Eggs finally!

After many discussions with the "girls" regarding their choice of either giving me eggs or going into the stewpot, they made a wise decision!



Aren't they beautiful? Pardon the jar of culture in the background, I'm preparing to make my own soda - a post for another day.

We get about 7 eggs per day from 13 hens. I think some of the Barred Rock girls still aren't laying. We've gotten a couple of "pullet farts"; eggs that are misshapen and have no yolk. It takes them a little while to get the egg laying machinery into good shape.

We did add two flood lights to the henhouse to fake the girls into thinking that the days were longer and that they therefore needed to lay some eggs. The lights come on at 2:00 am and then go off at 6:00 pm, extending the daylight hours. The henhouse is rather shaded so we just leave the lights on all day.

I have yet to decide if biddies will be turned out during the day when the weather gets warmer. I'd dearly love to cut back on the feed and get some natural proteins from bugs in them, but... we suffered some big losses to coyotes last summer. We shall see.