Fresh out of the chicken coop eggs! Nothing like them. They are so different than the store-bought ones. I love how not-uniform they are..different sizes, different colors, a few "freckles" here and there. The shells are stronger than the ones in the store. The yellows are almost orange they are so full of good Omega 3 fatty acids. They smell better than other eggs when they are cooking, but most importantly, THEY TASTE BETTER! The picture is about what we normally get per day here on the farm. We now have 24 chickens and we get 22 eggs on average each day. And with four children and a few regular customers, none of them go to waste. It's hard to believe, but it is once again time to sign up for the 4H pullet chain project that started this whole chicken adventure last April. We have some interested participants but I'm not sure I want to enlarge the coop and the run to accomidate more chickens. And then there is the question shold we do the day-old chicks again or just buy year old layers. Buy chicks and do the 4H project or just buy chicks from a supplier? Questions we'll have to answer pretty soon as the days get longer and Spring is on the way.Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Farm Fresh Eggs
Fresh out of the chicken coop eggs! Nothing like them. They are so different than the store-bought ones. I love how not-uniform they are..different sizes, different colors, a few "freckles" here and there. The shells are stronger than the ones in the store. The yellows are almost orange they are so full of good Omega 3 fatty acids. They smell better than other eggs when they are cooking, but most importantly, THEY TASTE BETTER! The picture is about what we normally get per day here on the farm. We now have 24 chickens and we get 22 eggs on average each day. And with four children and a few regular customers, none of them go to waste. It's hard to believe, but it is once again time to sign up for the 4H pullet chain project that started this whole chicken adventure last April. We have some interested participants but I'm not sure I want to enlarge the coop and the run to accomidate more chickens. And then there is the question shold we do the day-old chicks again or just buy year old layers. Buy chicks and do the 4H project or just buy chicks from a supplier? Questions we'll have to answer pretty soon as the days get longer and Spring is on the way.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The death of Shimmers
Well we lost our first chicken last week. We hadn't lost a one in the nine months that we had been raising them from chicks. It appears to be a victim on Coccydiosis. Everyone else seems to be fine and egg production (~22 usually) hasn't changes so we assume that she hasn't been laying for some time. She went rather fast. Just as we noticed that she was not moving around as much as the others and figured out what the problem was she expired before we could start any treatment. It was a good "farm lesson" for the kids. Death is a part of life on the farm. That doesn't stop them from crying when it happens though.
We are now letting our chickens out of their run during the day to have free rain of the whole farm. They don't go very far but they love being out and about. They all usually start heading back to the coop around and hour before dark and go back in without too much coaxing. I had heard that once they get used to roosting in one place they would return there at night and it's true!
We are now letting our chickens out of their run during the day to have free rain of the whole farm. They don't go very far but they love being out and about. They all usually start heading back to the coop around and hour before dark and go back in without too much coaxing. I had heard that once they get used to roosting in one place they would return there at night and it's true!
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