The sun is shining brightly today so during the morning hen feeding I opened up the sliding door to let some sunlight into the coop. The hens seemed to love the sun and would go sit in the bar of light for stretches of time. All you chicken experts is this normal for the hens to seek out direct sunlight? Might have something to do with me just keeping them locked up trying to get them used to knowing the coop is home before I let them out to free range.
I started cutting up the downed tree after feeding the hens. I have more important things to finish up but I am also needing to mow again so this tree has to go. Not to mention it is blocking off half the driveway.
It's slow work getting through all the small limbs and leaves to the real wood though. Took hours just to get to the picture below.
Of course I am loading up the limbs with all the leaves as I go, piling them on the little flat bed trailer and letting the sheep munch on the leaves. The sheep, especially the rams who are dry lotted, LOVE Boxelder leaves so no point in wasting them.
The temperature is cool enough today that I actually picked up a supervisor for a change once again. Not just any supervisor either but the MANAGER QUEEN herself was on the job site watching and inspecting my work. I had to be very careful to always know where she was while I ran the chain saw and threw branches and chunks of wood around.
She mostly stayed in the shade though.
During one of my breaks I went to check on the hens and take them an Acorn Squash I had from the garden. I broke the squash up and gave it to them and a few of them went at it like crazy while a couple were still a bit nervous about the whole thing.
However I discovered the Small-Hold's first egg while I was there.
One of the Red Sex-link hens laid it. She actually laid it down in a little corner triangle that used to hold a hay rack for a horse. I put some old hay in there in case one of the hens wanted to use it as a laying box and sure enough one did.
I moved the egg up to the actual nesting boxes I built hoping one of the other hens would get the idea. Maybe it will work.
The roosters still have not made it up to the front of the barn to visit the hens that I have seen. They have finally gotten used to the sheep as a whole and now wander around among the sheep inside and outside of the barn without a care in the world.
I am now anxiously awaiting the arrival of a few more hens hoping to get enough to keep the roosters from hurting one and leaving the hens locked up until they are all together and getting along. Could be another few weeks before the hens become free range at this rate.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!
Chickens need light to make eggs. It is the most significant reason why winter laying drops off unless you install a light. They will naturally seek out sunny spots and sunbathe. If you can keep a dry corner where they have a dust bath. Chuck a few handfuls of diatomaceous earth there and it will help keep red mite at bay.
ReplyDeleteRo - I had read that the hens needed 14 hours of daylight to form an egg I just never had read that they liked the sunlight so much they would follow a sunbeam :) It was kinda funny checking on them and seeing them move with the sun. Right now the sun is so high in the sky it doesn't give em much of a bar but in a few more weeks. Of course by then I should be letting them out some too.
DeleteI will have to try sprinkling the DE around that's a pretty good idea thanks!!!!
Make sure it is food grade DE as the other stuff has toxic stuff in it. Don't you think that all living things like direct sunlight sometimes? (except vampires, of course). My chickens love laying in the sunshine and spreading their wings out to sun themselves.
ReplyDeleteTewshooz - Oh I was pretty sure they would like it sometimes but I wasn't expecting them to like it even more than a lounging cat :) Hell the cats are so lazy they rarely follow the sunbeam but those hens sure did.
DeleteGood tip about it being food grade to BTW
First eggs are always the best. Yay!
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time they used to make glass eggs to encourage hens to lay for a brood. No idea if they do that still.
TB - I have a marble egg I put in there tonight. I have also read somewhere that the glass or stone eggs would be used to give a marauding snake some serious indigestion :)
DeleteI was delighted to learn that your roosters made it and that you have added hens! That's exciting and there is nothing tastier than homegrown eggs. With two roosters you can have a lot of hens. I found that one rooster per 10 to 12 hens still kept their backs featherless.
ReplyDeleteLeigh - Well I really expected to have no roosters survive or at best maybe one but two made it out of the three and the Women-Folk named them and seem to be in love with them so I can't off one like I want to do. They named them Rocky and Bullwinkle lol.
DeleteSo now I am shooting for 16 hens. I read the 10 to 12 number you mention and then someone said free range you could go down to 8. If I can find 10 hens per rooster though I will shoot for 20.
Great names! That's a good point about free ranging. We've been lucky in the free range department and have only lost a few chickens over the years to hawks and possums. We've had worse casualties in losing chicks to rats.
DeleteOur chickens will lay out in the sun at times and look like a truck hit them with some of the poses they take. I think that they want to get heated up and loosen up some of the parasites like lice and then lose them in a good violent dust bath. Even chicks will do it without ever seeing a hen do the process, it must be in their genes somehow.
ReplyDeleteI take plastic easter eggs and paint them white and put something heavy inside and put in the nest box for young birds. My grandfather put white door knobs in there and the chickens didn't care, I remember some made of chalk. Probably don't need them with old birds as they have it figured out.
I made Amish noodles for supper, just flour and eggs mostly. You will need to think up ways to use eggs now. The recipe came from Canning Granny's blog and would be a simple survival food.
http://canninggranny.blogspot.com/2015/08/amish-recipe-series-amish-noodles.html
Sf - I noticed today that the Red hens especially were rolling and contorting themselves as they laid in the sunbeam. It was kinda funny to watch.
DeleteI will have to check that out. You're right we are gonna need to start eating a lot more eggs around here :)
Chickens are lovely to watch, are they point of lay, I wouldn't leave eggs in nest to encourage laying, it can encourage egg eating chickens are inquisitive and you only need one go and investigate start pecking and before you know it you have an egg eating problem, they will find there favorite places for laying and once settled will be producing eggs like they are going out of fashion :-)
ReplyDeleteDawn - I didn't leave the egg in there for long just a few hours. I have now replaced that egg with a white marble egg and added two golf balls to the nesting boxes too.
DeleteI just wonder how this thing is going to work once I let the roosters and hens mingle.
Fun to find those first eggs, we have just started getting eggs here too from the chicks we got back in March. We got the little bantams in the mix this time. New for us. They are really neat chickens but their eggs are really little ROFL. I thought they would be fun hard boiled and cut in half on top a salad. They taste just like any other egg, just realllly little. I think they will get a bit bigger as the girls just started laying about 2 weeks ago. Some are not laying yet as we are not getting enough eggs daily for every one to be laying.
ReplyDeleteTexan - LOL really little eggs on a salad. Wouldn't do me much good though as I don't eat salads. :)
DeleteI am worried at this point that I haven't predator proofed enough and that the roosters will convince the hens to roost outside the coop area.
So many issues with chickens I didn't think of although I read about them they have been more domino problems than primary ones so far.