'Tis the end of the year (with snow)

The girls are now almost 8 months old, everyone is laying and it seems like they have always been in the backyard. Everyone asks what we'll do when they quit laying eggs and our reply is "keep loving them for years to come"!

The cold and dark have altered our routine a bit. No time in the morning to sit and have a cup of coffee with them as it's usually dark until almost 7am and I need to be at work, so we make sure they have food and water each evening. I still have to go out and check on them (and maybe take them a treat), but it's a quick visit. In the afternoon I still let them out into their yard. The cold doesn't seem to bother them but it's been really cold here in NC and I stay out as long as I can. Weekends are better, we don't have to go to work and can let them out multiple times during the day for as long as we can. Egg production has not slowed appreciably- last week we got 30 eggs!

We had 9 inches of snow yesterday and the girls chose not to come out and play. They did enjoy the vegetable soup for breakfast and even laid 4 eggs, despite the lack of light. The snow covered the run entirely and it snowed all day.

There really is a chicken coop under the snow

The view from inside the coop- no wonder they stayed in!

Soup for four- Harriet and Lydia stayed on the roost.

 My brother made a sign for my coop as my Christmas present. I may have mentioned how much I like camels. Not a name I would have chosen, but it works with the sign! This was taken Christmas day.

And this was taken the day after Christmas, from inside the coop.

Only 5 more days to the New Year!

SIX! SIX! SIX!

And now there are six hens a laying.....

Emma finally joined the ranks of the big girls and started laying. I was hoping her eggs would be blue, but she held the line and went green.


Emma's egg is in the middle- a little larger and lighter than the others.

 I have learned that fresh eggs are not for boiling- the white peels away with the shell, but if I wait until they are a week old they do fine. So here's my system:

The new eggs go on top for cooking, but the eggs on bottom are saved for boiling. Sure it would be easier to use egg cartons than to take them off from the top to get the bottom eggs, then put them back in reverse order. Opening the fridge and seeing my bowl of eggs makes me happy.


Complicated, but so far it works for me. Doesn't stop my grandma from collecting egg cartons though!