'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!

Five Eggs in one day.......

This morning the egg laying started early. At 6:35am Lydia took off for the nesting boxes and settled herself in. When I got home in the afternoon and went out to check in with them Harriet was in a box....when she hopped off there were 4 eggs: two green and two brown. Bummer, I was hoping today would be a 5 egg day. I can tell who laid which egg and today was Kitty's day off evidently. I settled to read and after a few minutes I noticed that Kitty wasn't out grazing in the yard. Upon investigation I found her in a box. Guess today was a 5-egger!!!!!

Clockwise, starting top left: Fanny, Kitty, Elinor, Lydia and Harriet's eggs.

Now we have color!

Fanny and Kitty have been plugging along, laying their little brown eggs. Elinor was next in line to start laying, but she didn't seem to be in any hurry. Harriet, Emma and Lydia were not expected to start until at lest 24 weeks (which is 10/30). Imagine our delight to find an egg from Fanny and a little speckled brown egg that must have come from Elinor and a green egg that we decided, after comparing the color of their combs, came from Harriet. Lydia's comb was pretty red also so we expected to see one from her soon. Kitty took the day off, but still.....3 eggs at one time!!!!!



The little speckled egg to the left of  the big green egg is
Elinor's. Eggs look bigger in green, don't they?

We were very proud of our little hens and were sure Lydia would be participating soon....little did we know last night that she already was! Will went out this morning to check on the girls and see if they needed anything and I asked him to add some bedding to the nest boxes. Guess what he found hiding in the corner- yep, another green egg. So now we don't know who laid which green egg- but so what! Yesterday for the first time ever we got 4 eggs and 3 were from first time layers.

Here are our first green eggs. Emma is lighter than Lydia and Harriet, so maybe she will lay blue eggs.



KITTY LAID AN EGG!!!!!!

Kitty's first egg is the lighter one on the left, the brown egg is Fanny's 19th!

When Fanny laid her first egg it was light brown and very small. As time has passed (and she has been the only one laying) the eggs have gotten darker in color and gradually increasing in size. First time out Kitty lays an egg that is longer than Fanny's but not as big around. Go figure! At least two of the three comets are participating. Elinor can't be far behind- except that's what I've been saying for three weeks since Fanny laid the first one.

Who invited a rabbit to our hen party?

My son has a new pet, a lionhead rabbit named Dorian who is about 12 weeks old now. Seemed like a good idea to introduce her to the girls and let her play- she can play in a secure area, dig in the dirt, nibble grass....just never thought the chickens would have an issue with her.

I have a cute picture of Elinor and Dorian, just before Elinor pecked at her (trust me, she had reason), but blogger has changed how I upload photos and I can't do it right now. Bummer......

10/6/10  Let's try this again!


The girls are not happy with Dorian being in their run- looks like they are working up the nerve to run her off!



Elinor and Dorian have a stare down. Dorian won.

Kitty is trying to be brave, but running jumping rabbits are nerve racking!