a day.  I attribute that to the onset of cold weather and the decrease in daylight.  The poor girls have been laying for over a year, so I think they're entitled to a vacation and we haven't been adding any supplemental light in the coop to stimulate their laying. 

But, now that we're past the winter solstice and the days are getting longer, I think we're an upswing.  We're not up to an average of 3 eggs per day out of 9 hens, which is a pace that is just fine with me.  What's difficult is that they're really chowing down on the food, since they can't get out and free range (it's dark when I get home from work and they're already in "bed"). 

I discovered the other oddity tonight when I went out to shut the coop door and gather the eggs.  There were two perfect eggs and then this:

I swear...doesn't that look like a walnut?

I wonder what caused this.  Did it get stuck?  The shell is nice and hard and the inside looked normal when I cracked it.  (Yes, I had to peek.)  The hens have been staying in their coop because of the cold, so I wonder if this is just a fluke from a hen that might have stopped laying for awhile,  or maybe its stress-related.  This is the first one that I've seen and everybody seems healthy, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see if we get any more.

 Shared with this week's Weekly Top Shot and Clever Chick blog hops. 

It's Always Something

Work was like the twilight zone yesterday, and last night should have been a boring night of planting tomatoes and jalapenos in the raised beds.  And so it was.  Except for the unexpected surprises that we ran into. And I suppose that is what makes life interesting, eh?

The first surprise involved something planted in the garden that I didn't put there.  Last weekend, I weeded the garlic and tomato bed and piled the weeds up at one end, fully intending to get them into the compost pile.  But I got busy and they never made it there.  So imagine J.'s surprise when he picked up the pile to move it and found this!


Can you see them?  Look at those adorable little ears and feet!

 Apparently, Mr Easter Bunny is a Mrs. and she thought my weed pile was a great opportunity for a shelter for her little kits.  She had actually dug out a small hole in the garden bed, had her babies in it, and then feathered the inside of the nest with rabbit fur to keep them cozy.

These little guys were right where a tomato plant was supposed to go, but I didn't have the heart to disturb them any more and we put the weed pile back on top of them.  I'm sure it's cosmic bad mojo to kill babies, which is why I had made J. build a nesting box for some sparrow babies that we found when we were rebuilding our front porch several years ago on Mother's Day.  I was certain we would be struck by lightning if we killed baby birds on Mother's Day.

J.'s response to finding the rabbits?  "I wonder if she planted them feet first or head first?"  *sigh*

I guess we'll have to wait a bit to plant that tomato plant.

Then we were off to the coop where we discovered one of the Austrolorps has gone full on broody. She's been sitting in the nesting box at night rather than flying up the roost and only reluctantly gets out of the box with some prodding.  Last night, there was no moving her of her own volition.  I had to pull the box out and physically remove her.   But having seen what was under her, I don't blame her one bit!

One of these things is not like the other, kids.

That picture is pretty representative of our egg harvest everyday from 8 hens (Henrietta is still in quarantine in her chicken condo) with the one exception being the double-sized egg in the middle.  It's almost twice as big as a normal egg!  I'm sure whichever hen laid that did an extra long touchdown-dance and announcement after she laid it.  Can you say "ow?!"

Well, of course, I just had to crack it to see what was in it.

Just as I suspected.  A double yolk!  We'd already eaten dinner, so it got scrambled up along with a couple older eggs and the ladies will get a high protein treat tomorrow morning.

And so our crazy day here at Cranky Puppy ended with the sun setting on the little rabbits and me cooking up some eggs with the dogs dancing around waiting for me to drop something.

How is your week going so far?  I'd love to hear about it!

A Mish-Mash of Things

Doesn't it seem hard to believe that February is already done and gone?   Spring is here - at least weatherwise, if not by the calendar.  

Spring doesn't always bring good things with it, though.  First, we had an awful storm roll through two nights ago with some incredibly strong winds.  Fortunately, we didn't get any tornados but, unfortunately, other folks did.   It apparently devastated some small towns south of here.  So far, no one was killed and I hope it stays that way.  Those folks are definitely in our thoughts and we hope they are quick to recover from such an awful event.

Our neighbors behind us just moved after being foreclosed on.  They had moved in about 8 years ago and rescued another early 1900's Victorian that had burned.  It was sad to see them leave, as they were great neighbors - always friendly and she loved to come over and see how the chickens were doing.  As they were packing to leave, she brought over the egg basket in the picture.  She left it while we were at work, so we didn't even get to say goodbye as they left.

Speaking of chickens and eggs...  The total for February came to 183, which is more than double what the girls laid in January.  Must have been the mild winter because, as you may recall, we didn't put any artificial light in the coop.  And, interestingly enough, almost all but 2 of them are in some stage of molt right now but their laying has not decreased.  We'll see what happens as March progresses.

Oh, one more thing... I've signed up for a 4-week class titled "Food Not Lawns" at the University of Missouri. It's presented by master gardeners and its focus is on urban and suburb backyard gardening.  I'm hoping to learn lots from this class, as it comes highly recommended.  March should be interesting as I'll now be in class on Wednesday and Thursday nights.  J. asked if I was ever going to be home!

Goal Updates

Now that we're two months into 2012, I though I'd take a quick look at this year's goals and see what progress has been made.

Organize the basement, laundry room and pantry.

We've made substantial progress here and I need to do a post to update you with before and after pictures.  But we still need to do an inventory and sort through things for the yard sale in April.

Learn to make our own bread and eliminate store-bought bread. 

Nope, and this is just laziness.  We've got the recipes and we just need to do it.  I'm putting it on the March list of goals below.

Learn how to use my camera. 

Unfortunately, I procrastinated and the classes were full but I did put myself on the waiting list.

Finish renovations on our rental house. 

In progress!  We started with the major tree cleanup.

Finish the renovations on our tavel trailer and get it moved to our 40 acres.  Just a little work here with picking the fabric for the curtains.  Which I can now sew with the new Janome!

Finalize water management plans. No progress.

Diversity the plants in the garden.  DONE!  In my 2012 garden plan I've included lots of new plants such as spaghetti squash, bush beans, purple asparagus, onions, garlic, sunflowers, etc.

Get healthier.  Um, yeah.  :-)

In the interest of taking that gargantuan list in baby steps, I decided to make a list for what needs to be done in March.  I saw this over on My Simple Country Living and think it's a great idea, so I asked if I could steal it. My plan is to do a goal update at the end every month.

 Behold!  CrankyPuppy's monthly to-do list for March.

March To-Do List:

Till up the garden beds and lay in new (old) compost

Start tomatoes, peppers and flowers seedlings indoors

Build two potato bins and plant the Yellow Finns

Build trellis for cucumbers and spaghetti squash

Research and start a "chicken treat" garden

Make our own first loaf of bread

Finish organizing the basement and pantry

Get ready for the yard sale in April

Fix the bikes and make time to ride

Whew!  That's quite a list but I think it's do-able. 

February Egg Update

Just a quick post this morning to give you an update on egg totals because the girls have really picked up production!  I'm guessing it's the fact that the weather has been so warm and the days are now getting longer.  As you may remember, we are NOT giving them artificial light.  These numbers are from our 5 Austrolorps and 4 Barred Rock hens that are about 10 months old.

So, in January, they laid just over 7 dozen (89 eggs).  We've still got a 1/3 of February to go and they are up to 112 as of last night.  I expect February's total may be double that of last month.  I've put a tracker on the side bar to the right so that we can keep track of the totals.  And, yes, I am a complete nerd...I have a spreadsheet broken out by month with egg totals, expenses, and egg sales.  This isn't a business, but I'd like to know if this is a cost-effective hobby.  :-)

These are way more eggs than the two of us can eat, so I've been very blessed to be able to give some away and both friends and co-workers are lining up to "order" our eggs at $2.00 a dozen.  And, with the requests for 5 dozen from my new quilting friends, it should pick up the slack and completely pay for the hens' food. 

I hear one of the girls out in the coop doing their "touchdown dance", which means there's at least one new egg out there for me to grab.  So I'm off to have a very fresh omelet. 

Have a great Monday!

Update on Egg Totals

I just realized that it's been awhile since I've updated you on the girls and how they're laying.  As you know, I decided to NOT add any artificial light this winter, so I was afraid that laying would taper off significantly.  And it did at first.  At one point, I was down to a trickle of just 1 or 2 eggs a day for a couple of weeks in December\January. 

However, we're now consistently getting between 6 and 7 eggs per day from our 9 chooks:  5 Austrolorps and 4 Barred Rocks.  That's surprising, and I'm not sure if it's because all 9 are now laying (the Austrolorps were a little slow, I think), or because of the VERY mild winter we've had this year.  And gathering the eggs twice a day and making sure they had plenty of shavings in the nesting box seems to have eliminated my cannibalism issue.

Last weekend, J. and I stopped by Tractor Supply in Independence and picked up a Flock Block to keep the girls busy since they can't be out all the time.  Basically, it's a condensed block of molasses, oyster shell, grit, wheat, corn, milo and barley.  The idea is that the chickens will peck it and not each other.  We'll see if it works or not.  They were a little weirded out about it first and ignored it, but I checked this morning and the corners are rounded off, so they've definitely been pecking away at it.

January Egg Total:  89
February Eggs (so far):  40

We're halfway to the total number of eggs we got last month and it's only the 7th!  I need to get busy and sell some more eggs at work.

Got chickens?  I'd love to hear if you use artificial light during the winter and whether it affects their laying.

Have a glorious day,

Let the Rain Kiss You

Let the rain kiss you.

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

-Langston Hughes

Woke today to a thunderstorm rolling through, which is something we don't usually see until late March or April.  Thunder was cracking and lightning was lighting up the dark outside the bedroom windows.  J. was already up - I could tell from the smell of his coffee wafting through down the hallway.

We needed this rain desperately, but I couldn't help but wish it would have held off a little longer.  I dressed hurriedly and headed out to let the chickens out before the deluge started.  My real reason for going out was that I hadn't gotten the cleanings from the chicken coop into the composter.  I put them into a huge trash can and they ended up too heavy for me to lift by myself (I probably could have, but I'm still a little nervous about just getting over that pulled back muscle.)  So I needed J.'s help with taking care of this and got lazy about asking.  My penalty for laziness was dodging raindrops while getting a cover over the top of the trashcan.  While out there, I threw some straw lightly over the onions and garlic that have just started emerging from their winter nap. The deluge began right as my Muckboots hit the back porch.

Then it was off to work early where I sold another two dozen eggs to some friends at work.  The money will go into the coffers to pay for the girls' food.

Today was a good day despite the rain.

I Want My Two Dollars

Word seems to be spreading like wildfire at work that we've got chickens and I've been deluged with questions like "Do you have to have a rooster to get eggs?" and "Are they mean?" Not sure why that person thought chickens would be mean, but I'm also discovering that lots of people are s.c.a.r.e.d of chickens! Mainly because they've never been around them. I guess it's human nature to fear what you don't know.

But one of the other questions I've been getting is "Oh! Do you sell your eggs?" In fact, I've had an overwhelming number of people ask if I would sell them some. Today, the girls made their first sale to Karen, a friend at work, for $2.00 a dozen.  She asked me if I was sure I wanted to sell at that price and I said yes.  Maybe I need to rethink that.  :-)   I'm not going to get rich at chicken farming, I  know.  But, truth be told, I'd be happy if I could sell enough to pay for their feed every month.

Here's the dog's reaction to my asking when I could expect them to start earning their keep:

I think that's called the "I are cute" defense. 

Cannibalism is a Nasty Habit

Uh-oh.  I guess I've always dreaded this day would come and it's finally here.   Somebody broke an egg and then ate it.  Oh the horror in the hen house!  And no one was fessing up.  So I cleaned up what was left of the evidence in hope that it won't happen again.  My naughty secret is that I've gotten a little lazy this winter - I've only been checking the coop in the  morning and collecting the eggs.  I guess I'll have to do that twice a day to make sure the eggs aren't sitting there and creating a temptation.  It also probably hasn't helped that it's been in the 20's and the girls have been cooped up.  I suspect they're getting bored.

Boredom? Accident? Dietary issue?  Could be lots of reasons.  But let's take a look at how you can keep your chickens from eating their own eggs:

• Collect eggs promptly. The faster your collect eggs from the nesting boxes, the less chance they will get accidentally broken or pecked.  My 9 hens all want to lay in the same nesting box, despite the fact that there are 4 nesting boxes in the coop.  I've actually seen 2 hens stacked one on top of the other in there fighting over the box. 


• Watch their diet.  One of the reasons chickens might start eating their eggs is to make up for a lack of  protein in their diet. Make sure that you are feeding your chickens a complete feed that contains all necessary vitamins and minerals, and not giving them too many starchy treats.  I don't think this is my issue because I don't see any other pecking and I'm feeding them a balanced diet of Layena and table scraps.


• Pad the nest.  Use plenty of soft bedding in the nesting boxes so the eggs don't rattle around once they're laid.  In the interest of recycling as much as possible, I've been using shredded bills and junk mail.  It works great and it's free!


• Provide some entertainment. When chickens are shut in together (as usually happens in the winter months), they get bored.  Providing a treat ball, Flock Block, or something to entertain them can keep them from pecking at eggs and each other.


• Stop bad behavior quickly.  If your chickens have started eating their eggs, replace the eggs with something inedible like a golf ball or a wooden egg.  Hopefully, they will realize they can't eat the fake egg and will stop eating their own.  I have one wooden egg that I leave in the nest at all times. 


• Use negative reinforcement.  Some folks have had good results by empting out the contents of an egg through a small hole and then replacing the inside with something spicy like hot mustard, jalapeno relish or habanero sauce.  The hope is that your chickens should learn to associate this experience with their own eggs and stop pecking them. 


• Alter your nesting box.  Angle your nesting box so that fresh eggs roll down a ramp to a safe distance. 

Do you have any other suggestions for how to keep your chickens from eating their own eggs?  I'd love to hear them!

Find out what other folks like me are doing on the Homestead Barn Hop.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

Remember this from Sesame Street? That's the the first thing that popped into my mind when I saw this egg.  And then I thought, "Well, that had to hurt!"  Something like the equivalent of us humans squeezing out a football.  Eeeeyikes.....

In all seriousness, this is the second humongous egg that someone has laid this week and it's caused me to ultra-curious as to what causes it.  Is it normal?  Do I need to be concerned?  Is this the return of the double yolks or even triple yolks?  A newbie chicken farmer has lots of questions.

Thank goodness for Google because I was able to find lots of great information on this odd phenomena.  Prepare yourself, because you are about to learn more about chicken ovaries and egg laying than you probably want to know.

Hens are alot like us human women in that hormones dictate the development of an egg.  In good layers, a yolk is released approximately every 23 hours and the ovum travels through the reproductive system until a complete egg is formed.  The majority of the egg's time is spent in what's called the "Shell Gland" where the outer shell is added - in fact, it will spend about 20 hours in that gland.  And then, as the egg is laid, the protecting coating or "bloom" is added.  What's happening when we get a double-yolked or triple-yolked egg is that two yolks are relased at the same time or in rapid succession or, for some reason, the first yolk gets stuck in the oviduct.  Apparently, it's pretty common in new layers as they get the hang of it.  And, althought there are some breeds that are more generically predispositioned to laying  multi-yolked eggs than others, there is a still a probability of just 1 in 1000 that an egg will have multiple yolks.  Fascinating, no?  If you really want more info with helpful (gross) pictures, go check out this site.

I'm not sure which of the girls laid these as they are different colors - it may very well be that one is from one of the Austrolorps and the other from a Barred Rock.  I thought I might be able to tell by which hen was walking funny.  (Just kidding.)    Maybe I should start referring to the Austrolorp's as Aus-triches.  (*giggle*)

Okay, enough with the corny jokes.  Hope you're enjoying your day,

Fakin' It

I wish the ladies would recognize all the hard effort that J. and I put into building those b-yootiful nest boxes by actually laying their eggs in them and not on the floor.  I thought maybe they might need a hint, so I bought a fake wooden egg from MyPetChicken and placed it lovingly in the box.  It looks unbelievably realistic, including little speckles just like a real egg.

Guess what?  It actually works.  We only had one egg on the floor this week and the rest have been in the box.  I guess the power of suggestion does work.

Egg on a Soft Shell

Sometimes things just don't go right.  And that's no different for chickens when it comes to egg-layin'.  I went out this morning to gather up some tomatoes and eggs and that's when I found it - my first soft shelled egg!  I'd read about such egg fart oddities on the Backyard Chicken forums, of course, but nothing prepared me for what it felt like when I picked it up.  Think of a completely formed egg with a ziploc bag as the shell.  It was all mushy and weird.  I had to be careful to not break it.

Picture provided by A Half Past Life

I brought it in the house and sat it on the counter, fully intending to take a picture of the darn thing.  Well, life happens and I got busy and didn't make it back to take the picture until just now.  And guess what?  The egg had collapsed in on itself and was hard as a rock!

Finally! A Perfect Egg

Okay, so this one was in the corner of the coop and not in the nesting box but we're all trying to work out the kinks with this egg-layin' thing, aren't we?

With a big grin on my face,

First egg!

After J. and I finished canning up a batch of taco sauce from the Romas that we got for free from Hy-vee (with coupons), I headed out to check on the girls.  They were almost out of water and food, so I filled both.  When I went back in with the filled food container, I felt this weird crunch under my foot and thought "what the heck could that be" and then realized exactly what it was.  It was a tiny, perfect little brown egg - just a little over an inch long with a bright yellow yolk.  It had been covered by shavings, so I didn't see it when I was in there the first time.

One of my babies finally laid their much-anticipated first egg and I broke it!  *sigh*  I still can't believe it.

Dejected,