chicken update
Many people have asked me recently, "So, how are the chickens?"
They're great! I reply. Doing fine. Don't mind the cold at all. Friendly and sociable. So much fun!
"And how are the eggs?" they ask.
Eggs? Oh. They don't lay eggs.
Zilch. Zip. Goose egg, as they say, except, you know, without the actual egg. There's a reason, it seems, that casual backyard farmers don't start chicks in August. My father has been joking that I bought the wrong kind of chickens. The non-egg-laying kind.
But still I try to be upbeat and positive. Look how much they love the snow!
snow? we bok at snow.
And how great they are around kids!
future hippy and hippy protein provider
Then this morning I went out with their usual ration of treats and found only three out of four chickens diving at the dehydrated worms. Um, where's the fourth bird? I looked under the coop... nobody there. I went around the coop to look in through the door. Uh oh. There was the forth chicken, lying in the nesting box, not moving.
"Dan!" I came yelling into the house. "I think one of the chickens is dead. I don't want to check all by myself."
Dan, though already late for work, diligently put on his raincoat and followed me outside.
"She's just lying in the nesting box - i don't know if she's breathing - I didn't want to open the lid on a dead chicken - please look for me," I pleaded rather frantically.
Dan opened the lid of the nesting boxes and shook his head with exhasperation.
"Leah, she's not dead," he said patiently. "She's sitting on eggs!"
the first fruits of those who wait
"Go on broody hen!" he called as he shooed her away. "There aint no babies in here. Go peck! Be free! Live the bachelorette lifestyle!"
And so we have our first four eggs today. Just like that. You can't tell me that isn't magic.
comments
yippee! that is awesome!
Yeah, it's pretty cool that they were all born on the same day and they all laid their first egg within 24 hours of each other (well, I assume none of them doubled up). It's also cool that I made nesting boxes that totally worked. Here are these hens that have never done anything like this before, or even seen it done, and all of a sudden they get the urge to lay and egg... and think, let's go use this great nesting box that Dan built!
yay!!
Them's was good eatin!
I knew this investment would pay off.